Finality revived: powers and intentionality

Abstract

Proponents of physical intentionality argue that the classic hallmarks of intentionality highlighted by Brentano are also found in purely physical powers. Critics worry that this idea is metaphysically obscure at best, and at worst leads to panpsychism or animism. I examine the debate in detail, finding both confusion and illumination in the physical intentionalist thesis. Analysing a number of the canonical features of intentionality, I show that they all point to one overarching phenomenon of which both the mental and the physical are kinds, namely finality. This is the finality of 'final causes', the long-discarded idea of universal action for an end to which recent proponents of physical intentionality are in fact pointing whether or not they realise it. I explain finality in terms of the concept of specific indifference, arguing that in the case of the mental, specific indifference is realised by the process of abstraction, which has no correlate in the case of physical powers. This analysis, I conclude, reveals both the strength and weakness of rational creatures such as us, as well as demystifying (albeit only partly) the way in which powers work.

Power-ing up neo-aristotelian natural goodness

“…20 Whether this is the case or not I leave it to my 15 Molnar (2003, 60-81) uses 'physical intentionality', Heil (2003, 221), 'natural intentionality ', and Martin (2007, 178), Place (1999, 227), and Borghini (2009) use intentionality. This view has been challenged by a number of theorists (Bird, 2007, 114-126;Oderberg, 2017), with some of these difficulties receiving replies (Bauer, 2016). 16 Some employ the language of finality instead of teleology.…”

“…For our purposes either of these is a way that powers could be teleological and as such both types of powers can/could play a role in the theory of goodness I give. 19 For instance, see: Austin (2019, 41), Lisska (1996, 99;2016 121); Kroll (2017), Oderberg (2017), Witt (2008, 130), Feser (2014a, ch.2;2014b, 93), Austin and Marmodoro (2017), Koons and Pruss (2017), and Schmid (2011). (Note that those who use the term disposition in the references above use the term synonymously with what I mean by power).…”

Grounding theories of powers

“…Prominent advocates of the identity theory of properties, often referred to as the 'powerful qualities' view, include Carruth (2016), Engelhard (2010), Heil (2003), Ingthorrson (2013), Jacobs (2011), Jaworski (2016), Martin (2008), Schroer (2010), Strawson (2008) and Taylor (2013). 7 Prominent examples of power (or 'dispositional') essentialists about properties include Alvarado (forthcoming), Bird (2007), Dumsday (2013), Ellis (2001), Ellis and Lierse (1994), Oderberg (2017), Shoemaker (1998), Swoyer (1982) and Yates (2013). There are also many necessitarians who tend not to use essentialist language but who nonetheless agree that some natural properties are individuated, at least in part, by the powers that they confer (e.g.…”

Virtues as Perfections of Human Powers: On the Metaphysics of Goodness in Aristotelian Naturalism

“…If fire burns wood but not pure water, if beta particles can penetrate a sheet of paper but not a sheet of lead, this can only be because the agents are ordered to some effects rather than others: they each have their own finality, which restricts the range of their effects (while still having various kinds and degrees of indifference within the range). 40 In other words, effects are a function of the nature of the things involved in the causal interaction, and their powers are due to their constitution. Nancy Cartwright argues that the powers or capacities make better sense of the methods of the sciences than Humean approaches.…”