The Powerlessness of Necessity

Abstract

This paper concerns anti-Humean intuitions about connections in nature. It argues for the existence of a de re link that is not necessity. -Some anti-Humeans tacitly assume that metaphysical necessity can be used for all sorts of anti-Humean desires. Metaphysical necessity is thought to stick together whatever would be loose and separate in a Hume world, as if it were a kind of universal superglue.I argue that this is not feasible. Metaphysical necessity might connect synchronically co-existent properties-kinds and their essential features, for example-but it is difficult to see how it could also serve as the binding force for successions of events. That is, metaphysical necessity seems not to be fit for diachronic, causal affairs in which causal laws, causation, or dispositions are involved. A different anti-Humean connection in nature has to do that job.My arguments focus mainly on a debate which has been the battleground for Humean vs. anti-Humean intuitions for many decades-namely, the analysis of dispositional predicates-but I believe (but do not argue here) that the arguments generalise to causation and causal laws straightforwardly.

Necessitarianism and Dispositions

“…Setting aside the issue of indeterministic phenomena, the main argument Mumford and Anjum enlist against necessitarianism is that "the possibility of prevention [in the sense of both negative and positive interference] leaves no room for any kind of necessity in causal production" (2011a: 53). This argument, which is based on ideas brought into play by Antony Eagle (2009) and Schrenk (2010a), aims at deterministic, not indeterministic dispositions.…”

“…Anjum propose to implement a test for checking the modal force of dispositions. This test, which finds its roots in Goodman (1954) and has been revived by Eagle (2009) and Schrenk (2010a;2010b), is described as follows: "The idea is that if causation involves any kind of necessity, it should survive the test of antecedent strengthening." (M&A 2011a: 56) The antecedent strengthening test (A-S test, henceforth) is intended to apply to conditionals, and works as follows: if the semantic value of a conditional remains unchanged for any consistent expansion of its antecedent, then the conditional holds necessarily.…”

“…(M&A 2011a: 56) The antecedent strengthening test (A-S test, henceforth) is intended to apply to conditionals, and works as follows: if the semantic value of a conditional remains unchanged for any consistent expansion of its antecedent, then the conditional holds necessarily. The test is the application of the idea that necessity is, as Schrenk (2010a) puts it, monotonic, that is, that no additional factor can change the outcome of a necessary relation.…”

“…The A-S test thus has the merit of making the causally relevant properties apparent and clear, but not of showing the non-necessity of the conditionals. So, in setting the conditional, we refer to the structural or underlying powers that make the phenomenal properties of the disposition possible under some conditions, as stressed by John Heil expressed by Schrenk (2010aSchrenk ( , 2010b, who has stressed that: "the fact that we, epistemically and/or semantically can't get a good grip on these conditions […] does neither mean that these conditions do, ontologically, not exist nor that a less demanding, maybe benignly circular, yet still informative characterization (as opposed to a strictly reductive analysis) of dispositions can be given." (Schrenk 2010b: 174-5).…”

The Modal Limits of Dispositionalism

“…Anjum and Mumford make an analogy with normativity and intentionality, and Schrenk makes an analogy with Newtonian force.…”