Nature's Metaphysics

Bird, Alexander

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227013.001.0001

Cited by 776 publications

(118 citation statements)

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“…8 Thanks to an anonymous referee for helpful discussion about this point. 9 See Shoemaker (1980) and Bird (2007). 10 See Armstrong (1997), Lewis (1986).…”

Section: ***mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Powers and the Necessity of Realization

Baysan

2017

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

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Non-reductive physicalists hold that mental properties are realized by physical properties. The realization relation is typically taken to be a metaphysical necessitation relation. Here, I explore how the metaphysical necessitation feature of realization can be explained by what is known as "the subset view" of realization. The subset view holds that the causal powers that are associated with a realized property are a proper subset of the causal powers that are associated with the realizer property. I argue that the said explanation of the metaphysical necessitation feature requires a careful treatment of the relationship between properties and causal powers. ***Non-reductive physicalism is typically understood as the view that mental properties are realized by physical properties. What counts as a case of realization is widely disputed.1 According to a commonly-held view, realization is a relation between two properties, the realizer property P and the realized property Q, whereby something's having P somehow brings about its having Q. Surely, "brings about the instantiation of" is a predicate that can pick out many relations. What is distinctive about realization, according to the standard picture, is that such bringing-about is supposed to hold non-contingently and synchronically: If P realizes Q, then, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, if x is a bearer of P at a time t, then x is also a bearer of Q at t.On this understanding, if physicalism is true, insofar as x is a bearer of a physical realizer of a mental property M, there isn't anything that needs to be added to the intrinsic properties of x to make it the case that x has M. Thanks to taking realization as a metaphysical necessitation relation, we can easily distinguish a realization-based version of non-reductive physicalism from some non-physicalist views which also hold that mental property instances are brought about by physical property instances where such bringing-about holds only contingently.2 It 1 See Baysan (2015) for discussion of different accounts of realization.2 Noordhof (2003) persuasively argues for a related claim. As an example of such non-physicalist views, consider the view that phenomenal mental properties supervene nomologically, but not metaphysically, on physical properties (Chalmers 1996).

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“…8 Thanks to an anonymous referee for helpful discussion about this point. 9 See Shoemaker (1980) and Bird (2007). 10 See Armstrong (1997), Lewis (1986).…”

Section: ***mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Powers and the Necessity of Realization

Baysan

2017

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

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“…2 While the distinction between truth and empirical adequacy may seem modally neutral, note that it is often spelled out in terms of the distinction between explaining the phenomena 2 Psillos [19] develops a hybrid causal descriptivist theory of reference and applies it to various cases of abandoned theoretical terms. While he is officially a Humean , there is a question as to whether the causal theory of reference is viable if one denies that causation may be a singular relation between language users and events.…”

Section: Scientific Realism and Objective Modalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bird [2], Hawthorne [10], Shoemaker [22]) have suggested that what physical properties are is determined, at least in part, by what they do. We can call views that fit this framework dispositional accounts of property-individuation.…”

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confidence: 99%

Ontic Structural Realism and Modality

Berenstain

Ladyman

2011

Structural Realism

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“…A more radical group of friends of dispositions, however, go so far as to claim that where phenomena can be correctly explained, the correct explanation will ultimately be in terms of d-causal principles (see e.g. Cartwright 1989;Bird 2007). 2 The position of the more radical friends of dispositions has been challenged on the ground that conservation principles are not reducible to d-causal principles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dispositions, Causes, Persistence As Is, and General Relativity

Katzav

2013

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

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I argue that, on a dispositionalist account of causation and indeed on any other view of causation according to which causation is a real relation, general relativity (GR) does not give causal principles a role in explaining phenomena. In doing so, I bring out a surprisingly substantial constraint on adequate views about the explanations and ontology of GR, namely the requirement that such views show how GR can explain motion that is free of disturbing influences.

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Nature's Metaphysics

Cited by 776 publications

References 0 publications

Causal Powers and the Necessity of Realization

Causal Powers and the Necessity of Realization

Ontic Structural Realism and Modality

Dispositions, Causes, Persistence As Is, and General Relativity

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