Overpowering: How the Powers Ontology Has Overreached Itself

Abstract

Many authors have argued in favour of an ontology of properties as powers and it has been widely argued that this ontology allows us to address certain philosophical problems in novel and illuminating ways, for example causation, representation, intentionality, free will, and liberty. I argue that the ontology of powers, even if successful as an account of fundamental natural properties, does not provide the insight claimed as regards the aforementioned nonfundamental phenomena. I focus on and criticise the powers theory of causation presented by Mumford and Anjum (2011), and argue that related criticisms can be directed at other abuses of (the ontology of) powers.

Epiphenomenal Properties

“…The second clarification is about powers. Some philosophers reserve the term 'power' for essentially dispositional natural properties [Contessa 2015;Bird 2016]. Whether there are any such properties can be contested, and I will not take a stance on this issue here.…”

Explanatory dispositionalism

“…1, that the interest of anti-Humean theories lies not only in an account of the fundamental level. As Bird (2016) has pointed out (in arguing that there is no direct path from fundamental dispositionalism to a more liberal dispositionalist ontology), the mere fact that there are fundamental dispositions tells us nothing about the dispositions of middle-sized objects, let alone of agents like ourselves. Given fundamental powers, we could derive the fundamental laws from them and then provide explanations of everything else along Humean lines.…”

“…For, as we have already seen above, there are those anti-Humeans who would happily explain some dispositions in terms of categorical properties and laws, as long as the laws themselves are ultimately explained in terms of other dispositions. This is a version of fundamental dispositionalism which has been defended by Bird (2016).…”

Causal powers and social ontology

“…131, 138). The truth-makers for such loose statements may be a variety of things, including events in possible worlds (Lewis 1973), actual states of affairs together with laws of nature (Armstrong 1997), macro powers of interacting objects (Mumford and Anjum 2011), and powers of the relevant entities' suitably interrelated constituents (Heil 2012;Harré 2013;Bird 2016). Consequently, loose ordinary language statements about abilities and dispositions are not, as such, ontologically committal, although they may seem to be, due to their grammatical form.…”