Are Dispositions Reducible?

Author: Molnar G.

Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 49, Number 194, January 1999 , pp. 1-17(17)

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Abstract:

The traditional analysis of dispositions as conditionals is subject to in-superable difficulties. Recently David Lewis has offered a new, reformed analysis intended to meet objections to the old accounts while remaining reductionist about causal powers. I argue that it succeeds in meeting only some of the objections to its predecessors. For the reductionist programme to succeed, more is needed than the correct analysis of dispositions. If dispositional properties are to be reduced, then the world must contain a reduction base. Prima facie this is not the case: the dispositions of medium-sized objects are only reducible to dispositional properties of the structural parts of the objects. The physically ultimate constituents of matter, sub-atomic particles, are simple, and have no properties that could serve as the grounding of their dispositions. Reductionists make three major responses to this argument, which I evaluate. I conclude that the world does not contain anything to which dispositions could be reduced.

Document Type: Original article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9213.00125

Affiliations: 1: University of Sydney

Publication date: 1999-01-01