George Molnar came to see that the solution to a number of the problems of contemporary philosophy lay in the development of an alternative to Hume's metaphysics. This alternative would have real causal powers at its centre. Molnar set about developing a thorough account of powers that might persuade those who remained, perhaps unknowingly, in the grip of Humean assumptions. He succeeded in producing something both highly focused and at the same time wide-ranging. He showed both that the notion of a power was central and that it could serve to dispel a number of long-standing philosophical problems. Molnar's account of powers is as realist as any that has so far appeared. He shows that dispositions are as real as any other properties. Specifically, they do not depend for their existence on their manifestations. Nevertheless, they are directed towards such manifestations. Molnar thus appropriates the notion of intentionality, from Brentano, and argues that it is the essential characteristic of powers. He offers a persuasive case for there being some basic and ungrounded powers, thus ruling out the reducibility of the dispositional to the non-dispositional. However, he does allow that there are non-power properties as well as power properties. In this respect, his final position is dualistic. This is contemporary metaphysics of the highest quality. It is a work that was almost complete when its author died. It has been edited for publication by another specialist in the subject, Stephen Mumford, who has also provided an introduction that will allow non-specialists to become acquainted with the issues. David Armstrong, one of the greatest living metaphysicians and personal friend of George Molnar, has provided a Foreword.
Author(s): the late George Molnar, Stephen Mumford, D. M. Armstrong
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 254
Foreword......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
Contents......Page 12
Introduction:George Molnar and Powers......Page 16
1.1 Foundations......Page 36
1.2 Properties Are Tropes......Page 37
1.3 Selective Realism about Properties......Page 40
1.4 Distinctions......Page 43
2.1 Objects as Bundles of Properties......Page 62
2.2 Foundationism about Relations......Page 66
2.3 The Status of States of Affairs......Page 69
2.4 Introduction to the Theory of Powers......Page 72
3.1 Directedness......Page 75
3.2 The Brentano Thesis......Page 76
3.3 What Is Intentionality?......Page 77
3.4 Parallels between PsychologicalIntentionality and Physical Intentionality......Page 78
3.5 Objections to Physical Intentionality......Page 81
4.1 Is there a Problem aboutUnmanifesting Powers?......Page 97
4.2 Independence and the Conditional Analysisof Powers......Page 98
4.3 Anti-realism about Unmanifesting Powers......Page 109
5 Actuality......Page 114
6.1 Boyle on the Relational Natureof Capacities......Page 117
6.2 Popperian Propensities......Page 120
6.3 Are there Any Extrinsic Powers?......Page 123
7.1 What is Objectivity?......Page 126
7.2 Anthropocentricism in the Analysisof Powers......Page 128
8.2 Motivations for the Thesis......Page 140
8.3 Prior, Pargetter, and Jackson’s Argumentfor a Causal Base......Page 142
8.4 The Missing Base......Page 146
8.5 What if There Are Ungrounded Powers?......Page 152
9.1 Derivative Powers and Basic Powers......Page 158
9.2 Theories of the Ontology of Powers—a Taxonomy and an Interim Evaluation......Page 163
10.2 Properties that Are not Powers......Page 173
10.3 The Causal Relevance of Non-Powers......Page 177
10.4 How Can Properties that Are not Powersbe Causally Relevant?......Page 179
10.5 Alternative Theories of Non-Powers......Page 181
11.2 ‘Always packing, never travelling’......Page 188
11.3 Humean Distinctness......Page 196
12 Powers at Work......Page 201
12.1 Towards a Dispositional Theoryof Causation......Page 202
12.2 Modality......Page 215
References......Page 239
Index......Page 248
