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Reconsidering the Dispositional Essentialist Canon
- Source :
- Philosophical Studies, Kimpton-Nye, S 2021, ' Reconsidering the Dispositional Essentialist Canon ', Philosophical Studies, vol. 178, no. 10, pp. 3421-3441 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01607-2
- Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Dispositional Essentialism is a unified anti-Humean account of the metaphysics of low-level physical properties and laws of nature. In this paper, I articulate the view that I label Canonical Dispositional Essentialism (CDE), which comprises a structuralist metaphysics of properties and an account of laws as relations in the property structure. I then present an alternative anti-Humean account of properties and laws (still somewhat in the dispositional essentialist spirit). This account rejects CDE’s structuralist metaphysics of properties in favour of a view of properties as qualitative grounds of dispositions and it rejects CDE’s view of laws as relations in favour of a view of laws as features of an efficient description of possible property distributions. I then defend this view over CDE on the grounds that it can overcome an explanatory shortcoming of CDE and that it achieves a level of continuity with science that CDE fails to achieve. The upshot of this paper is a significant narrowing of the range of possibilities in which the absolutely best unified account of laws and properties resides.
- Subjects :
- Philosophy of mind
Structure (mathematical logic)
Property (philosophy)
Natural law
Essentialism
Philosophy
05 social sciences
Metaphysics
Centre for Science and Philosophy
Canon
06 humanities and the arts
050905 science studies
0603 philosophy, ethics and religion
16. Peace & justice
Article
Epistemology
Philosophy of language
060302 philosophy
0509 other social sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00318116
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Philosophical Studies
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d8740b082b04845da9d1f2dcaa3300bb
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01607-2