Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions

Humean Dispositionalism

Humean metaphysics is characterised by a rejection of necessary connections between distinct existences. Dispositionalists claim that there are basic causal powers. The existence of such properties is widely held to be incompatible with the Humean rejection of necessary connections. In this paper I present a novel theory of causal powers that vindicates the dispositionalist claim that causal po...

Handling Semantic Exceptions in the Large: A Multiagent Approach

We consider semantic exceptions, which arise when a task yields results that are incorrect, inconsistent with related tasks, or incomplete. Semantic exceptions are especially prominent in the large, i.e., when we construct and execute a workflow. A workflow is a composite computation with several interoperating components and interacting processes. Detecting and resolving semantic exceptions is...

Handling Exceptions in Logic Programming without Negation as Failure

Default rules, i.e. statements of the form normally a’s are b’s, are usually handled in Answer Set Programming by means of negation as failure which provides a way to capture exceptions to normal situations. In this paper we propose another approach which offers an operational counterpart to negation as failure, and which may be thought as a corresponding dual attitude. The approach amounts to ...

The metaphysics of laws: dispositionalism vs. primitivism1

The paper compares dispositionalism about laws of nature with primitivism. It argues that while the distinction between these two positions can be drawn in a clear-cut manner in classical mechanics, it is less clear in quantum mechanics, due to quantum non-locality. Nonetheless, the paper points out advantages for dispositionalism in comparison to primitivism also in the area of quantum mechani...

Ellis on the limitations of dispositionalism