RECENT WORK Recent Work: Dispositions

Controversy about dispositions ranges over the following four domains: (i) the semantics of disposition ascriptions; (ii) the distinction between dispositional and categorical properties; (iii) the metaphysical status of dispositions, i.e. their fundamentality, naturalness and intrinsicness; and (iv) the various dispositional analyses of philosophical notions like causation, laws, modality, counterfactuals, chance, knowledge, freedom, belief, desire and colour. While the proper order of investigation among these areas is itself a matter of dispute (Heil 2003: 51), the semantics of disposition ascriptions is the de facto point of entry. The traditional approach to disposition ascriptions found, for instance, in Ryle (2000) and Goodman (1983), evaluates ascriptions of conventional dispositional predicates by appeal to a corresponding subjunctive conditional. The approach may be broken down into two distinct steps (Lewis 1997). In the first, a conventional dispositional predicate, D, is associated with characteristic stimulation conditions, C, and manifestation conditions, M such that an object x has D iff x is disposed to M in C. In the second, this overtly dispositional locution is analysed in terms of a subjunctive conditional: if x were in C, x would M. Taking the two steps together one might, for example, first associate ‘. . . is fragile’ with the disposition to break when struck, and then analyse an object’s disposition to break when struck as its being such that if it were struck, it would break. This orthodoxy about disposition ascriptions influenced the dominant views in the related areas (ii)–(iv) mentioned above as well. The special connection between dispositions and subjunctive conditionals suggested a criterion for distinguishing dispositional from categorical properties: the former but not the latter were necessarily tied to the truth of certain subjunctive conditionals (Prior 1982). Further, if, as it was hoped, subjunctive conditionals could be given truth conditions in purely categorical terms, dispositions could be eliminated from fundamental ontology and replaced with purely categorical properties, or perhaps categorical properties together with laws of nature (Armstrong 1996: 15–18). Finally, it was a working assumption, hardly worth mentioning, that dispositional analyses of various philosophical concepts should be judged by appeal to the relevant subjunctive conditionals.