Powerful Problems for Powerful Qualities

Abstract

The powerful qualities view of properties is currently enjoying a surge in popularity. Recently, I have argued that the standard version of the view (associated with C.B. Martin and John Heil) is no different from a rival view: the pure powers position. I have also argued that the canonical version of the powerful qualities view faces the same problem as the pure powers view: the dreaded regress objection. Joaquim Giannotti disagrees. First, Giannotti thinks that the standard version of the powerful qualities view can be differentiated from the pure powers view. Second, Giannotti argues that the powerful qualities view is not susceptible to the regress objection. Third, he argues that there is another reasonable version of the powerful qualities view available, which makes use of the notion of 'aspects'. In this note, I respond to Giannotti. I argue that all three of Giannotti's arguments are unsuccessful.

Varied origins of up-bending breaks in galaxy disks

“…One potential source of confusion in past studies is the need to differentiate between breaks, being lasting changes in slope, and smaller scale bumps or wiggles in the profile (see, e.g., the Appendix of Pohlen & Trujillo 2006); therefore, we chose to make no such distinction. Instead, we measured the slope of the surface brightness profile as a function of radius in the manner detailed by Pohlen & Trujillo (2006), and applied a method called change-point analysis (Taylor 2000) to determine each point where the slope changes.…”

Dispositions manifest themselves: an identity theory of properties

“…An influential account is Bird's theory (Bird, 2007), according to which the identity of dispositions is fixed by their manifestations, so that dispositions constitute a network of properties mutually connected by a second order manifestation relation, or SR-relation, whereby the identity of a dispo-sition is ultimately determined only by the relations in which it stands. 2 This theory has come under serious attack (Barker, 2009;Barker & Smart, 2012), which led to the emergence of a whole series of theories that attempt to avoid this difficulty; they reanimate and enhance the original identity theory of Martin and Heil (Martin & Heil, 1999;Martin, 2008), the most important is the powerful qualities view (Jacobs, 2011;Ingthorsson, 2013;Taylor, 2018Taylor, , 2019Gianotti, 2019) and qualitative dispositional essentialism (Tugby, 2012).…”

The Ineffability of Induction

“…The Powerful Qualities view is usually associated with the claim that qualities are identical to dispositions, whereas I have formulated the claim that qualities (or 'intrinsic natures') are powerful as the claim that intrinsic natures ground a corresponding disposition. For further reason to reject the identity view, seeTaylor (2019). However, for our purposes, these metaphysical details will not be relevant.…”