Universals, laws, and governance

Abstract

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. 2 necessitation between categorical universals, is one influential approach, but the dispositional theory of universals is arguably the most popular anti-Humean strategy at present. The dispositional view comes in more than one variety, but the most discussed version says that at least some universals are 'pure powers', which is to say there is nothing more to them than the dispositions they confer (see e.g. the term 'dispositionalism' to refer to this pure powers view, which will be explained further below. 2 Note also that following the authors just listed, I will assume a realist framework of universals for the purposes of this paper. 3 Now, how much does dispositionalism differ from other anti-Humean approaches, such as the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong (DTA) view of laws? Most dispositionalists take the difference to be substantial. Proponents of the DTA view fall into the category of those who favour a thoroughly realist, governing conceptions of laws. This is because they appeal to relations of natural necessitation between categorical properties (universals) which are external and contingent, and which are supposed to explain the behavioural regularities in the world. In contrast, it is typically denied that dispositionalism offers a realist, governing conception of laws even though it does attempt to provide an explanation for behavioural regularities. On the dispositional view, the explanation is provided by the essential natures of the fundamental properties. Natural properties are said to have dispositional essences, which means that, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, possessors of those properties 2 The main alternatives to the 'pure' version of the dispositional theory are the two-sided and identity views. The two sided view says that all natural properties have an inert qualitative (or 'categorical') side as well as a dispositional side, whereas the identity view says that the qualitative and dispositional 'aspects' of properties are one and the same. Interested readers should see Martin (2008) andHeil (2003).3 Unfortunately, I do not have the space in this paper to discuss trope versions of dispositionalism. Incidentally, Ithink that the trope version of the dispositional theory is unworkable and I direct interested readers to my 2013, Section 2. For those who think that trope dispositionalism is a feasible alternative, the main conclusion of this paper may be considered a conditional thesis: that if dispositional properties are universals, then dispositionalism i...

A New Universal Bundle Theory

“…This case can not only be used to show that the Supplementation Principle is questionable, but it also parallels with the case of universals and their instances in various aspects. As Tugby ( 2016 ) has pointed out, in both cases, one entity ontologically depends on the other, and therefore the dependent entity is explained by the other. The notion of explanation in play here is ‘constitutive explanation’, which contrasts with ‘causal explanation’ (Salmon 1984 ).…”

Varieties of dispositional essentialism about natural laws

“…Yet, one may argue, on the contrary, that whether it is so also importantly depends on the ontological category that "fermions" is supposed to refer to. For example, on a Platonist version of essentialism, it might be that, after all, fermions are (partly) governed "from the outside": what really does the governing is the essence of a transcendental entity (say, the Platonic property of fermionhood), which in turn can be seen as external to what is ultimately governed, namely concrete fermions (on governance and Platonist dispositional essentialism, see Tugby, 2016).…”

No laws and (thin) powers in, no (governing) laws out

“…A final objection is that ND relies on the assumption that the identity of modal properties depends on cp clauses. But as Tugby (2016Tugby ( , 1149 points out, some philosophers such as Bird (2007, 60-65) have argued that the identity conditions of fundamental properties do not involve cp clauses because it is impossible (or at least implausible to suppose) that there are interfering factors at the fundamental level. Hence, if at least some modal properties are fundamental or if at least some laws relate fundamental modal properties, then ND fails to provide an adequate metaphysical account of all laws.…”