Topic: Counterfactuals
Causal Structuralism,
Dispositional Actualism, and
Counterfactual Conditionals
By Antony Eagle
Dispositional essentialists are typically committed to two claims: that properties are individuated by their causal role (‘causal structuralism’), and that natural necessity is to be explained by appeal to these causal roles (‘dispositional actualism’). I argue that these two claims cannot be simultaneously maintained; and that the correct response is to deny dispositional actualism. Causal structuralism remains an attractive position, but doesn’t in fact provide much support for dispositional essentialism.
Forthcoming in Toby Handfield (ed) Dispositions & Causes, OUP
Source:Online Papers in Philosophy
Posted by Tony Marmo
at 06:42 GMT
Updated: Thursday, 31 January 2008 07:04 GMT
