The Metaphysics of Powers: Their Grounding and Their Manifestations

ISBN-13: 9780415876858 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 196 str.

Anna Marmodoro

Opis

This volume is a collection of papers that advance our understanding of the metaphysics of powers - properties such as fragility and electric charge. The metaphysics of powers is a fast developing research field with fundamental questions at the forefront of current research, such as Can there be a world of only powers?　What is the manifestation of a power?　Are powers and their manifestations related by necessity? What are the prospects for dispositional accounts of causation? The papers focus on questions concerning the metaphysics of powers that cut across any particular subject-specific ontological domain -- whether philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, ethics, epistemology - investigating the metaphysical structure of powers, the nature of the manifestation of powers, the necessity or contingency of a power's relation to its manifestations, and powers and causation.　A number of authors also engage in discussion with Humean and neo-Humean treatments of causation, thereby making contributions to a larger metaphysical debate beyond powers.　Additionally, the authors engage critically with the latest contributions to the debate on powers in the literature, thereby bringing together in a wholesome and analytical way the most recent and noteworthy theoretical developments in this research field.　

The eleven cutting edge papers in this volume look critically at the ontology of powers, that is, properties like fragility and elasticity. Contributors, some of the best scholars in the field, focus on four core research areas: the ontological structure of powers; the manifestations of powers; the effects that manifested powers have in the world; and the necessity or contingency of the manifestation and causal impact of powers in the world.

Spis treści

Introduction, Anna Marmodoro 1: On the Individuation of Powers, E.J. Lowe 2: Do Powers Need Powers to Make Them Powerful? From Pandispositionalism to Aristotle, Anna Marmodoro 3: Categories and the Ontology of Powers: A Vindication of the Identity Theory of Properties, Kristina Engelhard 4: Powerful Qualities, John Heil 5: Manifestations as Effects, Jennifer McKitrick 6: Puzzling Powers: The Problem of Fit, Neil Williams 7: Dispositions, Manifestations, and Causal Structure, Toby Handfield 8: Causal Powers and Categorical Properties, Brian Ellis 9: A Powerful Theory of Causation, Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum 10: Causation and the Manifestation of Powers, Alexander Bird 11: Antidotes for Dispositional Essentialism, Markus Schrenk Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index

O autorze

Anna Marmodoro is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College.