Dispositions
Stephen Mumford
Abstract
This book puts forward a new theory of dispositions, showing how central their role in metaphysics and philosophy of science is. Much of our understanding of the physical and psychological world is expressed in terms of dispositional properties — from the spin of a subatomic particle and the solubility of sugar to a person's belief that zebras have stripes. The book discusses what it means to say that something has a property of this kind, and how dispositions can possibly be real things in the world. They have seemed too many to reside on the fringes of actuality, waiting to manifest themselv ... More
Keywords: dispositions, metaphysics, philosophy of science, dispositional properties, actuality, properties, causation, scientific laws
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2003 | Print ISBN-13: 9780199259823 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 | DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259823.001.0001 |
