Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.17.1.2
Pure Powers Are Not Powerful Qualities
Joaquim Giannotti
orcid.org/0000-0002-4058-4093
; University of Birmingham
Sažetak
There is no consensus on the most adequate conception of the fundamental properties of our world. The pure powers view and the identity theory of powerful qualities claim to be promising alternatives to categoricalism, the view that all fundamental properties essentially contribute to the qualitative make-up of things that have them. The pure powers view holds that fundamental properties essentially empower things that have them with a distinctive causal profile. On the identity theory, fundamental properties are dispositional as well as qualitative, or powerful qualities. Despite the manifest difference, Taylor (2018) argues that pure powers and powerful qualities collapse into the same ontology. If this collapse objection were sound, the debate between the pure powers view and the identity theory of powerful qualities would be illusory: these views could claim the same advantages and would suffer the same problems. Here I defend an ontologically robust distinction between pure powers and powerful qualities. To accomplish this aim, I show that the collapse between pure powers and powerful qualities can be resisted. I conclude by drawing some positive implications of this result.
Ključne riječi
Pure powers; powerful qualities; dispositionalism; collapse objection; dispositional essentialism
Hrčak ID:
251643
URI
Datum izdavanja:
5.2.2021.
Posjeta: 1.158 *