Abstract
Dispositional essentialists hold that the world is populated by irreducibly dispositional properties, called “potencies,” “powers,” or “dispositions.” Each of these properties is marked out by a characteristic stimulus and manifestation bound together in a metaphysically necessary connection. Dispositional essentialism faces an old objection from David Hume. Hume argues, in his Treatise of Human Nature, that we have no adequate idea of necessary connection. The epistemology of the Treatise allegedly rules the idea out. Dispositional essentialists usually respond by attacking Hume’s epistemology. In this paper, I give an alternative response. I argue that we can draw an idea of necessary connection from the Treatise’s relations of ideas. We are able, therefore, to overcome Hume’s objection without needing to attack his epistemology or its related principles.
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Notes
At some points, however, Hume admits that we might have an idea of necessary connection. When we repeatedly observe one event following another, we eventually develop a habit of transitioning in thought from one to the other. According to Hume, “either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but [this] determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects” (T 1.3.14.22; SBN 166). In either case, we have no idea of necessary connection traditionally understood—and no idea that would satisfy a dispositional essentialist.
Again, provided that the background conditions are right, and there are no finks or antidotes.
Some dispositional essentialists will object that not every disposition idea corresponds to an essentially dispositional property. Bird, for example, holds that probably only “fundamental natural properties are essentially dispositional” (Bird 2007, 18), and ideas of non-fundamental dispositions lack corresponding essentially dispositional properties. On such a view, we cannot infer from mere disposition ideas to properties. Nor, presumably, can we infer from a feature of disposition ideas to a feature of properties. For this reason, dispositional essentialists like Bird may think my argument incomplete. Although the argument shows that we have a coherent idea of necessary connection between stimulus and manifestation, it may not follow that this idea characterizes any given property in the world.
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Hannegan, W. Hume, Dispositional Essentialism, and where to Find the Idea of Necessary Connection. Philosophia 44, 787–791 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9715-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9715-x