powers a study in metaphysics may 2003

[...]... being intentional states But what if these same features could be explained another way? Such an explanation was my goal at one time (Mumford 1998) Powers advances the debate in a numbers of ways Molnar shows in detail that the directedness of physical causal powers meets all the traditional marks of intentionality that have developed in the postBrentano literature This includes the serious, non-linguistic,... that dispositions are real and ineliminable properties, which can be distinguished, for instance, as being the causal powers of objects, and it is this realist line that Molnar defends The realist line has come under constant attack from empiricist adversaries Empiricists argue that there is just no need to invoke a separate category of powers in addition to categories such as events and their categorical... discussion of the substantial and important commitments necessary for an understanding of Molnar’s theory Molnar argues that properties are tropes: non-repeatable particulars as opposed to universals Both realism and nominalism are in part right and in part wrong, necessitating a move to tropes, which retain the best features of realism and nominalism Next, Molnar argues for selective realism about properties... intentionality of powers 4 Independence 4.1 Is there a Problem about Unmanifesting Powers? 4.2 Independence and the Conditional Analysis of Powers 4.2.1 Naive conditional analysis 4.2.2 Causal conditional analysis 4.2.3 A reformed conditional analysis 66 66 68 70 71 71 81 82 82 83 84 89 92 4.3 Anti-realism about Unmanifesting Powers 94 4.3.1 What is Megaric Actualism? 4.3.2 The case against Megaric Actualism 94... into the same category and was a defender, if anyone was a defender, of the ‘naive’ conditional analysis In contemporary metaphysics, David Lewis (1998) has been the chief advocate of the Humean view and he has tried to show that, although the naive conditional analysis has problems, a reformed version is tenable that preserves its Humean spirit Molnar argues against this view, primarily in Chapter 4... providing a naturalistic account of physical intentionality The problem arises from traditional accounts that suggest that the directedness of an intentional state requires some representation of its intentional object Molnar answers such a concern by arguing that there are states or properties that are (a) mental, (b) not semantic or representational, but (c) intentional Showing that there are such states... provides a model of non-semantic directedness, creating the conceptual space for physical intentionality The example brought forth is pain, which is undeniably mental, but is it non-semantically directed? Molnar thinks so Pains meet the marks of intentionality as they are felt somewhere, in a location that may be non-existent or with a fuzzy boundary Further, pain exhibits what Grice called natural meaning... alter much to make these main chapters finished and presentable The reader can be confident here that the work is George’s and that he said what he wanted to say My main quandary was how to deal with the later chapters of which barely anything existed Carlotta sent me everything that remained on his computer at the time of his death My solution was to make a final chapter out of the relevant fragments found... of laws, we cannot say that propositions express unrealized empirical possibilities, though that is what we would ordinarily take them to express The problem arises when laws of nature are taken to be adequately expressed in propositions that are universally quantified, omnitemporally and omnispatially true, contingent, and containing no local predicates (such as in Smith’s garden’) In this Humean account,... was working at the cutting edge of contemporary metaphysics, and was fulfilling the promise in philosophy he had shown earlier in his career Then, in August 1999, he had a heart attack on the steps of the University’s Fisher Library and died in hospital the following week Just four published papers in metaphysics may not seem a lot for a lifetime and might not qualify their author as one of the great . offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered. Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles. biographical information. The strange thing about George’s academic career is that it fell into two parts, parts separated by a twenty-year interval. He began his studies at Sydney University in