Inverse functionalism and the individuation of powers.
In the pure powers ontology (PPO), basic physical properties have wholly dispositional essences. PPO has clear advantages over categoricalist ontologies, which suffer from familiar epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, opponents argue that because it contains no qualitative properties,...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 195; no. 10; pp. 4525 - 4551 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Oct2018
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=133269573&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 133269573 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2018 vid: 195 iid: 10 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 133269573 10.1007/s11229-017-1417-9 ppf: 4525 ppct: 26 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 573KB tig: atl: Inverse functionalism and the individuation of powers. aug: au: Yates, David affil: Centro de Filosofia, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214, Lisbon, Portugal su: Ontology Individuation (Philosophy) Structuralism Investment analysis Ontic (Computer system) sug: subj: Ontology Individuation (Philosophy) Structuralism Investment analysis Ontic (Computer system) keyword: Fundamentality Grounding Individuation Ontic structural realism Powers ab: In the pure powers ontology (PPO), basic physical properties have wholly dispositional essences. PPO has clear advantages over categoricalist ontologies, which suffer from familiar epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, opponents argue that because it contains no qualitative properties, PPO lacks the resources to individuate powers, and generates a regress. The challenge for those who take such arguments seriously is to introduce qualitative properties without reintroducing the problems that PPO was meant to solve. In this paper, I distinguish the core claim of PPO: (i) basic physical properties have dispositional essences, from a hitherto unnoticed assumption: (ii) the dispositional essences of basic physical properties exclusively involve type-causal relations to other basic physical properties. I reject (ii), making room for structuralist ontology in which all basic physical properties are pure powers, individuated by their places in a causal structure that includes not only other powers, but also physically realized qualitative properties such as shapes, patterns and structures. Such qualities individuate pure powers in the way that non-mental input and output properties individuate realized mental properties in functionalist theories of mind, except that here it is the basic physical powers that are individuated by relations to realized non-powers. I distinguish one Platonic and two Aristotelian version of this theory, and argue that the Aristotelian versions require that grounding is not always a relative fundamentality relation, because the powers ground the qualities that individuate them. I argue that symmetric grounding is the best way to make sense of the relational individuation common to all structuralist ontologies, and is therefore no additional commitment of the one proposed here. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2018. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2018 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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