Theoria

Revista de teoría, historia y fundamentos de la ciencia.

An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science

Euskal Herriko Unibertsitateko Argitalpen Zerbitzua/Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco.

Vol. 19/3, No 51, 2004

SECCION MONOGRAFICA

Dispositions, Causes and Propensities in Science

Guest Editors: Mauricio Suárez y Alexander Bird

Mauricio Suárez (Madrid): Introduction

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 257-258]

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Alexander Bird (Bristol): Antidotes all the way down?

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 259-269]

ABSTRACT: This paper concerns the relationship between dispositions and ceteris paribus laws. Dispositions are related to conditionals. Typically a fragile glass will break if struck with force. But possession of the disposition does not entail the corresponding simple (subjunctive or counterfactual) conditional. The phenomena of finks and antidotes show that an object may possess the disposition without the conditional being true. Finks and antidotes may be thought of as exceptions to the straightforward relation between disposition and conditional. The existence of these phenomena are easy to demonstrate at the macro-level. But do they exist at the fundamental level also? While fundamental finkish dispositions may be excluded fairly straightforwardly, the existence of fundamental antidotes is more open. Nonetheless I conclude that the phenomenon is likely to be less widespread than at the macro level and that fundamental antidotes may be eliminable. According to the dispositional essentialist, the laws of nature can be explained by taking natural properties to be essentially dispositional. This account can be extended to show that the existence of finks and antidotes explains ceteris paribus laws. Consequently the existence or otherwise of fundamental finks and antidotes sheds some light on the question of whether fundamental laws may also be ceteris paribus laws.

Keywords: dispositions, laws, finks, antidotes, finkish dispositions, ceteris paribus laws, dispositional essentialism.

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Mauricio Suárez (Madrid): Causal processes and propensities in quantum mechanics

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 271-300]

Abstract: In an influential article published in 1982, Bas Van Fraassen developed an argument against causal realism on the basis of an analysis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations of quantum mechanics. Several philosophers of science and experts in causal inference —including some causal realists like Wesley Salmon— have accepted Van Fraassen’s argument, interpreting it as a proof that the quantum correlations cannot be given any causal model. In this paper I argue that Van Fraassen’s article can also be interpreted as a good guide to the different causal models available for the EPR correlations, and their relative virtues. These models in turn give us insight into some of the unusual features that quantum propensities might have.

Keywords: philosophy of science, quantum mechanics, causality, propensities, realism.

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Agustín Vicente (Valladolid): The role of dispositions in explanations

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 301-310]

ABSTRACT: According to a model defended by some authors, dispositional predicates, or concepts, can be legitimately used in causal explanations, but such a use is not necessary. For every explanation couched in dispositional terms, there is always a better, and complete, explanation that makes use of a different vocabulary, that of categorial bases. In what follows, I will develop this view, and then argue that there is a kind of use of dispositions in explanations that does not fall within this model. That is, I will argue that we would miss some explanations if we were to forsake dispositional concepts and dispositional explanations.

Keywords: dispositions, explanation, teleology, exclusion problems.

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Alice Drewery (Reading, Reino Unido): A note on science and essentialism

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 311-320]

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses recent attempts to use essentialist arguments based on the work of Kripke and Putnam to ground causal necessity in the world. I argue in particular that a recent argument by Alexander Bird relies on controversial intuitions about the natures of substances which no Humean would accept. While a case can be made that essentialism reflects some assumptions within scientific practice, the same can be said of Humeanism, and ultimately neither Bird’s arguments, nor any empirical facts, can decide the question either way.

Keywords: philosophy of science, metaphysics, essentialism, laws of nature, Humeanism, dispositions.

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Nicholas Maxwell (Londres): Does probabilism solve the great quantum mystery?

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 321-336]

ABSTRACT: What sort of entities are electrons, photons and atoms given their wave-like and particle-like properties? Is nature fundamentally deterministic or probabilistic? Orthodox quantum theory (OQT) evades answering these two basic questions by being a theory about the results of performing measurements on quantum systems. But this evasion results in OQT being a seriously defective theory. A rival, somewhat ignored strategy is to conjecture that the quantum domain is fundamentally probabilistic. This means quantum entities, interacting with one another probabilistically, must differ radically from the entities of deterministic classical physics, the classical wave or particle. It becomes possible to conceive of quantum entities as a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the “propensiton”, neither wave nor particle. A fully micro realistic, testable rival to OQT results.

Keywords: philosophy of science, quantum theory, realism, probabilism, wave/particle dilemma, propensities, measurement.

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ARTICULOS

Jose E. Chaves (Granada): El contextualismo y P. Grice

BIBLID [0495-4548 (2004) 19: 51; pp. 339-354]

RESUMEN: En el debate entre contextualistas y anticontextualistas, señala Recanati, los últimos aventajan a los primeros por un argumento atribuible a Grice. Este argumento tiene como premisa el Principio del Paralelismo que, según Recanati, convierte al argumento en circular y a la posición anticontextualista en injustificada. Si bien considero este argumento anticontextualista inadecuado, demostraré que no es atribuible a Grice. Grice no puede admitir el Principio del Paralelismo si se tiene en cuenta la explicación que elabora para ciertos ejemplos y su teoría de las implicaturas. Grice, según esa explicación y algunas de sus propuestas, se muestra como un contextualista.

Descriptores: vaguedad, minimismo, contextualismo, literalismo.