Abstract

Recent metaphysics of science has been fuelled significantly by an interest in causal powers or dispositions. A number of authors have made realism about dispositions central to their projects in the epistemology of science, suggesting that the existence of irreducible powers is a commitment entailed by taking scientific practice seriously. This paper strikes a cautionary note with respect to the two most common arguments for this view, concerning the putative requirement of dispositional properties in the contexts of scientific explanation and scientific abstraction. I contend that neither argument is successful, but that nevertheless, realism about powers better accords with an arguably scientific consideration of property identity, thus affirming the importance of dispositions to the epistemology of science.