According to a well-known argument, originally due to David Armstrong, powers theory is objectionable, as it leads to a ‘Meinongian’ ontology on which some entities are real but do not actually exist. I argue here that the right conclusion to draw from this argument has thus far not been identified and that doing so has significant implications for powers theory. Specifically, I argue that the key consequence of the argument is that it provides substantial grounds for trope (...) class='Hi'>powers theorists, but not other powers theorists, to accept one version of the view that properties are powerful qualities. In particular, they have grounds to favour the view that powerful properties are properties with exclusively qualitative natures that ground modal facts. (shrink)

As we understand them, dispositions are relatively uncontroversial 'predicatory' properties had by objects disposed in certain ways. By contrast, powers are hypothetical 'ontic' properties posited in order to explain dispositional behaviour. Chapter 1 outlines this distinction in more detail. Chapter 2 offers a summary of the issues surrounding analysis of dispositions and various strategies in contemporary literature to address them, including one of our own. Chapter 3 describes some of the important questions facing the metaphysics of (...) class='Hi'>powers including why they're worth positing, and how they might metaphysically explain laws of nature and modality. (shrink)

The great variety of kinds of properties that are comprehended by such terms as “disposition,” “power,” “potential,” “tendency,” “capacity,” “propensity,” and “capability” share a common generic structure. They are ascribed to things and substances. However in all cases the basic structure of that attribution is conditional in form. To attribute a disposition to a thing or substance is to say that if certain conditions obtain, then that thing or substance will behave in a certain way, or bring about a certain (...) effect ‐ that is, that a certain outcome will occur. A fertile soil is one of which it is true that if seeds are planted in it and properly cared for, they will grow into flourishing plants. A negatively charged particle is one of which it is true that, if brought into proximity to another negatively charged particle, it will experience a force of repulsion. (shrink)

This collection of essays, by leading international researchers, examines the case for realism with respect to dispositions and causal powers in both ...

Metaphysics should follow science in postulating laws alongside properties. I defend this claim against the claim that natural properties conceived as powers make laws of nature redundant. Natural properties can be construed in a “thin” or a “thick” way. If one attributes a property in the thin sense to an object, this attribution does not conceptually determine which other properties the object possesses. The thin construal is underlying the scientific strategy for understanding nature piecemeal. Science explains phenomena by cutting (...) reality conceptually in properties attributed to space-time points, where these properties are conceived of independently of each other, to explore then, in a separate step, how the properties are related to each other; those determination relations between properties are laws. This is compatible with the thesis that laws are metaphysically necessary. According to the thick conception, a property contains all its dependency relations to other properties. The dependency relationships between properties (which appear as laws in the thin conception) are parts of the properties they relate. There are several reasons to resist the thick conception of properties. It makes simple properties “holistic”, in the sense that each property contains many other properties as parts. It cannot account for the fact that properties constrain each other’s identity; it can neither explain why natural properties are linked to a unique set of dispositions, nor why and how this set is structured nor why the truth-maker of many disposition attributions is relational although the disposition is grounded on a monadic property. (shrink)

Dispositional properties have been receiving an increasing amount of attention in the last decade from metaphysicians and philosophers of science. The proper semantics and ontology remains controversial. This paper offers an analysis and ontology of dispositional properties rooted in Christology and the biblical doctrine of creation. The analysis overcomes the standard problems faced by all such analyses and provides an account of “ungrounded dispositions.” The analysis involves a version of a Leibnizian-Aristotelian notion of possible worlds and provides a novel (...) notion of truth-makers for subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

This paper proposes a roughly Aristotelian account of powers ontology. In doing so, the paper uses the distinction found in Aristotle between four analogous senses of potency to explain causation and the existence-essence distinction in substances. On this basis, the paper offers some justification in support of the claims that powers and dispositions are the truth-makers of categorical properties and that categorical properties are ontologically dependent upon powers and dispositions.

Many powers-realists assume that the powers of objects are identical with the dispositions of objects and, hence, that ‘power’ and ‘disposition’ are interchangeable. In this article, I aim to disentangle dispositions from powers with the goal of getting a better sense of how powers and dispositions relate to one another. I present and defend a modest realism about dispositions built upon a standard strong realism about powers. I argue that each correct (...) disposition-ascription we can make of an object is made true by the manifestations towards which a given power or collection of powers of the object is directed.RésuméDe nombreux réalistes des pouvoirs supposent que les pouvoirs des objets sont identiques aux dispositions des objets et, par conséquent, que le « pouvoir » et la « disposition » sont interchangeables. Dans cet article, j'ai pour objectif de démêler les dispositions des pouvoirs dans le but d'avoir une meilleure idée de la façon dont les pouvoirs et les dispositions se rapportent les uns aux autres. Je présente et défends un réalisme des dispositions modeste fondées sur un réalisme des pouvoirs standard fort. Je soutiens que chaque disposition-ascription correcte que nous pouvons faire d'un objet est rendue vraie par les manifestations vers lesquelles un pouvoir donné ou une collection de pouvoirs de l'objet est dirigé. (shrink)

The doctrine which needs clarification may be put several ways: "Modern" science, unlike Aristotelian science, does not appeal to "occult powers"; or, the doctrine of final causes is occult and unscientific; or, while modern science, in establishing laws, "explains," Aristotelian science does not. More narrowly, two separate though related claims are being made: Aristotelian science is occult. This charge is leveled at final causes and Aristotelian "powers." Aristotelian science does not explain. This charge is typified by Moliere's famous (...) jibe at "dormitive power." In order to clear away the truths from the half-truths, I will defend the following points. (shrink)

Two recent contributions have discussed, and disagreed, over whether so-called toy models that attempt to represent dispositions have the power to explain. In this paper, I argue that neither of these positions is completely correct. Toy models may accurately represent, satisfy the veridicality condition, yet fail to provide how-actually explanations. This is because some dispositions remain unmanifested. Instead, the models provide how-possibly explanations; they _possibly_ explain.

This paper has two main aims. The first is to present a general approach for understanding “dispositional” and “categorical” properties; the second aim is to use this approach to criticize Russellian Monism. On the approach I suggest, what are usually thought of as “dispositional” and “categorical” properties are really just the extreme ends of a spectrum of options. The approach allows for a number of options between these extremes, and it is plausible, I suggest, that just about everything of scientific (...) interest falls in this middle ground. I argue that Russellian Monism depends for its plausibility on the unarticulated assumption that there are no properties in the middle ground. (shrink)

One popular view of dispositions turns them into ‘higher‐level’ properties with categorical ‘realizers’. The position is motivated in part by the belief that the same disposition can have different bases, and in part by a conviction that powers are contingent features of the world. I argue that the belief and conviction are misguided.

What is the connection between dispositions and ethics? Some might think very little and those who are interested in dispositions tend to be metaphysicians whose interests are far from value. However, we argue in this paper that dispositions and dispositionality are central to ethics, indeed a precondition. Ethics rests on a number of notions that are either dispositional in nature or involve real dispositions or powers at work. We argue for a dispositional account of value (...) that offers an alternative to the traditional fact-value dichotomy. We explain the place of value within a structure that explains the possibility of ethics. Elsewhere in this structure, we argue that moral responsibility is a precondition for ethics and that it is a dispositional notion depending critically on what Mumford and Anjum have called the dispositional modality. Moral responsibility in turn depends on there being both agency and normativity. We argue that intentionality and agency are preconditions for agency and that value is a precondition of normativity. All these notions are dispositional and make best sense if there are real dispositions or causal powers of agents. (shrink)

This paper examines certain influential contemporary philosophical analyses of the notion of a person and show why they are misguided. Inspired by the Lockean conception of a person, some philosophers claim that personhood must be attributed only to those human beings who can meet certain criteria required for it. Here the views of Tooley, Dennett and Singer will be discussed against the backdrop of the metaphysics of powers ontology as advocated by contemporary philosophers: C. B. Martin, John Heil and (...) others. (shrink)

The vast majority of metaphysicians agree that powers (in contrast to categorical properties) can exist unmanifested. This paper focuses on the ontological distinction between unmanifested and manifested powers underpinning that fact and has two main aims. First, to determine the proper relata of the distinction and second, to show that an unrestricted version of dispositional monism faces serious difficulties to accommodate it. As far as the first aim is concerned, it is argued that the distinction in question, in (...) order to be free of irrelevant features, must hold between an un- manifested power-instance and the same power-instance being manifested. To the second end, the paper examines two possible candidate distinctions (actual vs. possible, be- ing-in-energeia vs. being-in-capacity). It is argued that the former fails to be a good fit for the role that the distinction under consideration should play in a dispositional monistic context. It is also argued that a specific version of the latter can ground a promising solution to the difficulty discussed in the paper. That solution, however, presupposes the inclusion of aspects of the Aristotelian metaphysical framework for powers to the dispositional monistic context. (shrink)

Many predicates are dispositional. Some show this by a suffix like "-ible", -uble", or "-able": sugar is soluble in water, gasoline is flammable. Others have no such suffix and don't wear their dispositionality on their sleeves. Yet part of what it is to be solid is to be disposed to resist deformation, and part of what it is to be red is to appear red to normal human observers in normal lighting conditions. However, there is no agreement as to whether (...) dispositional predicates may be given a realist interpretation. For many authors, propositions containing them are made true by states of affairs (or facts) containing categorical, rather than dispositional properties. Many also claim that the states of affairs that make true attributions of dispositions to macroscopic objects are microscopic states of affairs concerning their parts. For example, what makes a vase fragile is the microscopic structure of its molecular constituents, which is what makes the vase break when it falls. Against these claims, I will argue that what makes a dispositional predicate apply to an object, whether macroscopic or microscopic, whether in common sense or science, is the object's having what I will call a powerful property. If the object is macroscopic, it is another matter whether the property is microreducible. My reasons for supposing that these powerful properties exist are those for postulating theoretical properties generally: they unify existing explanations and suggest new ones. (shrink)

This work deals with obstacles hindering a metaphysics of laws of nature in terms of dispositions, i.e., of fundamental properties that are causal powers. A recent analysis of the principle of least action has put into question the viability of dispositionalism in the case of classical mechanics, generally seen as the physical theory most easily amenable to a dispositional ontology. Here, a proper consideration of the framework role played by the least action principle within the classical image of (...) the world allows us to build a consistent metaphysics of dispositions as charges of interactions. In doing so we develop a general approach that opens the way towards an ontology of dispositions for fundamental physics also beyond classical mechanics. (shrink)

Dispositional accounts of various phenomena have claimed that dispositions can be intrinsically masked. In cases of intrinsic masking, something has a disposition while also having an intrinsic property that would prevent that disposition from manifesting in the face of its stimulus. This paper develops a theory of disposition ascriptions capable of recognizing such dispositions. The theory is modeled on the view that dispositions are powers. I propose that having a disposition is a matter of exerting a (...) corresponding kind of influence. Unlike powers theories, however, the account largely falls silent on questions of fundamental metaphysics. It does not build dispositions into fundamental ontology, posit necessary connections between properties, or otherwise appeal to sui generis modality. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialism maintains that all sparse properties are essentially powerful. Two conceptions of sparse properties appear compatible with dispositional essentialism: sparse properties as pure powers or as powerful qualities. This paper compares the two views, criticizes the powerful qualities view, and then develops a new theory of pure powers, termed Point Theory. This theory neutralizes the main advantage powerful qualities appear to possess over pure powers—explaining the existence of powers during latency periods. The paper discusses the (...) relation between powers and space-time points, whether pure powers need to occupy space, and how to account for the movement of pure powers through space-time. Given Point Theory, dispositional essentialists should maintain that sparse properties are pure powers. (shrink)

This article deals with modus vivendi, toleration and power. On the face of it toleration and modus vivendi are in tension with each other, because of the power condition on toleration: that an agent is tolerant only if they have the power to engage in an alternative, non- or intolerant form of behaviour, and this seems to be absent in modus vivendi. The article argues that the scope of the power condition is unclear, but might be thought much more extensive (...) than usually supposed. This becomes clear when the agent’s thoughts are subjected to a counterfactual test, concerning what would occur in their ideal world. However it is in the nature of ideals that they cannot usually be subject to a counterfactual variation here, since they determine the ideal world’s content. The article concludes that only a commitment to the other party’s freedom for its own sake proves robust in the face of counterfactual idealisation, but that it is questionable whether the dispositions that characterise toleration should be subject to so demanding a test. (shrink)

According to power theorists, properties are powers—i.e. they necessarily confer on their bearers certain dispositions. Although the power theory is increasingly gaining popularity, a vast majority of analytic metaphysicians still favors what I call ‘the nomic theory’—i.e. the view according to which what dispositions a property confers on its bearers is contingent on what the laws of nature happen to be. This paper argues that the nomic theory is inconsistent, for, if it were correct, then properties would (...) not confer any dispositions on their bearers—they would only appear to do so (just like how, in cases of mimicking, objects do not really have the relevant dispositions, they merely appear to have them). If my arguments are sound, then the nomic theory is incoherent and ultimately collapses into what I call ‘neo-occasionalism’ and powers turns out to be the only available option for those who believe that properties genuinely confer dispositions on their bearers. (shrink)

This short paper explores how issues concerning the metaphysics of powers/dispositions might bear on the view that formative influence in education involves instilling appropriate dispositions.

This chapter argues that discussing abilities, and indeed dispositions and attributes of all kinds, the philosopher must be constantly on his guard against the temptation to hypostatize them, that is to say, to treat them as if they were substances or parts or ingredients of substances. A power or capacity must not be thought of as a thing in its own right, for instance as a flimsy actuality or an incorporeal vehicle. The difference between a power and its exercise (...) or vehicle is a category difference, not a difference like that between solid and shadow. (shrink)

The Conference on Dispositions and Laws of Nature was held at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in February 2003, and by all accounts was a great success. Upon seeing the program for the conference, John Symons of Synthese thought the papers would make an excellent special issue, and so here we are. Roughly speaking, dispositions are tendencies or powers—a fragile glass’s disposition to break when struck. Laws of nature, like Newton’s laws of motion, are commonly thought (...) to be true generalizations that supports counterfactuals, play an important role in scientific explanation, and can be inductively confirmed by their instances. Dispositions and laws are components of different, perhaps competing, metaphysical views regarding the source of power and activity in the universe. Supposing that dispositions and laws of nature exist, in some sense, I see two basic options as to how they are related: 1. Laws give otherwise inert particulars their dispositions. 2. Particulars have certain dispositions, and general truths about these dispositions constitute the laws of nature. (shrink)

Within the community of philosophers who advocate a broadly realist picture of laws of nature, there remains a vexed question about truthmakers: What is it that makes statements of natural law true? One view has it that the laws of a world are true in virtue of the fact that there exist ultimate dispositions or powers at that world. Following Brian Ellis and Caroline Lierse, I call this view 'Dispositional Essentialism,' and I defend it against a recent attack (...) from Stephen Mumford who prefers the view according to which natural laws are a kind of 'brute fact'. (shrink)

This paper examines the need for static dispositions within the basic ontology of the powers view of properties. To lend some focus, Neil Williams’s well developed case for static dispositions is considered. While his arguments are not necessarily intended to address fundamental ontology, they still provide a useful starting point, a springboard for diving into the deeper metaphysical waters of the dispositionalist approach. Within that ontological context, this paper contends that Williams’s arguments fail to establish the need (...) to posit static dispositions, or at least any sort not already well appreciated by advocates of the powers view. The paper then proceeds to suggest an alternative motivation for positing static dispositions, the success of which depends greatly on which ontological approach to objects is paired with the powers view. (shrink)

The rapid pace of technological advancements offers an essential field of research for a deeper understanding of man’s relationship with artifacts of her design. These artifacts designed by humans can have various mental and physical effects on their users. The human interaction with the artifact is not passive; on the contrary, it exhibits a potential that reveals the inner dispositions of human beings and makes them open to new creations. In this article, we will examine the impact of technology (...) on human life through the dispositional compatibilism perspective of the contemporary philosopher Kadri Vihvelin, arguing for a system of metaphysics in which ontology of properties depend on dispositions. In this context, the emerging phenomenon of dispositional compatibilism opens the door to developing new philosophical ideas for evaluating the concepts of compatibilism and freedom in the context of technology. Thus, it is emphasized that although technological devices shape human life, new and unforeseen powers may emerge due to human-artifact interaction. This article will examine the idea of dispositional compatibilism by specifically considering human interaction with text-based AI applications. The ability of AI to collaborate with human thought patterns is a meaningful example of the observation of dispositional compatibilism. In conclusion, the article aims to address the effects of technology on human freedom by approaching the human-artifact relationship from a dispositional perspective. It also aims to defend the claim that technological artifacts can positively contribute to human freedom from the perspective of dispositional compatibilism. (shrink)

Dispositionalism, perhaps the most popular variant of non-Humean metaphysics, submits that dispositions, powers, or capacities, are part of the furniture of the world. In this book I advance an original approach to dispositionalism revolving around the notion of Dispositional Reality; the novelty lies in the fact that the account, unlike most alternatives on the market, does not require the reification of objects, facts, properties, nor their dispositional essences – and is in fact compatible with a far more deflationary (...) approach to dispositions, while still being true to the non-Humean spirit of the proposal. This power metaphysics without powers allows one to dispel several puzzles in recent literature, or recast them under a new light. Albeit with its own peculiarities, this proposal constitutes a variant of explanatory dispositionalism, according to which realism about dispositions ought not to be understood as an ontological inflation, but as an explanatory inversion within the nomic and modal family. Some of these explanations are hereby attempted, and a study of various types of non-causal explanation will be provided. (shrink)

Does A cause B simply if A prevents what would have prevented B? Such a case is known as double prevention: where we have the prevention of a prevention. One theory of causation is that A causes B when B counterfactually depends on A and, as there is such a dependence, proponents of the view must rule that double prevention is causation.<br><br>However, if double prevention is causation, it means that causation can be an extrinsic matter, that the cause and effect (...) need not be connected by a continuous chain of events, that there can be causation by absence, and that there can be causation at a distance. All of these implications jar with strong intuitions we have about the nature of causation. There is, on the other hand, a theory of causation based on an ontology of real dispositions, where causation involves the passing around of powers. This theory in contrast entails that double prevention is not causation and, on this issue, it can claim a victory over the counterfactual dependence account. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of papers that advance our understanding of the metaphysics of powers — properties such as fragility and electric charge. The metaphysics of powers is a fast developing research field with fundamental questions at the forefront of current research, such as Can there be a world of only powers? What is the manifestation of a power? Are powers and their manifestations related by necessity? What are the prospects for dispositional accounts of causation? (...) The papers focus on questions concerning the metaphysics of powers that cut across any particular subject-specific ontological domain -- whether philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, ethics, epistemology – investigating the metaphysical structure of powers, the nature of the manifestation of powers, the necessity or contingency of a power’s relation to its manifestations, and powers and causation. A number of authors also engage in discussion with Humean and neo-Humean treatments of causation, thereby making contributions to a larger metaphysical debate beyond powers. Additionally, the authors engage critically with the latest contributions to the debate on powers in the literature, thereby bringing together in a wholesome and analytical way the most recent and noteworthy theoretical developments in this research field. (shrink)

We all want to be happy, and there are plenty of people telling us how it can be achieved. The positive psychology movement, indeed, has established happiness as a scientific concept within everyone's grasp. But is happiness really something we can actively aim for, or is it simply a by-product of how we live our lives more widely? Dr. Mick Power, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Clinical Programmes at the National University of Singapore, provides a critical assessment of (...) what happiness really means, and the evidence for how it can be increased. Arguing that negative emotions are as important to overall well-being as the sunnier sides of our disposition, the book examines many of the claims of the positive psychology movement, including the relationship between happiness and physical health, and argues that resilience, adaptability in the face of adversity, psychological flexibility, and a sense of generativity and creativity are far more achievable as life goals. This is a book which will fascinate anyone interested in positive psychology, or anyone who has ever questioned the plethora of publications suggesting that blissful happiness is ten easy steps away. (shrink)

Most metaphysicians agree that powers can exist without being manifested. The main goal of this paper is to show that adherents of an unrestricted version of Dispositional Monism cannot provide a plausible metaphysical account of the difference between a situation in which a power-instance is not manifested and a situation in which a manifestation of that power-instance actually occurs unless they undermine their own view. To this end, two kinds of manifestation-relation are introduced and it is argued that dispositional (...) monists should appeal to the former in order to offer the required account. After defending the introduction of token-level-manifestation-relations against objections to their metaphysical robustness and explanatory non-redundancy, it is finally argued that their existence is incompatible with the core tenet of an unrestricted form of Dispositional Monism because they cannot be powers. (shrink)

Whilst the concept of causal powers is central to much post-positivist social science in general, and to critical realism in particular, it has not been significantly developed by critical realists since the initial work of Harré and Madden and Bhaskar in the mid-1970s. To deepen our understanding of powers we need to start with a ‘package’ of related terms. In §1 of the paper I introduce this package, clear up some terminological ambiguity and inconsistency, and focus the discussion (...) upon things, properties and powers. The real problems begin when we try to figure out how things, properties and powers relate to one another. In §2 I introduce and evaluate three possible ontologies: an ontology where powers are primary; an ontology where properties are primary; and an ontology where neither properties, powers are primary, but all emerge to form a unity. The last ontology is defended. §3 deals with ambiguities surrounding three other terms that often crop up when discussing powers, namely, dispositional properties, transfactuals and processes. The net result is a far less ambiguous concept of powers, firmly anchored in an ontology of things, properties and powers as a unity. (shrink)

In fragment B 12 Anaxagoras asserted: ‘And [Mind] has every gnômê concerning everything and is strong to the greatest degree.’ The definitions of gnômê given in the standard Greek lexicon cover a wide range: ‘mark’, ‘token’, ‘intelligence’, ‘thought’, ‘judgment’, ‘understanding’, ‘attention’, ‘conscience’, ‘reason’, ‘will’, ‘disposition’, ‘inclination’, ‘purpose’, ‘initiative’, ‘opinion’, ‘verdict’, ‘decision’, ‘proposition’, ‘resolution’, ‘advice’, and ‘maxim’. Taking a clue from the assonance of ischei (has) with ischuei (is strong), it would be natural to take both parts of the assertion to (...) be concerned with the extent of Mind’s strength, and this would suggest the translation: ‘for it holds every decision concerning everything and (thereby) has the greatest strength’. So understood, both parts of the assertion would be reinforcing Anaxagoras’ basic claim that Mind ‘rules over’ (kratein) everything. Thus, what Anaxagoras’ cosmic nous does is provide just the kind of intelligent oversight nous typically provides in early Greek poetry and philosophy. (shrink)

This dissertation is about flexibility as a dimension of reality, an objective—independent of mind and language—phenomenon typically referred to as ‘metaphysical modality’. It develops a novel modal account of why reality could be different: that is, why claims like “Possibly, there are talking donkeys,” or “Humphrey could have won the election” are true or false. I contend that primitive dispositional properties called ‘powers’ explain such claims, and do so better than possible-world accounts of modality. The problem with possible-world accounts (...) is that they fail to capture what we mean by modal terms like ‘possibly’, ‘can’, or ‘necessarily’. The phenomenon they capture with possible worlds cannot adequately explain, for instance, that Humphrey regrets not winning the election because: he could have made a difference. Humphrey is told that he could have won the election because some entity represents him as such. But what does some entity’s representing Humphrey have to do with whether Humphrey could have won the election? Simply calling that entity a ‘possible world’ is no help. Powers do better in this regard, preserving a common-sense notion of modality where, because of what a power can do it acts as a cross-roads in history, marking places where reality could have unfolded differently. As such, powers are more clearly modally significant than possible worlds. The conclusion shows how to use powers to underwrite possible-world semantics without possible worlds. (shrink)

In the early 1970s, the major industrial states were preparing to shift to nuclear fission as their principal source of electrical power. But that change has not occurred. In part, this is due to a growing public recognition that techniques and institutions for management of spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium, and long-lived radioactive wastes are not yet fully developed. The consequent pressures for resolution have spurred a series of often ill-defined and sometimes contradictory attempts to promote international cooperation and control (...) of hazardous activities. How are these varied suggestions to be compared and evaluated? By what criteria can plans be selected that are likely to be both effective and negotiable? In this study, Gene I. Rochlin, physicist and social scientist, explores the technical, political, and institutional aspects of international nuclear export and fuel cycle policies. He categorizes existing proposals and suggests way to develop new ones that better promote both national and international goals. Dr. Rochlin argues neither for nor against the use of nuclear power or plutonium fuels. Instead, he addresses the question of how international arrangements could be reached that might jointly satisfy the objective of the several key nations, yet not be too difficult to negotiate. He concludes that a major fault has been the tendency to improvise arrangements for specific technical or industrial operations. As a result, overall social and political goals have become the bargaining points for compromise. Yet attempts to simultaneously resolve all problems are unlikely to prove fruitful. Dr. Rochlin suggests instead the formation of institutions organized around more limited social, political, and technical objectives, even at the expense of excluding some nations or omitting some aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. Only by so doing, he argues, can immediate agreements be reached that preserve the potential for more comprehensive future arrangements without sacrificing industrial, environmental, or nonproliferation goals. This important book will be of interest to scientists, social scientists, government officials, and others concerned with the problems of plutonium management and nuclear wastes. (shrink)

The prevailing interpretation of constituent power is taken to be the extra-institutional capacity of a group, typically “the people,” to establish or revise the basic constitutional conditions of a state. Among many contemporary democratic theorists, this is understood as a collective capacity for innovation. This paper excavates an alternative perspective from constituent power’s genealogy. I argue that constituent power is not a creative material power, but is a type of political claim that shapes the collective rights, responsibilities, and identity of (...) “the people.” I do so by recovering Thomas Hobbes’s intervention into debates over constituent power among Scottish Presbyterians during the English Civil War. Though a materialist, Hobbes appreciated the centrality of the imagination to politics, and he argued that constituent power was one such phantasm of the mind. In Leviathan, he showed constituent power not to be a material power, but a world-making fiction that furnished political realities with ornamentation of the imagination, which might provide the beliefs and justifications to serve any number of political ends. More generally, the retrieval of a Hobbesian constituent power provides an important challenge to contemporary theories by demonstrating how partisan constructions of constituent power shape the political options available to groups. (shrink)

In this article I will combine Erving Goffman’s sociology with some of the main aspects of Actor-Network Theory in order to outline a theatrical conception of social power. My first aim is to try to summarize the sociological perspective introduced by Kenneth Burke and then improved on by Erving Goffman to understand the face-to-face interactions of everyday life. Secondly, I will try to use the theatrical metaphor underlying this theoretical framework to describe power-over relations in everyday life. Thanks to the (...) combination of the dramaturgical theory proposed by Erving Goffman and the ‘object turn’ given to social theory by Actor-Network Theory, a theatrical conception of power allows the episodic, dispositional and systemic dimensions of power relations to be mapped respectively depending on the actors’ performances, their roles of power and the institutionalized scripts. Moreover, this theatrical representation of power-over relations is a defaced understanding of the phenomenon that enables us to investigate not only its different directional forms (power-to, -over and -with), but also their possible variants (empowerment, resistance, domination and solidarity). (shrink)

Let us call dispositional monism the view that all natural properties have their identities fixed purely by their dispositional features, that is, by the patterns of stimulus and response in which they participate. DM implies that natural properties are pure powers: things whose natures are fully identified by their roles in determining the potentialities of events to cause or be caused. As pure powers, properties are meant to lack quiddities in Black's sense. A property possesses a quiddity just (...) in case its identity is fixed by something independent of the causal–nomological roles it may enter into. Paradigmatically, a categorical property is thought of as a property whose identity is fixed by a quiddity .The key question about the viability of DM as a theory of properties is how properties can be pure powers devoid of any quiddity. Bird provides an answer. According to Bird , ‘all there is to a property is a matter of second-order relations to other properties’. The second-order relation is just the relation that a disposition, its stimulus condition, and a manifestation condition bear to each other. Call this relation SR. SR is not causation or physical necessitation. The latter relations are first-order relations between concrete events. SR is a second-order relation. Its possession by properties explains why events featuring those properties can enter into certain first-order relations of causation or necessitation.Bird's thought then is this: the sense in which properties have their identities fixed purely by their causal–nomological roles is that they are relationally constituted, where the relation doing the constituting is SR. 1 This thesis of relational constitution does not imply that natural properties are themselves relations. Nothing prevents the identity …. (shrink)