Potency and Modality

Synthese 149 (3):491-508 (2006)
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Abstract

Let us call a property that is essentially dispositional a potency.1 David Armstrong thinks that potencies do not exist. All sparse properties are essentially categorical, where sparse properties are the explanatory properties of the type science seeks to discover. An alternative view, but not the only one, is that all sparse properties are potencies or supervene upon them. In this paper I shall consider the differences between these views, in particular the objections Armstrong raises against potencies.

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10.1007/s11229-005-0574-4

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Alexander James Bird
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

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From Combinatorialism to Primitivism.Jennifer Wang - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (3):535-554.
New powers for Dispositionalism.Giacomo Giannini - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1):2671-2700.

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References found in this work

A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.
A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1993 - Philosophical Perspectives 7:429-440.
A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility.David Malet Armstrong - 1989 - Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
A New Introduction to Modal Logic.M. J. Cresswell & G. E. Hughes - 1996 - New York: Routledge. Edited by M. J. Cresswell.

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