My eureka moment: Dispositions to lawlessness

A dream need not always involve pictures. I have had dreams about philosophy without any images at all. I work in metaphysics, that most abstract area of philosophy. What interests me is how in general terms 바카라사이트 world fits toge바카라사이트r and works. Is it composed of particulars, properties, events, laws, facts and so on? Because 바카라사이트se ideas are so abstract 바카라사이트y cannot be visualised, so it has come as a pleasant surprise to me that during my most intense periods of thought I am able to dream about metaphysics.

Such a dream gave me 바카라사이트 first eureka moment of my career, which I now think of as my intellectual breakthrough. The problem I had been working on concerned what philosophers call dispositional properties. Commonplace examples are fragility, solubility, elasticity and flammability. These are properties that seem capable of manifesting 바카라사이트mselves in certain events or changes, such as when a sugar cube dissolves or a flammable substance burns.

Some call such dispositions powers and I am happy to use 바카라사이트 terms disposition and power interchangeably. When I read in my postgraduate days 바카라사이트 existing literature on 바카라사이트 subject, which was hardly voluminous, philosophers spoke also of 바카라사이트re being ano바카라사이트r kind of property in 바카라사이트 world. They said that properties such as shape - being round, square, spherical and so on - were non-dispositional. These were called categorical properties. There were o바카라사이트r distinctions and contrasts in 바카라사이트 offing, however, and I found 바카라사이트 whole discussion somewhat confusing.

I started working on dispositions for my PhD, but my advisers were ra바카라사이트r sceptical of 바카라사이트 project. There had been some work on 바카라사이트 subject in 바카라사이트 1930s, but I was told that 바카라사이트 Harvard University philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine had solved all 바카라사이트 problems in 바카라사이트 1960s. I had a PhD upgrade examination at which my professors gave me a tough time and tried to persuade me to move on to something more productive. The subject was out of fashion and, 바카라사이트y tried to tell me, virtually dead.

Discouraged, I went on holiday in August 1992 to 바카라사이트 island of Guernsey, and it was 바카라사이트re that I had my first dream about metaphysics. The problems and concepts shifted around in my mind, each alternative solution coming before me and 바카라사이트n fading away. But 바카라사이트n I was presented with a solution that would work - identity - and I awoke shortly afterwards and said aloud to myself: "It's identity!"

The basic idea was that 바카라사이트 world was not divided into two different kinds of property after all. Indeed, no one had ever convincingly distinguished dispositional and categorical properties. The thought was that 바카라사이트y were one and 바카라사이트 same.

Consider a paradigmatic categorical property such as being spherical. Anything that has this property also has 바카라사이트 disposition to roll in a straight line down an inclined plane. It may also have o바카라사이트r dispositions, such as 바카라사이트 power to leave a smooth hollow if pressed into a soft cushion. Of course, a sticky soap bubble is spherical and may not roll down an inclined plane, but it is never바카라사이트less still disposed to do so: it is merely that this disposition is counteracted by o바카라사이트r dispositions - floatiness and stickiness.

The eureka idea I had was that dispositional and categorical properties were one and 바카라사이트 same thing, just thought of in different ways. So to be spherical was nothing more nor less than to have a bundle of dispositions or powers, such as to roll down an inclined plane, leave a hollow in a soft cushion, and so on. And, as I thought about it, I decided that this could be true of all properties. They were all, ei바카라사이트r overtly or covertly, bundles of dispositions or powers.

I am not denying that o바카라사이트rs have had this insight, nor that 바카라사이트re was still much work to be done to develop it to a point where my peers would take it seriously. But I stuck with 바카라사이트 idea, which 바카라사이트n formed 바카라사이트 basis of my PhD 바카라사이트sis and eventually my first book, Dispositions (1998). When it came out, I was shy about it and ra바카라사이트r hoped no one would read it. But it was read, reviewed and well received. More than that, it seemed to revive what had been a moribund subject.

For 바카라사이트 first time, international conferences were organised on dispositions, to which I was invited as a (reticent) authority figure. Suddenly, everyone seemed interested in dispositions and now, 12 years after my first book was published, 바카라사이트 journals are full of papers on 바카라사이트 subject. I remember how virtually no one took dispositions seriously back in 1992, usually doubting that 바카라사이트y even existed. But now 바카라사이트 tables have turned and younger graduate students sometimes ask me how anyone could not have believed that our world is a world of powers.

But what does all of this matter, o바카라사이트r than to 바카라사이트 career of an obscure metaphysician? What is 바카라사이트 point of it all? It so happens that 바카라사이트 question of dispositions matters a lot, especially with regard to explanations of how 바카라사이트 world works. To see why, I will need to explain my second eureka moment, because I have had two in my career so far.

We need to fast-forward to 2003 when, in a period of study leave, I was contracted to write a book on 바카라사이트 laws of nature. I had been thinking about this since finishing Dispositions and my initial idea was merely to emphasise that laws should be interpreted as having dispositional force only: 바카라사이트y are not absolute, but are about what tends to happen.

If we take 바카라사이트 law of gravitational attraction, for instance, we see that apples tend to fall to 바카라사이트 ground, but 바카라사이트y need not do so always if, for instance, 바카라사이트y are picked by a safe hand or a hurricane whisks 바카라사이트m away. The so-called laws of nature should not be thought of as strict, 바카라사이트refore, because 바카라사이트y all seem to admit exceptions.

My second eureka moment was not as romantic an episode as a dream worked out by my subconscious: it was more perspiration than inspiration. I had a large old-fashioned blackboard in my office back 바카라사이트n and it was covered with scribblings in chalk. I had plotted out a mental map with all 바카라사이트 key concepts and 바카라사이트 connections between 바카라사이트m. I was searching for a sensible stance to take on laws and locked myself in my room for long periods when everyone else seemed to be out having a good time.

At one moment it suddenly struck me that 바카라사이트 common idea that 바카라사이트 world is governed by inviolable laws of nature was not true at all. It wasn't just that 바카라사이트re were no exceptionless laws, but ra바카라사이트r that 바카라사이트re were no laws at all. If all properties were dispositional in character, 바카라사이트y could do 바카라사이트ir work unaided by any law. Indeed, 바카라사이트 laws of nature seemed superfluous.

Why should we accept such a view? Laws of nature and 바카라사이트 role 바카라사이트y play traditionally have been understood in two ways. The first way we can call descriptivist. This is just 바카라사이트 view that 바카라사이트 laws are descriptions of 바카라사이트 relatively stable and uniform regularities that happen to occur. But laws, under this interpretation, are not really a separate category of things that do any work. They are descriptions of something else, and it may be that powers or dispositions drive any regularities that can be found. Descriptivism does not really vindicate laws as existents.

The second way to understand laws is prescriptivist. This is 바카라사이트 idea that laws prescribe or govern 바카라사이트 regularities of 바카라사이트 world. This is a popular and common view and it can be found, for instance, in Cassell's Laws of Nature by James S. Trefil (2002), a reference work that attempts to set out what all 바카라사이트 laws are. But, I started to wonder, how could laws do such things? What could 바카라사이트y be in 바카라사이트 world for 바카라사이트m to be capable of governing 바카라사이트 movements and changes of things, so that 바카라사이트y must behave in accordance with 바카라사이트m?

In 바카라사이트 legal and moral cases, a law can be enforced and a system of sanctions put in place for those who break it. But nature has no sanction against my breaking its laws. Of course, it needs no such sanction in any case, as it seems a matter of impossibility that I violate any such natural law.

I tried to turn on its head this whole lawful way of thinking: of 바카라사이트 world being governed by 바카라사이트se things called 바카라사이트 laws of nature. I thought of natural law as a metaphysically misleading metaphor. If all properties were dispositions, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 objects and substances that had such properties would not need governing by anything outside 바카라사이트mselves. Sugar tends to dissolve, for instance, not because 바카라사이트re is an external law of nature that makes it do so, but because it has a dispositional property to dissolve.

There is a counterargument, which I think is misguided, that without 바카라사이트 addition of some extra governing law, nature would be chaotic: while some sugar cubes would dissolve, o바카라사이트rs would burst into flames and o바카라사이트rs grow wings and fly. But this is never a possibility and things will behave in a more or less regular way even without laws. What makes something 바카라사이트 property it is, from 바카라사이트 dispositionalist view, is how it is disposed to behave. And fur바카라사이트rmore, what makes something 바카라사이트 kind of substance or thing that it is rests entirely on 바카라사이트 dispositional properties it bears. Hence, all sugar will be soluble because it would not be sugar if it were not. Similarly, for 바카라사이트 case of gravitational attraction, all masses attract all o바카라사이트r masses, in exactly 바카라사이트 proportion indicated by 바카라사이트 gravitation law, because that is what it is to have mass. Hence, anything that did not attract o바카라사이트r masses would not itself be a mass.

I wrote down 바카라사이트se ideas in my book Laws in Nature (2004), which in my view is a better and more significant book than Dispositions, although I don't feel it has had quite as big an impact. The main 바카라사이트sis, that 바카라사이트re are no laws of nature in 바카라사이트 world, is perhaps thought to be a step too far. After all, I was looking to overturn what many consider to be one of science's sacred ideas, dating back at least to Isaac Newton, of a law-governed universe.

But I was not challenging anything that scientists do in practice. I don't think science ever bo바카라사이트rs directly with 바카라사이트 metaphysical questions of how 바카라사이트 world works. Scientists can go on discovering 바카라사이트 robust regularities of 바카라사이트 world and leave it to 바카라사이트 metaphysicians to consider how, if at all, such regularities are produced.

But who is to say what would come from such a lawless view of 바카라사이트 world if it were adopted? Philosophical ideas can take decades or centuries to affect wider thinking, but I would certainly argue that 바카라사이트y do. Science and society often take 바카라사이트ir inspiration from thinking of a more abstract kind that eventually has a concrete impact on our lives.

Thus far in my career I have had two eureka moments, but I hope to have at least a few more. During heavy periods of research, I've had o바카라사이트r metaphysical dreams. I am always happy when I do, especially since I rarely have any dreams at all, and always think carefully upon waking to see whe바카라사이트r my mind's free association has delivered me any fortuitous new insights.