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Properties: Qualities, Powers, or Both?

På svenska

Author

  • Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson

Summary, in English

Powers are popularly assumed to be distinct from, and dependent upon, inert qualities, mainly because it is believed that qualities have their nature independently of other properties while powers have their nature in virtue of a relation to distinct manifestation property. George Molnar and Alexander Bird, on the other hand, characterise powers as intrinsic and relational. The difficulties of reconciling the characteristics of being intrinsic and at the same time essentially related are illustrated in this paper and it is argued that the reasons for thinking of powers as essentially relational are based on misguided epistemological consideration. Finally, I present a way of thinking of fundamental properties as primitive natures that we can only understand in virtue of what they do but which we should not think of as being ontologically constituted by these doings. According to this view, properties are both qualities and powers.

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

55-80

Publication/Series

Dialectica

Volume

67

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Philosophy

Keywords

  • Metaphysics
  • Properties
  • Powers
  • Qualities
  • Categorical/Dispositional Distinction

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1746-8361
  • DOI: 10.1111/1746-8361.12011