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Dispositions and causes
Edited by Toby Handfield
Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009
ISBN: 9780199558933
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Book description
In recent decades, the analysis of causal relations has become
a topic of central importance in analytic philosophy. More recently,
dispositional properties have also become objects of intense study. Both of
these phenomena appear to be intimately related to counterfactual
conditionals and other modal phenomena such as objective chance, but little
work has been done to directly relate them. Dispositions and Causes
contains ten essays by scholars working in both metaphysics and in
philosophy of science, examining the relation between dispositional and
causal concepts.
Particular issues discussed include the possibility of reducing dispositions
to causes, and vice versa; the possibility of a nominalist theory of causal
powers; the attempt to reduce all metaphysical necessity to dispositional
properties; the relationship between dispositions, causes, and laws of
nature; the role of causal capacities in explaining the success of
scientific inquiry; the grounding of dispositions and causes in objective
chances; and the type of causal power required for free agency.
The introductory chapter contains a detailed overview of recent work in the
area, providing a helpful entry to the literature for non-specialists.
About the author
Dr Toby Handfield is a Lecturer in the School of
Philosophy and Bioethics, Faculty of Arts, Monash University.
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