What Tends to Be

The Philosophy of Dispositional Modality

Rani Lill Anjum, Stephen Mumford (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

208 Seiten

2020
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-367-59087-1 (ISBN)

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People tend to enjoy listening to music or watching television, sleeping at night and celebrating birthdays. What should we make of a world where things tend to be one way but could be another? This book explores these questions and is the first full-length treatment of the philosophy of tendencies.

People tend to enjoy listening to music or watching television, sleeping at night and celebrating birthdays. Plants tend to grow and thrive in sunlight and mild temperatures. We also know that tendencies are not perfectly regular and that there are patterns in the natural world, which are reliable to a degree, but not absolute. What should we make of a world where things tend to be one way but could be another? Is there a position between necessity and possibility? If there is, what are the implications for science, knowledge and ethics?

This book explores these questions and is the first full-length treatment of the philosophy of tendencies. Anjum and Mumford argue that although the philosophical language of tendencies has been around since Aristotle, there has not been any serious commitment to the irreducible modality that they involve. They also argue that the acceptance of an irreducible and sui generis tendential modality ought to be the fundamental commitment of any genuine realism about dispositions or powers. It is the dispositional modality that makes dispositions authentically disposition-like. Armed with this theory the authors apply it to a variety of key philosophical topics such as chance, causation, epistemology and free will.

Rani Lill Anjum is Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway. Stephen Mumford is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, UK and Professor II at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.

PrefacePart I: Modality 1. Theory:Introducing the dispositional modality 2. History: Forebears of the dispositional modality Part II: Metaphysics 3. Chance: Overdisposed4. Causation: Causation and quantum mechanics (with Fredrik Andersen)Part III: Logic 5. Conditionals: Carnap and the Anglo-Austrian conspiracy against dispositions 6. Conditional probability: Conditional probability from an ontological point of view (with Johan Arnt Myrstad)Part IV: Epistemology 7. Perception: What we tend to see 8. Metascience: What we tend to knowPart V: Ethics 9. Value: Dispositions and ethics (with Svein Anders Noer Lie)10. Free will: Causation isnot your enemy. Afterword Bibliography Index

Erscheinungsdatum	01.07.2020
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	453 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
ISBN-10	0-367-59087-5 / 0367590875
ISBN-13	978-0-367-59087-1 / 9780367590871
Zustand	Neuware