Causation and Dispositional Properties
Toby Handfield and Graham Oppy. Monash Research Fund Postdoctoral Fellowship, 20042005.
This project will investigate the physical nature of dispositions, and show how dispositions relate to causes. Earlier theories have given unsatisfactory accounts of how dispositions are causally effective and consequently fail to explain why disposition-explanations can be both useful and true. Using recent research which suggests that causation is the exchange of conserved quantities, the investigator shall develop a theory of dispositions as causal process structures that is, as distinctive patterns of causal interaction. The project will have implications, not only for a variety of philosophical topics, but also for scientific practice.