Abstract
Perhaps the fundamental concepts of physical ontology are those of objects and events; for it is widely assumed that the world itself is amenable to being characterized successfully by means of an event ontology or an object ontology, where the outstanding difficulty is simply one of finding the right sort of fit. Although these pathways have seemed promising, they have not been without their own distinctive difficulties, for despite an area of agreement concerning suitable criteria for the individuation of objects, substantial disagreement abounds regarding appropriate standards for the differentiation of events.1 This matter is consequential for both perspectives, moreover, since whether objects are to be constructed from events or events from objects, neither view presumes either category alone provides a sufficient foundation for an adequate ontology.2 The problems which they share have resisted successful explication, nevertheless.
The author is indebted to Carl G. Hempel, Kenneth Henley, John Hooker, and Igal Kvart for stimulating comments on certain aspects of the issues dealt with here.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
R. M. Martin, ‘On Events and Event-Descriptions’, in Fact and Existence (ed. by J. Margolis), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1969, with comments by D. Davidson, R. J. Butler, and W. C. Salmon, provides an interesting illustration of some of the controversy over this specific problem.
Unlike Martin, Russell and Reichenbach, for example, construct objects from events. Cf. Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter, New York, Dover Publications, 1954, p. 286; and esp. Hans Reichenbach, Elements of Symbolic Logic, New York, The Free Press, 1947, pp. 266 - 274.
This plausible principle suggests the requirement of descriptive completeness as a necessary condition for a logically perfect language L*,namely: unless there is (at least) a one-to-one correspondence between the predicates in some language L and the properties of the physical world, no language will be adequate to express all the true statements that describe the world.
Some of the inadequacies of extensional language are discussed with respect to lawlike sentences in James H. Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’, in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. XXXII (ed. by A. Michalos and R. Cohen), Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel, 1976; and with respect to confirmation in James H. Fetzer, ‘Elements of Induction’, in Local Induction (ed. by R. Bogdan ), Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel, 1976.
Of course, it would be theoretically problematical to require that all logical truths be logical consequences of a maximal nomically perfect theory as well, since such a theory would be inconsistent if it were complete, and conversely.
Strictly speaking, the problem of ruling out proper names is more complex than indicated here; see, for example, Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation,New York, The Free Press, 1965, pp. 264-270. See also Section 2 below.
The concepts of logical elegance and of theoretical illumination, of course, may themselves be subject to explicative investigation; but it seems clear on intuitive grounds than an ontology that is maximal in its range and minimal in its assumptions while exhibiting the systematic interconnections that obtain between such basic ontological categories as those of property, object, event, and so forth would qualify as logically elegant and theoretically illuminating.
Insofar as explanations and predictions concern events belonging to the world’s history, the theory of explanation and prediction would appear to be classified as an aspect of philosophical ontology from this point of view, especially when explanandum sentences themselves describe events involving individuals by name.
If certain problems of ontology, say, or modality, or causality, or contrary-to-fact conditionals, which arise in ordinary language, turn out not to arise in science as reconstituted with the help of formal logic, then those philosophical problems have in an important sense been solved’, W. V. O. Quine, ‘Mr. Strawson on Logical Theory’, Mind (October, 1953 ), p. 446.
This definition incorporates the ‘single case’ aspect of dispositions which receives consideration in James H. Fetzer, ‘A Single Case Propensity Theory of Explanation’, Synthese (October, 1974).
The assumption that every property is instantiated by at least one individual thing during the course of the world’s history thus seems logically equivalent to the classical Aristotelian existential presupposition for categorical terms.
Any feature of an experimental arrangement or of a test trial that influences the strength of the tendency for a trial of that kind to bring about specific outcome responses is theoretically relevant to that arrangement’s description; see, e.g., the discussion of these issues in Fetzer, ‘Elements of Induction’, esp. pp. 152-154.
Cf. W. V. O. Quine, ‘On Ordered Pairs and Relations’, Selected Logical Papers,New York, Random House, 1966, pp. 111-112. See also Section 3(a) below.
Cf. W V. O. Quine, ‘Concatenation as a Basis for Arithmetic’, op. cit.,esp. pp. 71-73, for a discussion of the role of concatenation in abstract contexts.
W. V. O. Quine, Word and Object, Cambridge, The M.I.T. Press, 1960, p. 193.
The account presented by Roderick Chisholm, ‘Events and Propositions’, Nous (February, 1970) appears to be the most similar to the present author’s views; however, Chisholm neglects to draw the occasion sentence/eternal sentence distinction and therefore overlooks its theoretical importance. See Section 4(a).
A sentence serving as a meaning postulate might be regarded as sometimes true and sometimes false, namely: before and after altering the relevant language framework. The distinction employed here is therefore relative to a specific framework at a specific time. However, see also Section 3(c) below.
This concept is introduced in Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’, pp. 384-385.
The transient property of being referred to by a certain predicate, such as ‘white phosphorous’, illustrates the possibility of taking some property away from the members of a reference class by the procedure of a linguistic change.
Cf. Quine’s discussion, op. cit.,pp. 90-95, esp. regarding so-called ‘sortal’ predicates.
Cf. W. V. O. Quine, ‘Natural Kinds’, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays,New York, Columbia University Press, 1969, which neglects to take account of these important differences. The choice of an appropriate reference class, of course, is characteristically pragmatically determined; see also Section 4(c).
As Quine observes, ‘to be is to be the value of a variable’, serves as a criterion of the ontological commitments of an hypothesis or a theory; but what there is is another question. Cf. W. V. O. Quine, ‘On What There Is’, From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1953, pp. 15 - 16.
A useful discussion of this issue is presented in Alberto Cortes-Osorio, Identity in Quantum Mechanics (Indiana University, unpublished dissertation, 1971).
Strictly speaking, temporal instants are atomic events in the course of the world’s history, i.e., they are not ontologically primitive but derivative; this relationship is indicated (without elaboration) in Section 4(b) below.
Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’.
Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’, pp. 385-386.
Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’, pp. 386-388.
Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’, pp. 388-389.
W. V. O. Quine, Mathematical Logic, New York, Harper and Row, 1951, p. 120.
These instantiations are to be construed as features of atomic, rather than molecular, events, as those concepts are defined in Section 4(a) and 4(b).
Principle (VI) logically implies Principle (V), which implies Principle (IV), but not conversely, with respect to those properties instantiated as features of atomic events. But this issue is complex for features of molecular events.
The falsity of a material conditional, of course, is logically sufficient to establish the falsity of the corresponding subjunctive conditional, but not conversely. An analysis of the fundamental logical relations between causal, subjunctive, and material conditionals from a dispositional point of view is presented in James H. Fetzer and Donald E. Nute, ‘Syntax, Semantics, and Ontology: A Probabilistic Causal Calculus’ (forthcoming).
Fetzer, ‘The Likeness of Lawlikeness’, pp. 390-391, fn. 11. Note that here ‘the actual world’ is synonymous with ‘the way things are’, since it is not assumed that permanent or transient properties are inevitably instantiated.
Cf. Reichenbach, Elements of Symbolic Logic,pp. 393-400, esp. pp. 396-398.
Cf. Karl Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery,New York, Harper and Row, 1965, p. 79, fn. 2. See also Fetzer and Nute (forthcoming).
It is therefore essential that no temporal variables occur in Principle (VII) in order for that principle to serve the identity of events as opposed to the identity of objects.
Cf. James H. Fetzer, ‘On Mellor on Dispositions’, Philosophia (forthcoming).
Davidson suggests that events of certain kinds, such as arguments or, perhaps, love affairs are not invariably continuous; Donald Davidson, ‘Events as Particulars’, Nous (February, 1970), pp. 28-29; however, they should instead be viewed as examples of enduring dispositions with intermittent manifestations.
In other words, the historical sequences instantiating these dispositions are not merely the same kind of sequences but the very same sequences in the case of both objects; otherwise, things with markedly similar life-cycles, such as electrons or ball bearings, might turn out to be identical when they are not.
Spatial relations are likewise envisioned as derivative and not primitive on a dispositional construction, where the gravitational attraction of one object for another is a permanent disposition of those things having mass; thus, e.g., the square of the distance between two objects is proportional to their masses and is inversely proportional to the force of gravitational atraction between them, i.e., d2 = G(mlm2)/F. See also Section (2).
Every property instantiation that happens to belong to any thing’s history is a unique event in that history with temporal relations to other events; as a result, the property of instantiating that property at that time is an hereditary property, i.e., a property that some thing may lose only by losing membership in every class of things that could instantiate that property.
An explication of the independent concept of epistemic possibility may be found in James H. Fetzer, ‘On "Epistemic Possibility" ’, Philosophia (April—July, 1974), p. 335.
The crucial case is therefore that of statistical dispositions; see, e.g., James H. Fetzer, Dispositional Probabilities’, in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,vol. VII (ed. by R. Buck and R. Cohen), Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel, 1971; and also Fetzer and Nute (forthcoming).
Since otherwise ‘(Ex)Fx y (Ex)—Fx’ is true, necessarily, by existential generalization, contrary to the hypothesis of null denotation; and since otherwise ‘Fa • —Fa’ is true, necessarily, by the hypothesis of multiple denotation. Cf. Herbert Hochberg, ‘Strawson, Russell, and the King of France’, in Essays on Bertrand Russell (ed. by E. D. Klemke), Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1971, esp. pp. 311-313. See also John R. Searle, ‘Proper Names and Descriptions’, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy,Vol. 6 (ed. by P. Edwards), New York, Macmillan, 1967, pp. 489-491.
Saul A. Kripke, ‘Naming and Necessity’, in Semantics of Natural Language (ed. by D. Davidson and G. Harman), Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel, 1972, esp. pp. 269-270. Kripke’s arguments, of course, may otherwise be valid.
Thus, the existential condition should specify the underlying reference class K of which that thing is supposed to be a uniquely different member, as, e.g., (Ex){(Kx • tlix) • (y)[(Ky • +fy) D (x = y)])’, which would indicate that class by implication. Of course, conversational contexts usually suffice.
Except, of course, those imposed by logical and physical impossibilities. An exception to the general principle cited above, however, may be posed by so-called ‘laws of co-existence’. See James H. Fetzer, ‘Grünbaum’s "Defense" of the Symmetry Thesis’, Philosophical Studies (April 1974), for discussion of related issues.
A general discussion of this issue is provided in James H. Fetzer, ‘On the Historical Explanation of Unique Events’, Theory and Decision (February, 1975). See also note 12 above.
The theory of explanation attending the dispositional construction is set forth (in part) in Fetzer, ‘A Single Case Propensity Theory of Explanation’, esp. pp. 187-196. See also James H. Fetzer, ’Reichenbach, Reference Classes, and Single Case "Probabilities" ’, Synthese 34 (1977), 185 - 217.
Mental’ properties are therefore necessary properties of physical structures, Kripke’s criticism, ‘Naming and Necessity’, pp. 334-342, notwithstanding. Cf. C. V. Borst (ed.), The Mind/Brain Identity Theory,New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1970, for alternative theoretical accounts of the relations involved here.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1978 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fetzer, J.H. (1978). A World of Dispositions. In: Tuomela, R. (eds) Dispositions. Synthese Library, vol 113. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1282-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1282-8_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8347-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1282-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive