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Chapter 4: Categoricalism and Dispositionalism: the Transcendental Arguments

1.0 Introduction

There are many reasons to be a dispositionalist or a categoricalist. This chapter is

concerned only with extreme arguments, for the most part, transcendentalarguments, of

the form:

If dispositionalism (or categoricalism) were false, thenx would be

impossible

Butx is something quite obviously possible, even actual.

Therefore, dispositionalism (or categoricalism) is true.

On behalf of dispositionalism, Sydney Shoemaker argues that if it were false, knowledge

of similarity, difference, and change would be impossible; neither could we refer to

properties.1 Chris Swoyer echoes the worry about reference and adds that if

dispositionalism were false, we would have no coherent way of describing other possible

worlds.2 On behalf of categoricalism, Richard Swinburne thinks knowledge would be

impossible if dispositionalism were true.3 According to Simon Blackburn

dispositionalism entails that none of our ordinary claims would be true.4 And David

Armstrong thinks that dispositionalism entails that nothing is actual.5

1 Sydney Shoemaker, "Causal and Metaphysical Necessity,"Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1998),

Sydney Shoemaker, "Causality and Properties," in Time and Cause, ed. Peter van Inwagen (Dordrecht: D.Reidel, 1980), Sydney Shoemaker, "Properties, Causation, and Projectibility," inAspects of Inductive

Logic, ed. L. Jonathan Cohen and Mary Hesse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).2 Chris Swoyer, "The Nature of Natural Laws,"Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (1982).3 R. G. Swinburne, "Reply to Shoemaker," inAspects of Inductive Logic, ed. L. Jonathan Cohen and Mary

Hesse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).4 Simon Blackburn, "Filling in Space,"Analysis 50 (1990).5 David M. Armstrong, "Shoemaker's Theory of Properties,"Philosophical Studies (forthcoming).

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I think that all of these arguments fail to establish their conclusions, but, as is

typical of transcendental arguments, they fail in interesting ways. In showing how the

positions avoid absurdity, various "costs" arise for each. As such, the point of this

chapter is not merely to discredit these arguments, but to draw out the metaphysical,

epistemological, and semantic commitments dispositionalism and categoricalism take on

in the course of providing answers to these transcendental challenges. In abstract

metaphysics, theories are far enough removed from the realm of sense that "hands-down

refutations" are rare; it is almost always possible to save a theory by making adjustments

in auxiliary assumptions somewhere. But metaphysical theories can still be judged as a

whole on their simplicity, explanatory power, and fit with other realms of discourse. The

first step in judging dispositionalism and categoricalism according to these criteria is to

consider the transcendental arguments against them and the compensating moves such

arguments require.

2.0 Arguments for Dispositionalism

2.1 Shoemaker's Epistemic Argument

This section will criticize an epistemic argument for dispositionalism offered by

Shoemaker. After presenting the argument, I discuss several possible responses,

ultimately offering two criticisms that undermine the argument. One of my replies points

out an interesting structural similarity between Shoemaker's position and his opponent's,

which threatens to turn any epistemic argument for dispositionalism back on itself.

Shoemaker thinks that if dispositionalism is false and properties are uncoupled

from powers (or, equivalently, dispositions), the following situations become possible.6

6 Shoemaker, "Causality and Properties."

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First, a property could endow objects with no causal powers nor with any capacities to be

causally effected in characteristic ways. Second, different properties could play the same

causal role. Third, a property instantiated by an object could contribute one set of powers

to it at one time and another set of powers to it at another time. From these three

possibilities we can derive three kinds of skeptical scenarios, (S1)-(S3):

(S1) Objects that seem alike to our senses and to any of our instruments

could in fact be radically dissimilarbecause one of the objects has many

causally inert properties that the other object lacks. Further, objects thatappear dissimilar could in fact be very similar by virtue ofsharingmany

causally inert properties.

(S2) Objects that appear similar might in factshare no genuine properties,but might instead merely endow their hosts with thesame causal powers.

(S3) Objects that appear to have changed might in fact nothave changed.

Instead, there may have been a change only in what a property contributes

to the powers of its host. (Likewise, objects that appearnotto change

might in fact have changed.)

According to Shoemaker, if dispositionalism is false, then (S1)-(S3) are possible.

But once these scenarios are made possible, we have no way to rule them out:

If there can be properties that have no potential for contributing to the

causal powers of the things that have them, then nothing could be good

evidence that the overall resemblance between two things is greater than

the overall resemblance between other things.7

So, if dispositionalism is false, "it is impossible for us to know various things [like

similarity facts] which we take ourselves to know".8 Because we do know facts about

similarity and facts about what has changed and what hasn't, (S1)-(S3) must be

impossible, and therefore, dispositionalism must be true. In premise form:

7 Ibid., 237.8 Ibid.

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1. If dispositionalism were false, certain skeptical scenarios (S1-S3)

would be possible.

2. The possibility of such skeptical scenarios would entail that no one has

(or could have) knowledge of similarity or knowledge of change nor could anyone

refer to properties.

3. But we do have such knowledge and we can refer to properties.

4. Therefore, dispositionalism is true.

2.1.1 Responses to the Epistemic Argument

Consider the first premise. Does the denial of dispositionalism entail that (S1)-

(S3) are possible? No. Recall that dispositionalism, in simplified form, is the

conjunction of two claims -- that fundamental properties are individuated by their causal

roles andthat they play their causal roles essentially. But we need not say that

fundamental properties play their causal roles essentially in order to rule out the

scenarios. As David Owens has observed, we could simply stipulate that "necessarily,

every property has some causal powers" and "necessarily, identical properties have

identical powers".9 In other words, what is important for ruling out the scenarios is the

individuation claim and not the essence claim. Well, strictly speaking, the individuation

claim and also the qualification that laws do not change over time. This would ensure

that (S1)-(S3) cannot obtain while avoiding commitment to the stronger dispositionalist

thesis.

The dispositionalist could respond that the weaker solution is ad hoc. Why would

properties and powers correspond one-to-one within a world but notacross worlds?

Contingent laws of nature might provide the rationale. If in every world, laws assign a

9 David Owens, "Causes and Laws," in Causes and Coincidences (New York: Cambridge University Press,

1992), 39.

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unique, stable causal role to every property, but they assign different roles in different

worlds, then weaksupervenience of properties on powers and powers on properties

follows, none ofS1-S3 is possible, and skepticism is averted.

However, standard accounts of laws do not require that laws assign unique, stable

causal roles to every property:

It is consistent with regularity accounts of laws, for instance, David

Lewis's account10, that some properties do not enter into any large-scale

regularities, and thus, are causally inert. Further, two properties could enter

into exactly the same regularities.

It is consistent with the view that laws are contingent relations between

universals, held by Dretske, Tooley, and Armstrong11, that some properties

stand in no nomic relations and that two properties stand in exactly the same

nomic relations.

So, until an independently motivated theory of laws supports the individuation of

properties by their causal roles, the anti-dispositionalist should admit the possibility of

S1-S3.

Another objection targets Shoemaker's second premise.12 The mere possibility of

(S1)-(S3) does not undermine our knowledge, for we have evidence that the scenarios do

not obtain. While our judgments of similarity and change could be largely false, we have

a good reason to think otherwise: postulating a one-to-one correlation between properties

10 David Lewis, "Counterfactuals," (1973), David Lewis,Philosophical Papers: Volume 2 (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1986).11 David M. Armstrong, What Is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Fred

Dretske, "Laws of Nature,"Philosophy of Science 44 (1977), Michael Tooley, "The Nature of Laws,"

Canadian Journal of Philosophy (1977).12 Swinburne, "Reply to Shoemaker," 316.

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and powers is theoretically simplerthan postulating causally inert properties and

vacillating relations between properties and powers.

Shoemaker thinks appeals to simplicity are misguided here.13 For, if

dispositionalism is false, there is no explanatory connection whatever between properties

and powers. If one is an anti-dispositionalist, why should one think that the number of

properties has anything to do with the number of powers?

A specific theory of causality and laws could provide an explanatory link between

properties and powers and render the postulation of a one-to-one correlation between

powers and properties a simpler explanation of our experience than hypotheses like (S1)-

(S3). For instance, consider regularity accounts. It is simpler to suppose one kind of cause

(regular antecedent event-type) of a typical effect than two or more kinds of indiscernible

causes. I won't pursue this further here, but suffice it to say that only if one lacks a theory

of causation or causal powers will one lack grounds for asserting that simplicity favors

the postulation of one property per power.14

2.1.2 My Replies

The appeal to simplicity might be enough to dismiss Shoemaker's epistemic

argument as inconclusive. But I think there are more lessons to be learned from it.

Consider what Shoemaker means by "possibility" in premises 1 and 2. It cannot be

conceptual possibility, for the skeptical scenarios are conceptually possible regardless of

whether dispositionalism is true or false. Dispositionalism is, after all, a highly abstract,

purely metaphysicaltheory of properties. While it may be true, it is conceivable that it is

13 Shoemaker, "Causality and Properties," 238.14 The danger in such an assertion is that it invites the dispositionalist to retort that simpler still is to do

away with categorical properties altogether and substitute causal features. Later in this chapter, I address

the charge.

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nottrue. So, one can simply read the first premise as: "Certain skeptical scenarios are

conceptually possible." This reading still yields the skeptical result when added to the

premise that if the scenarios are conceptually possible, we cannot have knowledge of

similarity or change. So, if we interpret the argument as trading on the notion of

conceptual possibility, it is at best a generic argument that we have no property or

similarity knowledge, regardless of the correct metaphysical theory of properties. It is

not an argument for dispositionalism.

But perhaps Shoemaker intended "possible" to be read as "metaphysically

possible". The denial of dispositionalism is supposed to motivate the metaphysical

possibility of the skeptical scenarios while dispositionalism renders them impossible. But

let's examine premise 2. If we maintain a univocal reading of "possible", then premise 2

reads: "The metaphysical possibility of (S1)-(S3) would entail that no one has (or could

have) knowledge of similarity or change."

Now premise 2 seems false. Why should the mere metaphysical possibility of a

certain skeptical scenario, whether or not we are aware of it, undermine our ordinary

claims of property and similarity knowledge? Imagine psychological twins, both

dispositionalists, one of whom lives in a dispositionalist world, while the other lives in a

non-dispositionalist world.15 If Shoemaker's second premise is correct, the

dispositionalist in a non-dispositionalist world cannothave knowledge of change or

similarity. But his psychological twin, in a dispositionalistworld, can have property and

15 Of course, if dispositionalism is true, there is no non-dispositionalist world, for dispositionalism is a

thesis about possible worlds themselves. But, from an epistemic point of view, we can imagine the space

of worlds such that all worlds are dispositional and we can imagine the space of worlds such that all worlds

are not dispositional. The "twins" will not be occupants of two worlds within the same set of possible

worlds, but in two worlds each of which is in a set of worlds that, from our epistemic point of view, might

be the set of all possible worlds.

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2.1.3 Skeptical Analogues

My second response poses analogues to all three of Shoemaker's skeptical

scenarios for dispositionalists and argues that if (S1)-(S3) threaten to undermine our

knowledge, then so do these scenarios.17The key to finding the parallel scenarios lies in

recognizing that causal powers are often conditional, i.e. they depend on the presence of

another property for their potency. (E.g., flammable objects require the presence of

oxygen to manifest their flammability.) The conditional nature of powers makes it

possible that some property,P, is detectable only with devices made from Q-material.

But no part of dispositionalism guarantees that Q is an instantiated property. If there is

no Q-stuff in the actual world, thenP-properties are for all practical purposes

undetectable. Call dispositional properties likeP"quasi-inert". Dissimilar-appearing

objects might, unbeknownst to us, share many quasi-inert properties;similar-appearing

4. Therefore, one ought to affirm dispositionalism.The reformulated argument is consistently internalist. It argues that coherence

demands that we either become skeptics or dispositionalists, regardless of what is "really"

metaphysically possible.

Again, though, it is not clear why we should accept the second premise. Wecould accept that the skeptical scenarios are possible but insist that we do have

knowledge of similarity and change. In particular, we could employ the following

Moorean argument:1. I believe that I have property and similarity knowledge.

2. I believe that if the skeptical scenarios were actually prevalent in

my environment, I would not have such knowledge.

3. Therefore, I ought to believe that the skeptical scenarios are notprevalent in my environment.

Shoemaker would doubtless object that my argument begs the question. But it is

difficult to see how my argument differs from Shoemaker's in this respect. WhileI say I ought to believe that I am not actually in a skeptical scenario, Shoemaker's

argument reaches, from the same premises, the stronger conclusion that I ought to

believe it is not possible that I am in a skeptical scenario.17 Roughly the same approach is found in John Hawthorne, "Causal Structuralism,"Philosophical

Perspectives (forthcoming).

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objects might differ radically with respect to quasi-inert properties. So most of our

similarity judgments could be false.

Secondly, suppose that the co-instantiation ofPandR1 yields effectE, and

likewise, the co-instantiationPandR2 yieldsE, butR1 is not identical toR2 because they

yield different effects when combined with uninstantiated (or alien) properties. Now,

from the sameness of detectable properties, we cannot infer sameness of underlying

property. For we will detect onlyE, whether the underlying property of the object isR1

orR2.

Finally, supposePis detectable only by reaction with either of two kinds of stuff

in the environment, S1 orS2. Moreover, suppose that S1 and S2 yield different effects

when they react withP. Now, if there is no independent test for the existence ofS1 orS2,

except by reaction withP, the following is possible. Before a certain time, t, S1 is

prevalent, but there is no S2 in the environment; aftert, the reverse holds. Now it will

appear that objects havingPwill have undergone a fundamental change. For they will

have different causal effects before and aftert. But, in fact, the only change is in the

prevalent environmental conditions. So, objects that appear to change might not really

change. For parallel reasons, objects that appear not to change might really change.

If the mere possibility of the skeptical scenarios posed by Shoemaker were

enough to undermine our knowledge of similarity and change, the mere existence of the

analogues above would be enough to undermine our knowledge even if dispositionalism

were true.

Consider two possible responses on behalf of the dispositionalist. First, the

dispositionalist might simplystipulate that powers cannot be conditional on alien

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properties. Thus, my skeptical analogues would be ruled impossible. Second, the

analogy is not exact. In the analogues, it is nomologically possible to uncover the

skeptical scenarios; one need only visit a world where all of the uninstantiated properties

are instantiated in the right places and times. But in (S1)-(S3), there is no nomologically

possible way to figure out that one is radically mistaken.

As for the stipulation that powers cannot be conditional on alien properties, I

grant that it would solve the skeptical problem at hand. But such a stipulation would also

be grossly ad hoc. One of the motivations for dispositionalism is the idea that some

powers might be unmanifested.

18

A possible world might consist of a single electron,

with all of the powers of actual electrons, but without the means for triggering most of

those powers. If there could be such powers, then powers cannot be reducible to wholly

manifest properties. Anti-dispositionalists have rejected this argument on the grounds

that the very idea of such powers is suspect, but a dispositionalist who wishes to reject it

must offer some other grounds.19

The other objection rests on the disanalogy between (S1)-(S3) and the

corresponding cases I pose for the dispositionalist. There is some kind of disanalogy,

but, on closer inspection, it is difficult to see why it is relevant. Why does it matter that,

for the dispositionalist, there is a nomologically possible world where one can find out

that one is massively deceived? Worlds where one detects this are worlds that instantiate

alien properties. These worlds might be very remote. Of course, ifone had a machine

18 C. B. Martin, "Properties and Dispositions," inDispositions: A Debate, ed. Tim Crane (London and NewYork: Routledge, 1996), 74.19 Further, as John Hawthorne has pointed out, we can generate skeptical analogues without invoking alien

properties at all. Imagine that P and Q differ only in that one, but not the other, causes R. R, however, has

backward-looking causal features but not forward-looking features. If R is not constitutive of a mental

state, then the difference between P and Q will be undetectable. (If we rule out properties with only

backward-looking causal features, then let R cause some other property, which is itself causally isolated

from the world of sense.)

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designed of alien materials, one could tell whether things were similar and whether things

had changed. However, dispositionalists in this world neither have nor can acquire these

alien devices. For all practical purposes, those subject to the analogous skeptical

scenarios share the fate of those subject to the original skeptical scenarios.20

The difference between the two sets of skeptical scenarios may be less than it

initially seems. For even non-dispositional properties are conditional powers, in some

sense. Every property endows things with causal powers insome possible world, perhaps

a world with different laws. So "causally inert" properties are not inert,per se; they

endow objects with certain powers conditional on certain laws of nature. Further,

properties that play the same causal role in the actual world, play different causal roles

according to some set of laws. So, even non-dispositionalist properties qualify as

conditional powers if laws are allowed into the conditions. Even non-dispositionalist

properties are all, in some sense, detectable and detectably different in some set of

circumstances.

So the disanalogy boils down to this. The conditions under which one can

determine that one is a victim of (S1)-(S3) will involve the violation of a law. The

conditions under which one can determine that one is a victim of the parallel scenarios

for the dispositionalist will involve instantiating alien properties. But, from an epistemic

view, there is no real difference in the remoteness of these conditions.

Note that the schema according to which we have mirrored Shoemaker's skeptical

scenarios is perfectly general. For "inert" properties we have substituted powers that

depend on alien properties for their manifestation. For multiple properties that play the

same causal role in the actual world, we have substituted multiple powers that manifest

20

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their differences only relative to different alien properties. This mirroring schema stands

in the way of any argument for dispositionalism, epistemic or semantic, that depends on

an important difference in the space of possibility for dispositionalists and anti-

dispositionalists.

In sum there are three reasons to reject Shoemaker's epistemic argument for

dispositionalism. First, simplicity considerations favor the postulation of one property per

causal feature, on any plausible theory of causation or causal powers. Second, the

argument contains a crucial ambiguity in the word "possible". If "possible" means

conceivable, then Shoemaker has merely given a generic argument for skepticism about

similarity and change. If "possible" means metaphysically possible, then it seems false

that the possibility of (S1)-(S3) makes knowledge impossible. Third, analogous skeptical

scenarios threaten to undermine our knowledge even if dispositionalism is true.

2.2 Shoemaker's Semantic Argument

Shoemaker thinks that if multiple categorical properties played the same role, then

we could not refer to them individually. But it is part of the meaning of the term

"properties" that properties are the sorts of things to which we can refer.21 The semantic

worry with categoricalism, then, is that if multiple properties had the same causal

features, what we call "properties" would not be properties, but equivalence classes of

properties, namely, those classes of properties that confer the same causal power.22 But

Shoemaker finds the statement, "What we call 'properties' are not really properties but

equivalence classes of properties," to be semantically fishy.23 We have access, he

21 Shoemaker, in correspondence.22 Shoemaker, "Causal and Metaphysical Necessity."23 In correspondence.

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contends, to what we mean by the word "property" and what we mean by it is not to

single out equivalence classes but to name individual properties.

I will consider three responses. First, we can employ the analogous skeptical

scenarios to duplicate this worry for dispositionalism. Even dispositionalist properties can

depend on alien properties, so it could be that what appears to be one property is really a

number of properties alike with respect to their interactions with instantiated properties

but differing with respect to their interactions with alien properties. Thus, even if

Shoemaker is right about the nature of properties, he may end up saying that the most we

can unambiguously name are equivalence classes of properties, those with the same

causal features relative to instantiated properties.

Second, Shoemaker's objection assumes a semantics of property names on which

the names are devoid of descriptive content. Suppose, for instance, that we use the term

"property" in a way that entails being non-derivative (fundamental) as we have

throughout the present paper. Now it does not seem in any way paradoxical that what we

call "fundamental" turns out not to be fundamental. We can be wrong about what is

fundamental. Likewise, for any descriptive element that enters into the meaning of

"property," it is possible that we are mistaken about what satisfies that description. And it

is not obvious to me that the term "property" contains no descriptive element that could

fail to be satisfied by the things that we presently call "properties".

Third, as Hawthorne points out, if the laws are indeterministic, we may encounter

Pon one occasion and Q on another occasion even though they play the same role in the

laws of nature.24 Thus, we can refer to these properties singly as "the property that caused

such and such on this occasion". Of course, we would still be unable to determine

24 Hawthorne, "Causal Structuralism."

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whether we were referring to the same property on different occasions. But reference

could succeed nonetheless.

2.3 Shoemaker's Modal Argument

Shoemaker argues that it is a general modal principle that objects can vary across

worlds only in ways that they can change within a world over time.25 I could have been a

plumber because at some point in my actual life, things could have gone differently in

such a way that I would become a plumber. But I could not have been a poached egg,

because there are no conditions under which some earlier temporal segment of me could

have become a poached egg. Such a transformation would violate my persistence

conditions and if something happened that looked like my turning into a poached egg, we

would simply say that I ceased to exist. Of course, there are exceptions to the general

principle. I could have had a different birthday although there is no world in which my

birthday changes into a different one. But Shoemaker makes an exception for "historical

properties" like having a certain birthday.26

It is not obvious, however, that a property's having certain causal features is not

such a historical property. On regularity theories of laws, what makes it such thatFs

cause Gs is that allFs are followed by Gs and the generalization thatFs are followed by

Gs meets certain other qualifications (supports counterfactuals, figures in explanations, is

used for prediction, is confirmed by its instances, or is an axiom in the best theory of the

world). Since a generalization is about what happens everywhere and at all times, it is

obviously something that cannot change within a world. But it seems it could change

25 Shoemaker, "Causal and Metaphysical Necessity.", Shoemaker, "Causality and Properties."26 Shoemaker, "Causal and Metaphysical Necessity."

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across worlds. That is simply to say that different generalizations are true at different

worlds. So regularity theorists can respond to Shoemaker by arguing that having certain

causal features is, like having a certain birthday, a historical property and thus is an

exception to the general principle that the way things can change within a world

determines the ways they can change across worlds.

Of course, the regularity theory of laws is open to other objections.27 For

example, having a certain causal power seems to be an intrinsic property, not a global

one. But if powers derive from laws and laws are universal regularities, then whether

something here and now has a certain power depends on what happens everywhere else

in space and time.28 Such objections to regularity accounts are numerous and will be

treated at length in the following chapter. For now, note that it will be difficult on any

view to render powers intrinsic. For if a power is intrinsic, then it could exist in isolation.

But (deterministic) powers are supposed toguarantee their effects, which occur later in

time.29

27 I discuss some of these in the following chapter.28 The objection was raised by Shoemaker, in correspondence.29 Even if an a priori argument could be mounted against all regularity theories (and, ingeneral, against any theory on which causal roles turn out to be historical properties)

there would be still be a further reply. According to another theory, laws are contingent

relations between universals. See Armstrong, What Is a Law of Nature? Tooley, "TheNature of Laws." Dretske, "Laws of Nature." It is not obvious that this view is false

because universals can stand only in necessary relations. It may be that the relation

between properties and causal roles is the only exception to the principle that the ways

things can vary across worlds is limited to the ways they can vary within a world. Thatprinciple is motivated by considering cases ofobjects varying in their properties over

times and worlds. But it is applied to variation in properties ofproperties, namely, causal

roles, over times and worlds. It might be that it is true that the properties ofobjects

cannot vary over worlds unless they can also so vary within a world and yet false that

properties ofproperties cannot vary over worlds unless they can also so vary within a

world. At least, it is not clear to me that this possibility is ruled out a priori.Still not convinced? The following is a counterexample due to Hawthorne.

Suppose the world has three laws. (1)Hs have a 50% chance of becomingFs and a 50%

chance of becoming Gs. (2)Fs remainFs forever after becomingF. (3) Gs remain Gs

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2.4 Swoyer's Modal and Semantic Arguments for Dispositionalism

Swoyer claims that assuming dispositionalism is the only way to get a handle on

our trans-world property talk:

Envision trying to discover whether certain sorts of particles were electrons if we

had lost our grip on such properties as charge and spin . . . without some

properties to provide limits on admissible stipulations and to provide some

foothold for trans-world identification, our counterfactual reasoning would be far

more indefinite than it is.

30

The argument here, echoing Sellars,31is that the only way we can meaningfully talk about

fundamental properties in counterfactual situations is to hold their causal roles fixed. For

we only know about these properties through their causal roles.

I have two remarks here. First, everyone (the categoricalist included)

acknowledges that the laws of nature are central to understanding counterfactual claims.

When we imagine counterfactual conditions, we hold the laws fixed and change other

things about the world.32 Thus, even if we are perfectly categoricalist about properties,

when we envision counterfactual situations, we may hold fixed the causal roles that

properties actually play. Second, we can use descriptions of the causal roles of properties

merely tofix the reference of our property terms rather than togive their meaning. Once

forever after becoming G. Now, take a givenH. It seems it could become eitherForG.But laws (2) and (3) prevent intra-worldF-G variation, so Shoemaker's principle

prevents inter-worldF-G variation. So noFcould have been a G and no G could have

been anF, which seems absurd given law (1).30 Swoyer, "The Nature of Natural Laws."31 Wilfrid Sellars, "Concepts as Involving Laws and Inconcievable without Them,"Philosophiy of Science

15 (1948).32 See, for example, Tim Maudlin, "A Modest Proposal Concerning Laws and Counterfactuals." and

"Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow," in Lewis,Philosophical Papers: Volume 2.

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reference is fixed, we are free to refer to alternative possibilities bystipulating

rearrangements of actual properties. There is nothing spooky or incoherent about this

process merely because we do not have an accompanying mental "picture" of what we

are rearranging.

Swoyer's second and more compelling argument is in the form of a thought

experiment. The thought experiment is intended to show that electrons have charge e,

their actual charge, in every possible world:

Imagine a possible world w1 in which there are putative electrons with some

determinate amount of charge e' ( e) and a world w2 which includes these

particles ofw2 as well as electrons from the actual world. Now in w2 are the first

sort of particles (with e') electrons as well? Most people find it counterintuitive to

suppose that they are and, moreover, our best theories of microphenomena seem

to require that all electrons have the same charge if claims about the behaviour of

atoms and the like are to be correct. And for lack of any good reasons for

concluding that both sorts of particles are electrons, these reasons create a

presumption that only the first sort are. But if the complex property, call itp,

possessed by the first sort of particles in w2 (with e') is not identical with the

property of being an electron thenp in w1 is surely not the property of being an

electron either. For the presence of some other sort of particle in w2 should have

no influence on the identity of the property of being an electron.

33

Swoyer's argument is intended to show that dispositionalism is true, i.e., that nomic roles

(or causal powers) strongly supervene on properties and vice versa. Thus, we must

assume that having charge e is part of the nomic role (or causal powers) correlated with

33 Swoyer, "The Nature of Natural Laws," 215.

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theproperty ofbeing an electron. The argument attempts to show that nothing could be

an electron without having e, because if something could be an electron without having e,

then there is a possible world where some electrons have charge e and others have a

different charge, e'. But there is not such a possible world. Therefore, in every possible

world, electrons have charge e, so dispositionalism is true.34

Categoricalists will protest that having charge e is itself a categorical property and

not a nomic role. Perhaps being an electron is a complex property (maybe a conjunctive

universal)35 which is a matter of having a certain charge, mass, spin, and so on. Thus,

Swoyer's argument at best shows only that being an electron is a complex property that

has its constitutive properties essentially. In other words, categoricalists could grant that

nothing could be an electron without also having the actual charge, spin, and mass of

actual electrons, while denying that this modal fact has anything to do with the relation

between fundamental properties and nomic roles. Of course, derivative properties can be

necessarily tied to their bases. Let "square-red" name the property of being square and

red. Now, it is necessary that if something is square-red, then it is square. But this tells us

nothing about properties and causal powers or nomic roles.

The Humean protest succeeds against Swoyer's argument as presented. But we

can modify it to avoid the criticism. Let us start not with a derivative property like being

an electron, but with a fundamental categorical property, saygravitational mass and let

us assume, for simplicity, that our world is Newtonian. Gravitational mass, in our world,

disposes objects to attract other objects in accordance with the gravitation law. Suppose,

34 Kripke makes the same move in motivating the essentiality of origins Saul Kripke,Naming and Necessity

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 114. The move is question-begging: Nathan Salmon,

"How Not to Derive Essentialism from the Theory of Reference,"Journal of Philosophy 76, no. 12 (1979).35 See David M. Armstrong,A World of States of Affairs (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,

1997).

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however, that there is a possible world w1 where objects possess gravitational mass, and

yet the Newtonian gravitation law is false. Suppose the gravitational constant is different

at w1. While objects possess gravitational mass at w1, they have different causal powers

in virtue of that mass, namely, those powers that follow from the alteredgravitation law.

So, name the causal powers objects have in virtue of their masses in the actual world,

"M", and name the causal powers objects have in virtue of their masses in w1, "M*".

Now, if there is a world where massive objects have M(the actual world) and another

world where massive objects have M* (w1), then it seems there could be a world (w2)

where some massive objects have Mand others have M*. In this case, or so goes the

parallel, we would not want to say that objects with Mand also objects with M* both

have gravitational mass. Rather, we would say that objects with Mhave mass and objects

with M* have some other property. And since we would not admit the possibility ofw2, a

world where mass endows some objects with Mand others with M*, we should not admit

w1, where mass endows objects with M*. For surely, the presence of some other kind of

property (or power) should not have any influence on whether an object has gravitational

mass.

The revised argument escapes the criticism set out above, but faces another just as

serious. Notice that if laws assign at most one role (or set of causal features) per

property, the example does not arise. Forw2 is supposed to be a world where mass

endows different objects with different sets of powers--some massive objects have Mand

others, M*. In fact, standard categoricalist theories of law-hood ensure that every object

that instantiates categorical propertyFin world w has the same causal powers (in virtue

of beingF) that every other instance ofFin w has (in virtue of beingF). For a regularity

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theorist, this follows simply from the fact that universal generalizations are universal.

The powers an object has in virtue of beingFderive from the true universal

generalizations in whichFfigures. Every instance ofFfalls under the same universal

generalizations involvingF. Thus, if objects within a world share all of their categorical

properties, they also share all of their powers. On the Dretske, Tooley, Armstrong36 view,

this derives from the fact that laws are relations between universals and presumably,

every instance of a universal at a world also instantiates all and only the nomic relations

that hold of that universal at that world.

We have employed a weak supervenience claim in defense of the categoricalist.

Popular theories of laws support, I have argued, the weak supervenience of powers on

properties.

(WE) Intra-world fundamental property twins are dispositional twins.

But I did not argue that fundamental properties weakly supervene on dispositions. For it

does not follow from either regularity theory or DTA theory that there can be at most one

property per power. In fact, on either theory, supervenience in that direction fails, as I

showed earlier. So neither the individuation nor the essence condition of

dispositionalism follows from (WE), which is the most Swoyer's argument can hope to

establish.

The heart of Swoyer's argument is a move from the weak to strong supervenience of

causal features on properties. He says, essentially, that since w2 is not possible, neither is

w1. Since it is not possible that some massive objects have Mand other massive objects

have M*, it is also not possible that massive objects have M*. My response has been to

point out that categoricalists have a principled reason for saying that w1 is possible but

36 Armstrong, What Is a Law of Nature, Dretske, "Laws of Nature.", Tooley, "The Nature of Laws."

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not w2. The principled reason is an appeal to laws; whether laws are regularities or

second-order relations between universals, w2 is impossible, but w1 is possible.

2.5 The Inconceivability of Nomic-Role Swapping

I have answered Swoyer's explicit modal and semantic arguments for

dispositionalism. But there is an implicit argument in Swoyer's comments that I have not

yet addressed. Swoyer noted that we gain a grip on trans-world property talk only

through nomic or causal roles. I disagreed, pointing out that we might use nomic or

causal roles to fix the reference of property terms, allowing us to stipulate other

possibilities as re-arrangements of actual properties. While my response is formally

adequate, I can imagine a potent response on Swoyer's behalf. Certainly, we could fix the

reference of "mass" by means of the mass-role in the laws of nature and we could fix the

reference of "charge" by means of the charge-role in the laws of nature. Then we could

stipulate the possibility that mass plays the charge role and charge plays the mass role.

But this is an absurdity. Surely mass cannot play the charge role. Whatever plays the

charge role, ipso facto just isn't mass. And I know this in the same way that I know I

could not have been a ham sandwich. I simply cannot imagine it.

The inconceivability of radical role-swapping is perhaps the most persuasive

argument against categoricalism. Categoricalism is the view that no causal features are

essential to a property, and therefore, it must allow the most radical role-swapping cases,

contrary to our considered modal intuitions. (I will treat this objection at greater length in

the following chapter.)

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2.5.1 Tu Quo Que.

The inconceivability of radical swapping cases is indeed a problem for

categoricalism. However, the dispositionalist faces the same sort of problem, for we can

conceive of different laws of nature governing actual properties. We can imagine a world

like ours where the gravitational constant is different at the billionth decimal place and

where objects still have gravitational mass. Yet, the dispositionalist argues that such a

world is impossible, for properties play their nomic roles essentially. So both the

categoricalist and the dispositionalist must deny our modal intuitions about properties.

The categoricalist must admit (inconceivable) property-swapping worlds and the

dispositionalist must deny (conceivable) law-altered worlds. So, dispositionalists cannot

claim the high ground on the issue of respecting our modal intuitions.

Absolute respect for our modal intuitions will entail that whether certain causal

features are essential to a property is a vague matter, for our modal intuitions are

themselves vague. We can imagine different laws of nature involving actual properties,

but only if the laws are changed slightly. If we change the laws radically, we are inclined

to say that different properties are involved. The gravitational constant might have been

different while objects still had gravitational mass. But we reject the possibility of

gravitational mass causing objects to repeleach other. The line between radical and slight

change in the laws is doubtless a blurry one. Our modal intuitions are simply

indeterminate on the question of how much change in the laws entails a difference in

property identity. If the de re features of properties are to reflect our modal intuitions,

then they must be vague as well. But we should not say that what is essential to properties

de re is itself vague. For properties and theirde re modal features are here taken to be a

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part of mind-independent reality. Properties, in our sense, are metaphysically robust

explainers of similarity, change, causation, and the like. Although this is a controversial

thesis, I am strongly inclined to say that vagueness of this sort simply doesn't apply to

reality itself, but only to how we think or speak of it. So, it seems any robustly realist and

determinate picture of properties and powers will violate some of our modal intuitions,

including those that are neither categoricalist nor dispositionalist.

What should we say then? Are our modal intuitions irrelevantto judging between

dispositionalism, categoricalism, and other views? Dispositionalists should object that

they have an explanation of why we can conceive of different laws in spite of their

impossibility, while categoricalists should argue that our inability to conceive of

swapping cases should not count against their possibility. Recall the earlier discussion of

the appearance of contingency of laws. There, we noted that the dispositionalist could

deny the connection between conceivability and possibility. That approach would, of

course, vindicate the categoricalist as well. But we also noted that the dispositionalist has

another strategy available, namely, providing conception-surrogates. When we think we

are imagining non-actual laws of nature governing the distribution of actual properties,

perhaps we are really imagining non-actual properties. Or perhaps we are imagining the

phenomenal experiences that would indicate that our laws are not what we think they are,

e.g., funny-pointer-reading experiences. In either case, conceivability tracks possibility,

only we are mistaken about what we can conceive. (Again, I treat this in more depth in

the following chapter.)

The categoricalist cannot co-opt the strategy of positing surrogate conceptions. For

her problem is not to explain how we seem to conceive something (different laws) that is

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impossible, but to explain how we cannotconceive something (nomic role swapping) that

is nevertheless possible. So the dispositionalist has an advantage on the issue of

conceivability and possibility. Both dispositionalists and categoricalists require that our

prima faciejudgments of possibility are mistaken. But dispositionalists seem to have an

error theory that accounts for our modal intuitions, whereas categoricalists do not.

2.6 Categoricalism and Role-Swapping Worlds

The inconceivability of worlds where actual categorical properties swap nomic

roles weighs heavily against categoricalism. In this chapter, I will consider three

premilinary responses on behalf of categoricalism, developing one of them further in the

following chapter. First, the categoricalist could deny that we are mistaken about which

properties are fundamental. While mass could not have played the charge role, that is

because mass is derivative; objects have mass in virtue of a categorical property, call it

mass*, and the laws of nature. Second, the categoricalist could follow Frege, Carnap and

Gibbard37in taking a dim view ofde re modality. On their view, all of our talk about the

modal features of properties is ultimately grounded in our concepts. Thus, properties in

themselves have no essential features, although our concepts of properties ground modal

claims. Third, the categoricalist could adopt a counterpart theory for properties. On this

view, properties are world-bound and what makes modal claims about actual properties

true are counterpart relations to alien properties.

37 Alan Gibbard, "Contingent Identity," in Material Constitution, ed. Michael Rea (Lanham, MY: Rowman

and Littlefield, 1997; reprint, Journal).

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2.6.1 Known Properties are Derivative.

Dispositional properties can always be constructed out of categorical properties

and laws. Consider the property Mofhaving the causal powers that mass endows objects

with in the actual world. Mis not a categorical property, but the categoricalist can

provide truth conditions for attributions ofM. If an object has mass in a world with the

actual-world laws, then it also has M. In general, for categoricalists, the truth-makers for

disposition claims are categorical properties and laws. Thus, one response to the

inconceivability of role-swapping worlds is to deny that mass, charge, charm, spin, and

the like are truly fundamental. Perhaps the properties that we take to be fundamental are

dispositional. But objects always have these dispositional properties in virtue of

categorical properties and laws of nature.

Philosophers leery of metaphysical speculation will say we ought not to posit

properties more basic than those required by physics. We ought to leave it to physicists to

determine what the fundamental properties are. In general, this is a fair criticism, but

here, the categoricalist has a reply. Actual physicists' modal intuitions indicate that by

"mass" they refer to something that necessarily plays a mass-like role. But this is an

accident about their intuitions that is entirely irrelevant to scientific practice. There could

have been a community of physicists just like ours, but who use "mass," "charge,"

"charm," just as actual physicists do, with one exception. They think that nomic role

swapping is possible; they do not think that mass mustplay a mass-like role in order to be

mass. "Mass is the property that actually plays the mass-role," they say, "It might have

played a radically different role while remaining mass." Now, this merely possible

community of physicists could agree entirely about the physics of the world with the

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actual community of physicists. The disagreement between the two communities is, after

all, merely a matter of the modalproperties, the essences, of fundamental properties.

They can agree about all of the non-modalproperties of the fundamental properties, e.g.,

their actual distribution. In fact, the disagreement would only arise in a philosophical

context.

One way of interpreting the scenario is to say that the two communities take

different sets of properties to be fundamental. Actual physicists take properties with

(vague) nomic essences to be fundamental while the merely possible physicists with

different modal intuitions take propertiessans essences to be fundamental and consider

the modally-rich properties to obtain in virtue oflaws and properties.

Since the two communities agree on everything important to doing science,

nothing in the practice of science should count for one view over the other. It is a mere

accidentthat we have the intuitions we do about the essential features of fundamental

properties. Thus, we should not draw any conclusion about what properties there are

fundamental based merely on the modal intuitions of actual physicists. Our question is

ontological. What is the nature of the fundamental properties? Analysis of oursemantic

intuitions about what we would and would not be willing to call "mass" fails to settle the

question, when different semantic intuitions would not make a difference to scientific

practice.

2.6.2 All Necessity isDe Dicto Necessity

Of course, one might draw a broader lesson from the admission that the practice

of science varies independently of the practitioner's metaphysical intuitions about the

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nature of fundamental properties. One might be inclined to find the whole project of

inquiring into the essences of fundamental properties somehow misguided. Something

was right about verificationism! If a supposed distinction in ontology makes no

difference to the practice of science, it's probably a distinction without a difference. Even

so, one should explain how such metaphysical disputes arise, or at least how we employ

modal intuitions and modal talk in ordinary discourse.

One way to dismiss the possibility that our ontology really hangs on our modal

intuitions is to adopt what I will call the Frege-Carnap-Gibbard (FCG) model for

interpreting modal discourse. The crux of the idea is that in modal contexts, names refer

not to objects, but to concepts.38In the statement, "Goliath is statue-shaped," "Goliath"

refers to Goliath and attributes to Goliath the property of being statue-shaped. But in the

statement, "Necessarily, Goliath is statue-shaped," "Goliath" denotes the Goliath concept,

and not Goliath itself.39 Thus, the modally qualified statement does not attribute a

property to Goliath at all. Rather, it is an indirect way of saying that the concept of

Goliath precludes anything that is not statue-shaped.

As Gibbard points out, this approach makes room for contingent identity (and not

merely contingent statements of identity).40 Suppose "Lumpl" names the lump of clay

that is, at all times, co-located with Goliath. Intuitively, we want to say that Lumpl is

identical with Goliath, i.e., the lump is identical to the statue. But, if we accept the

necessity of identity, as most philosophers do, post-Kripke, we must say that Lumpl and

38 Ibid.39 The Goliath concept, on Carnap's proposal, is a function from worlds to individuals. Intuitively, the

function picks out the individual (if any) at each world that satisfies the Goliath concept.40 The statement, "necessarily, Lumpl = Goliath" is true, according to Gibbard, just in case the Lumpl

concept = the Goliath concept. This is false because the functions from worlds to individuals are different.

At some worlds, there is a deformation that Lumpl survives and Goliath does not. Nevertheless, Lumpl =

Goliath. As an example of a contingent statement of identity consider "The inventor of bifocals was the

first Postmaster General."

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Goliath are identical not only in the actual world, but in every possible world. Thus,

Lumpl and Goliath share all of theirmodalproperties. But Lumpl and Goliath seem to

have different modal properties. Lumpl, being a lump of clay, could have survived

deformation, but Goliath, being a statue, could not have survived deformation. Thus, if

we accept the necessity of identity, Lumpl is not identical to Goliath.

Gibbard affirms our ordinary intuitions in saying that Lumpl is identical to

Goliath. How, then, do we account for their difference in modal properites? That's

simple. We deny that they have any modal properties. To say that it is possible for

Lumpl to survive deformation is only to say that the conditions for applying the Lumpl

concept do not preclude deformation. The same cannot be said about the Goliath concept.

In neither case are we talking aboutLumpl or Goliath. And thus, the apparent modal

differences between Lumpl and Goliath are not differences between Lumpl and Goliath

themselves, but only differences in our Lumpl and Goliath concepts.

Even if we begin with a robust notion of properties (e.g., as universals or

equivalence classes of perfectly resembling tropes)41 we can say that what is necessary or

possible for a property is a matter of what concept of that property we have in mind.

When we say "Necessarily, mass plays a role similar to the mass-role," this is true just in

case our concept of mass precludes anything that fails to play a mass-like role. But this

allows other concepts of mass that have conflicting conditions of application. For

instance, the merely possible community of scientists considered earlier has a concept of

mass that does not preclude the possibility that mass plays the charge role.

When actual physicists disagree with these merely possible physicists, it could be

construed as a genuine ontological dispute and not merely about concepts. What is mass?

41 Carnap (and perhaps Gibbard) would find this assumption troubling, but that's beside the point.

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Is it a property that necessarily plays a mass-like role? Or is it a property that only

contingently plays a mass-like role? It cannot be both. By Leibniz's Law, it cannot be

the same property that both could and could not have played the charge role. This is how

I construed the dispute in the first approach. It is a genuine ontological disagreement

towards which the practice of science is neutral.

The Frege-Carnap-Gibbard (FCG) model, on the other hand, provides a way of

deflating the dispute altogether. The dispute is not ontological. Rather, both concepts of

mass denote the very same property just as both "Lumpl" and "Goliath" denote to the

very same object. The apparent difference in modal properties is an illusion. For, the

question "Is mass a property that necessarily plays a mass-like role?" is not a question

about mass,per se, but only about the conceptof mass. In a modal context, "mass"

denotes the concept of mass. Thus, the question is merely "Does the mass-concept

preclude the playing of a non-mass-like role?" (Equivalently, "Does the mass-function

from worlds to individuals have in its range any individuals that play a non-mass-like

role?") This question naturally gets different answers from different communities with

different concepts of mass. But that shows nothing more than that there are different

concepts of mass, which was never in dispute.

One might think that if a metaphysical dispute is deflated, then neither party

should be declared the winner. Thus, it might be thought that adopting the FCG model,

by deflating talk of essences, we render both dispositionalism and categoricalism false.

But in fact, the FCG model favors categoricalism. For dispositionalism says that certain

properties have nomic (or causal) essences and categoricalism says they do not. On the

FCG model,properties do not have essences at all, only concepts. While the FCG model

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allows claims like "Necessarily, mass plays the mass role" to come out true, it does this

while denying that necessarily playing the mass role is a property of mass. Further, and

just as importantly, it allows that mass itself, under some different concept, could play a

non-mass-like role--and that runs directly counter to dispositionalism.

The chief drawback of the FCG model is the loss of semantic innocence it entails.

When I say that Goliath cannot survive deformation, I take myself to be saying

something about Goliath, the statue, and not merely about my conceptof Goliath.

Likewise, if I say that mass must play a mass-like role, I take myself to be saying

something about mass, the property, and not merely my concept of mass.

There are further difficulties. Putnam's Twin-Earth thought experiments were

widely taken to show that natural kind terms have essential properties that are known a

posteriori; assuming water is actually H2O, then necessarily, water is H2O. But if one's

water concept alone does not preclude the possibility that water is XYZ, then, on the

FCG model, it ispossible that water is XZY. Thus, if Putnam-style thought experiments

are accepted, the theory needs to be modified in some way. Such modifications will be

treated further in the following chapter.42

2.6.3 Counterpart Theory for Properties

David Lewis, Like Carnap and Gibbard, is skeptical of essences, but he devises a

solution that preserves a kind of unobjectionable de re modality--counterpart theory.43

42 For one such attempt see Alan Sidelle,Necessity, Essence, and Individuation (Ithaca and London:

Cornell University Press, 1989). Chalmer's two-dimensional semantics can also be viewed as an extension

of the FCG model. See David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 56-70.43 David Lewis, "Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic," inPhilosophical Papers: Volume 1

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).

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On counterpart theory, objects exist only in one possible world; they are world-bound.44

When I claim that I could have been a plumber, that is not because I am a plumberin

some other possible world. I exist only in the actual world. Rather, I could have been a

plumber because I have a counterpart in another possible world who is a plumber. I

could have been him, because we are similar in certain salient respects, and because he is

a plumber, I could have been a plumber.45 The counterpart relation depends heavily on

the linguistic context. Goliath is identical to Lumpl, so they share all of their

counterparts. But the term "Goliath" connotes a certain counterpart relation, a statue-

counterpart relation, while "Lumpl" connotes a lump-counterpart relation. Thus, both

"Goliath can't survive deformation," and "Lumpl can survive deformation," turn out true

on counterpart theory.46

Lewis applies counterpart theory only to objects and not to properties. Properties,

for Lewis, are either universals, sets of perfectly resembling tropes, or natural sets of

possible individuals.47 In any case, properties are not world-bound. But if we take

properties to be metaphysically robust, nothing stops us from applying counterpart theory

to properties as well. In fact, Mark Heller does just that.48 For Heller, properties are

world-bound and modal claims about counterparts are grounded in counterpart relations:

44 "Unactualized possibles, things in worlds other than the actual world, have often been deemed 'entia

nongrata,' largely because it is not clear when they are or are not identical. But identity literally understood

is no problem for us. Within any one world, things of every category are individuated just as they are in theactual world; things in different worlds are never identical, by P2. The counterpart relation is our substitute

for identity between things in different worlds." Ibid.45 David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1986), 194-95.46 Ibid., 252-53.47 David Lewis, "New Work for a Theory of Universals,"Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, no. 4

(1983).48 Mark Heller, "Property Counterparts in Ersatz Worlds,"Journal of Philosophy 95, no. 6 (1998).

Counterpart theories of properties are also suggested in Robert Black, "Against Quidditism,"Australasian

Journal of Philosophy 78 (2000). and Hawthorne, "Causal Structuralism."

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Positive charge could have existed even if I had never written about it, if and only

if positive charge has a counterpart that exists in a (close enough) world in which

I (or rather my counterpart) do not write about it . . . I propose that the

counterpart relation for properties be grounded in a non-transitive, context-

sensitive similarity relation.49

Counterpart theory allows us to say that properties do not have essences and yet

also to make sense of our modal intuitions that seem to invoke them. For instance, we

can explain why we are reluctant to say that mass could have played the charge-role. Our

concept of mass helps select the counterpart relation we employ when thinking about

alternative possibilities for mass. When we examine other possible worlds looking for

mass counterparts, because we have our mass concept in mind, we do not select anything

that figures in a pattern of instantiation in a way radically different from the lawful mass

pattern. The resulting modal judgment is due to the mass-concept and facts about the

actual distribution of the mass-property. But nothing prevents us from referring to the

same property, mass, with a different concept, which connotes a different counterpart

relation and yields different modal judgments.

In Heller's version of counterpart theory, there is a preferred counterpart relation,

similarity of overall pattern of distribution:

To describe a property P's role completely, we say 'it is such that', where the

ellipsis is filled in with the rest of the description of the entire world: P is such

that it has such-and-such a distribution among other properties P1, P2, and so on,

that have so-and-so distributions. Where a world is a Ramsey sentence . . . a

49 Heller, "Property Counterparts in Ersatz Worlds," 301.

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property's role in that world would be the open sentence that results from

dropping the existential quantifier that binds the property.50

Note that Heller's relation allows for vagueness in our modal intuitions, as similarity of

overall distribution is a matter of degree, and it will be vague exactly how much

similarity is required to ground a counterpart relation. Note further that counterpart

theorists insist that the modality involved is genuinely de re. It is true of mass, not of our

conceptof mass, that it could not play the charge role (even though this truth is relative to

a counterpart relation that is sensitive to the context). Thus, counterpart theorists claim to

have it all. Genuine full-blooded de re modality without either metaphysical essences,

wholesale revisionism about our modal intuitions, or vagueness in mind-independent

reality.

2.6.3.1 A Problem for Counterpart Theories of Properties

Objects are counterparts because they are similar in certain contextually salient

respects. And the natural way to think of similarity in respect R, is in terms of sharing R-

properties. But this creates a problem when counterpart theory is applied to properties

themselves. For properties are, ex hypothesi world-bound, including the properties that

ground similarity relations (the R-properties). Take, for example Heller's account.

Counterpart relations between properties are similarities in the patterns of their

distribution. But isn't having a certain pattern of distribution itself a property that exists

identically across worlds? How else could it equally characterize properties in different

worlds? Thus, it seems, not all properties are world-bound. The properties that

characterize the similarity relation themselves exist across worlds.

50 Ibid.

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One could simply accept a hybrid account. The only properties that exist

identically across worlds are the properties that ground counterpart relations. All other

properties have their modal properties in virtue of these counterpart relations. This

approach sacrifices simplicity and neatness, but retains some appeal. For this counterpart

theory still explains (without reifying) the vagueness and context-dependence inherent in

our modal intuitions.

Heller has a different reply. He argues that the similarity relations between actual

and merely possible properties do not exist across worlds. He is an ersatzist and not a

realist about possible worlds; he thinks worlds are abstract objects, complete stories

describing ways the world could be, and not real, concrete spatio-temporally connected

wholes. Thus, he takes the similarity relation that grounds counterpart relations to hold

between possible individuals, i.e., abstract, actually existing objects. This allows him to

say that the similarity relations exist only in the actual world:

Because the similarity comparison is between actually existing objects,

there is no need to suppose that the respects in which the various

individuals or properties are similar are themselves properties that exist in

more than one world.51

So, according to Heller, all properties are world-bound, including the similarity relations

between properties. Nevertheless, since worlds are actually existing abstract objects, the

(world-bound) similarity relations between properties can serve to ground counterpart

relatioins.

I think Heller's "solution" rests on a confusion. Let us distinguish the properties

that possible worlds represent things as having from the properties that the worlds

51 Ibid.: 306.

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themselves have. A possible world, an abstract world-story, represents the world as

having many properties that the story itself does not have. For instance, the world-story

is abstract and therefore lacks all of the properties that only concrete objects can have,

e.g., mass, size, duration. But the world-story can represent the world as having these

properties (mass, size, duration).

Linguistic ersatzers who are notcounterpart theorists agree that the properties of

concrete items are not actually instantiated by possible worlds. Possible worlds are

abstractobjects. But they argue that other possible worlds representobjects as having

the very same properties that actual objects have. While possible worlds themselves do

not have mass, they representobjects as having mass and not merely a counterpart of

mass. So no linguistic ersatzer, to my knowledge, argues that actual properties (except

abstract ones) are really instantiated identically by multiple possible worlds. Actual

properties (except abstract ones) are not instantiated by any merely possible world.

Rather, the standard ersatzist picture is one in which the very same property is

represented as existing by multiple possible worlds.

Ersatzers' language is sometimes ambiguous, but charity demands that we

interpret the claim that the same property "exists in" many possible worlds as meaning

that the same property is "represented as existing" by many possible worlds.52 The

alternative is to say that ersatzers, except for Heller, all say that possible worlds are

abstract and also that they have a certain size, mass, duration, and so on.

If Heller takes a different approach, a counterpart approach, he must think that

possible worlds do not representobjects as having mass, but merely as having a

52 Compare Lewis's discussion of the ersatzer's need to distinguish "actual" from "actualized" Lewis, On

the Plurality of Worlds, 137-38.

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counterpartof mass, a property that has a mass-like distribution. Now, we can ask the

question in unambiguous terms. Do multiple worlds representthe very same distribution

properties? Can w1 and w2 both represent something's having a mass-like distribution?

If so, then distribution properties are treated uniquely. They alone exist identically across

worlds (in the only sense in which ersatzers ever asserted that anything exists identically

across worlds). If not, then we are off on a regress. What makes two distribution

properties counterparts? Some similarity relation, R? Then R must exist identically

across worlds or not. And so the regress continues.

So I reject Heller's solution. The appeal to properties of the worlds themselves

rather than properties the worlds represent things as having is a non sequitur. Thus,

counterpart theory for properties cannot provide a universal treatment for the modal

features of properties. It must take some properties to be basic providers of comparison

space for other properties.

As long as some properties are identical across worlds, we might as well let the

relation of nomic necessitation exist across worlds, rather than merely having a certain

pattern of distribution. Although properties are world-bound (except nomic

necessitation), the only dimension of similarity, on this view, is similarity of nomic

relation. The resulting position looks a lot like dispositionalism, but it can accommodate

vagueness, for counterparts may be determined by similarity of nomic role, not exact

match of nomic role.

2.6.4 Summary of the Inconceivability Argument

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The suggestion that mass could have played the charge role meets with

incredulous stares and flat-footed denials: "It just wouldn't be mass, then!" Thus, the

inconceivability of nomic-role swapping poses a formidable threat to categoricalism. I

began by noting that the dispositionalist, too, must deny our modal intuitions, for we

think that the laws could have differed, if only a little. Further, because our modal

intuitions are vague, any robustly realist view of the modal features of properties must

betray our intuitions. For we should not locate vagueness in the world rather than the

mind (in language or knowledge). Nevertheless, the dispositionalist has an explanation

for our intuitions. She argues that when we take ourselves to be imagining different laws,

we are really imagining alien properties or else phenomenal states as ofdifferent laws.

The categoricalist has no such error theory, and thus, if one is committed to a robust

realism about the modal features of properties, dispositionalism seems to have the upper

hand.

But there are other options for the categoricalist. I considered three. First, the

categoricalist could insist that mass, charge, charm, and the like are not really

fundamental properties. Rather, objects have these properties in virtue ofcategorical

properties and laws. While this seems a risky and revisionary move, I argued that it is

neither. Rather, our belief that fundamental properties are dispositional is rooted in the

purely accidental, modal intuitions of actual folk.

Second, one could extend the FCG model to property names, i.e., take property

names to refer to concepts when inside a modal context. This move frees one to say that

our concepts of fundamental properties do not allow for role-swapping, while denying

that properties have a dispositional essence. The inconceivability of role-swapping is just

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a matter of inconceivability; it teaches no broader, metaphysical lesson. The problem

with the FCG model is that it routs essentialism only by violating semantic innocence.

When I say necessarily, I am human, I do not take myself to be talking about a concept; I

am attributing a property to a thing--myself. More sophisticated developments of the

FCG model may avoid this untoward consequence, but in investigation into that question

will require a more thorough treatement, to be undertaken in the following chapter.

Third, one could extend counterpart theory to properties, arguing that properties

are world-bound and modal statements involving properties are made true by counterpart

relations between actual and alien properties. Counterpart theory purports to preserve de

re modality while avoiding metaphysical essences and "fuzzy" reality. But it faces a

serious difficulty in accounting for counterpart relations themselves, which would seem

to require properties existing identically across worlds. One unattractive solution is to

take a hybrid approach to the modal features of properties, applying counterpart theory to

all but the counterpart-making properties. Heller, however, thinks that by retreating to

ersatzism about possible worlds, he can say that counterpart-making properties are actual

properties of possible worlds, and thus world-bound like the rest. But I noted that every

ersatzist thinks (concrete) properties are world-bound in the sense that they are not

properties ofother possible worlds. Rather, the disagreement is about whether merely

possible worlds representthings as instantiating actual properties, or merely counterparts

of actual properties. Once this distinction is made clear, it is obvious that Heller's

counterpart-making relations are either represented as existing identically across worlds

or not. If so, Heller has a hybrid approach. If not, the regress continues.

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Each of the three responses to the inconceivability argument has its own peculiar

difficulties. We must either deny that physicists are right about what is fundamental, give

up semantic innocence about modal predication, or take a hybrid approach to properties.

None of these consequences counts decisively against categoricalism, but each is a cost.

3.0 Arguments For Categoricalism

3.1 The Epistemic Regress.

Shoemaker argues that if dispositionalism were false, knowledge of similarity,

difference, and change would be impossible. But R. G. Swinburne takes just the opposite

line--that knowledge of would be impossible if dispositionalism were true. According to

Swinburne, if Shoemaker were right about the nature of properties, "we could never come

to know or even have a reasonable belief about what properties objects have -- and often

we do have reasonable beliefs about this".53 Thus, he urges us to reject dispositionalism.

According to Swinburne, we detect the existence of a causal power only by

detecting the manifestation of that power under certain circumstances.54 If all properties

ultimately rest on powers, then that manifestation is itself a matter of an object (or

objects) gaining or losing properties. But gaining or losing properties is just a matter of

gaining or losing causal powers, powers that can be detected only by means of detecting

theirmanifestations. By repeated application of this idea, we can conclude that every

property identification requires infinitely many other property identifications. Because we

plausibly do not make infinitely many property identifications, we do not make any

property identifications.

53 Swinburne, "Reply to Shoemaker," 316.54 Ibid., 317.

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It seems obvious to me that my experiences are themselves property-instances.

That is, some property instances are constitutive of our experiences. We do not need to

detect these properties by detecting their manifestations. Instead, we know them

directly.55 Thus the epistemic regress comes to an end when the causal chain passes

through our cognitive epistemic processes.

3.2 The Semantic Regress Argument

Simon Blackburn and David Armstrong both voice a concern over whether the

fundamental ontology of the dispositionalist's universe is missing a basic ingredient.

First, Blackburn:

It seems as though we have excised categorical properties from nature

altogether, leaving only features that, as Russell said, are each other's

washing. The problem is very clear if we use a possible-worlds analysis

of counterfactuals. To conceive of all the truths about a world as

dispositional is to suppose that a world is entirely described by what is

true at neighboring worlds. And since our argument was a priori, these

truths in turn vanish into truths about yet other neighboring worlds, and

the result is that there is no truth anywhere.56

Armstrong's concern is similar, if not identical:

Every causal transaction, according to Shoemaker, is a matter of things with

certain causal potentialities bringing it about that these or other things have

further potentialities. In Scholastic language, we never get beyond potency to act.

Act, so far as it occurs, is just a shifting around of potencies. And is this a

55 Shoemaker and Swoyer give a similar response: Shoemaker, "Properties, Causation, and Projectibility.",

Swoyer, "The Nature of Natural Laws.".56 Blackburn, "Filling in Space."

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believable theory? 'Where's the bloody horse?' as the poet Roy Campbell might

have asked. . . [W]e have nothing in the Shoemaker world except the causally

induced shifting of potencies from particulars. It is not enough.57

It is not clear to me exactly what the problem, as stated by Blackburn and Armstrong, is

supposed to be. I have three candidates for what they might have in mind; (1)

dispositional properties are relational and relational properties must ultimately be

grounded in non-relational properties; (2) possible-worlds analysis of counterfactuals

requires that unless some categorical (i.e., non-counterfactual) claim is true, no

counterfactual claim is true; or (3) the instantiation of a potentiality is not the

instantiation of an actualproperty and the shifting of potentialities does not constitute

actualchange. Perhaps I am wrong in interpreting Armstrong and Blackburn as having

one of these worries, but (1)-(3) do not pose serious problems for dispositionalism.

Considering (1), note that relations need not always be grounded in intrinsic

properties. Spatial relations are paradigmatic external, ungrounded relations and it is not

clear why the fundamental properties must not be irreducibly relational as well. As for

(2), it is not obvious why counterfactuals require categorical truth-makers. Richard

Holton provides a model, a set of worlds and propositions, in which all of the

propositions are counterfactuals.58 So the non-counterfactual is not in any formal sense

requiredby possible-worlds analysis of counterfactuals, although there will be brute facts

of similarity. Finally, (3) seems to beg the question. For a realist about dispositions,

potentialities are actualproperties and shifts in potentialities are actualchanges. To say,

57 Armstrong, "Shoemaker's Theory of Properties," 11-12.58 Let "->" represent the subjunctive conditional. P=df(R->S); Q= df(S->R); R= df (P->Q); S= df (Q->P).

Imagine P, Q, R, and S are the only sentences and that similarity of worlds is given by agreement over the

four sentences. There are four possible worlds: w1 at which P, Q, R and S are true; w2 at which P, Q, R,

and S are true; w3 at which P, Q, R, and S are true; w4 at which P, Q, R, and S are true Richard

Holton, "Dispositions All the Way Round,"Analysis 51 (1999).

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as Ryle would, that dispositions are somehow less than actual is to beg the question

against the dispositionalist.

There is a related but more plausible objection. The causal (or nomic) relation

itself does not have a causal or nomic essence. 59 For the causal (or nomic relation) itself

does not stand in causal (or nomic) relations at all and therefore, it does not stand in these

relations essentially. So at best, dispositionalism is a theory about properties other than

causal (or nomic) relational properties. It seems this objection is one dispositionalists

should simply accept. Perhaps, in accepting the objection, the dispositionalist begins to

address Blackburn and Armstrong's worry that not everythingcan be understood

relationally. Not everything is so understood, for example, the causal relation itself.

3.3 Varieties of Dispositionalism

Some objections arise only relative to some versions of dispositionalism. Earlier,

I distinguishedpure and impure dispositionalism. Pure dispositionalism is the view that

fundamental properties are identical to dispositionalism, whereas impure dispositionalism

is the view that they are not identical to dispositions, but nevertheless, are individuated by

their causal roles and play those roles essentially (or, alternatively, are individuated by

the contributions they make to the dispositions of the objects having them). Also I have

sometimes used "nomic relations" and "causal features" interchangeably. The present

problem requires that we keep these versions of dispositionalism straight. While my

responses above do not rely on impure dispositionalism, notice that adopting that version,

which is the only version that anyone seems to explictly endorse, clearly avoids the

Armstrong/Blackburn criticism. For there is something more than the shifting of

59 Armstrong,A World of States of Affairs, 72.

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potentialities. There is also a change in the properties that are the bearers of their causal

essences.

But, suppose one

troy cross chap 4

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