Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:56:16.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Capacities, Universality, and Singularity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Stuart S. Glennan
Stuart S. Glennan*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Butler University
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, 4600 Sunset Ave., Butler University, Indianapolis, IN 46208.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I criticize Cartwright's analysis of capacities and offer an alternative analysis. I argue that Cartwright's attempt to connect capacities to her condition CC fails because individuals can exercise capacities only in certain contexts. My own analysis emphasizes three features of capacities: 1) Capacities belong to individuals; 2) Capacities are typically not metaphysically fundamental properties of individuals, but can be explained by referring to structural properties of individuals; and 3) Laws are best understood as ascriptions of capacities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 605 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Joe Bessie, Paul Humphreys, Ben Rogers, Bill Vallicella, Jim Woodward and an anonymous referee for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This paper was written while I attended an NEH Seminar for College Teachers. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Endowment.

References

Cartwright, N. (1979) “Causal Laws and Effective Strategies”, Noûs 13: 419–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1983), How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1989), Nature's Capacities and their Measurement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1995), “Précis of Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement”, Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement 55: 153–161.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1995b), “Reply to Eells, Humphreys and Morrison”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55: 177–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupré, J. (1993), The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Eells, E. (1991), Probabilistic Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glennan, S. (1996), “Mechanisms and the Nature of Causation”, Erkenntnis 44: 49–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glennan, S. (1997), “Probable Causes and the Distinction between Subjective and Objective Chance”, Noûs 31:496–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heathcote, A. and Armstrong, D. (1991), “Causes and Laws”, Noûs 25: 63–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, P. (1989), The Chances of Explanation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Maudlin, T. (1993), “Review of Nature's Capacities and their Measurement”, Nature's Capacities and their Measurement 90: 599–603.Google Scholar
Morrison, M. (1995), “Capacities, Tendencies and the Problem of Singular Causes”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55: 163–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. (1994), “Causality without Counterfactuals”, Philosophy of Science 61: 297–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skyrms, B. (1980), Causal Necessity. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (1992), “Realism about Laws”, Erkenntnis 36: 181–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. (1993), “Capacities and Invariance”, in Earman, J., Janis, A., Massey, G. and Rescher, N. (eds.), Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External Worlds: Essays on the Philosophy of Adolf Grünbaum. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 000–000.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (1994), “Review of Paul Humphreys' The Chances of Explanation”, The Chances of Explanation 45: 353–374.Google Scholar