Abstract
According to the Simple Conditional Analysis of disposition ascriptions, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. The Simple Conditional Analysis is notoriously vulnerable to counterexamples. In this paper, I introduce a new sort of counterexample to the Simple Conditional Analysis of disposition ascriptions, which I call ‘tricks’. I then explore a number of possible strategies to modify the Simple Conditional Analysis so as to avoid tricks and conclude that, in order to avoid tricks, the associated counterfactual should be evaluated at the closest possible world(s) at which the manifestation of the (alleged) disposition does not obtain.
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Notes
See, e.g., Smith (1977), Johnston (1992), Martin (1994), and Bird (1998). For a number of attempts to salvage the Simple Conditional Analysis from the standard counterexamples, see, e.g., Lewis (1997), Malzkorn (2001), Gundersen (2002), Choi (2008), Steinberg (2010), and Contessa (2013). For a number of different approaches to the analysis of disposition ascription, see, e.g., Fara (2005), Manley and Wasserman (2008), and Vetter (2014).
For the sake of simplicity, here, I will assume that classical thermodynamics is strictly true, which means that the laws of nature are such that the hot liquid and the air surrounding it will always eventually reach a state of thermal equlibrium in which the air will be imperceptibly warmer than it was initially and the hot liquid siginficantly colder than it was initially. However, this assumption is, however, far from controversial (see, e.g., Sklar 1993 and, more specifically, Callender 2001).
A causally unrelated event, in this context, is one that would not directly or indirectly interfere with the occurrence of the event acting as the manifestation of the bogus disposition.
Philosophers working on dispositions have sometimes noted a closely related problem for the Simple Conditional Analysis (see, e.g., Choi 2008, p. 839; Gundersen 2002, p. 393; Gundersen 2004, p. 10). This closely related problem is a consequence of the fact that the Standard Semantics assumes Strong Centering (i.e. the thesis that no possible world is as close to the actual world as the actual world itself), which means that Conjunction Conditionalization (i.e. \((A \wedge C) \supset (A \,\boxright\, C)\)) is a theorem. So, on the Standard Semantics, any counterfactual whose antecedent and consequent are both actually true is itself true. Some think that this is a counterintuitive consequence of the Standard Semantics (see, e.g., Fine 1975; Bennett 1974) and some even suggest that, to avoid such a consequence, we should reject the Standard Semantics in favor of an alternative semantics (for a number of proposals. see Penczek 1997; Gundersen 2004; McGlynn 2012; see Walters forthcoming for a critical discussion of these proposals). In light of this, one might be tempted to blame the existence of tricks on the Standard Semantics rather than on the Simple Conditional Analysis. However, tricks do not actually rely on Conjunction Conditionalization, for the antecedent of the conditional need not be actually true for there to be a trick. In the case of tricks, while the consequent needs to be actually true, the antecedent may be actually false—all that matters is that the antecedent describes a nomically possible event that is causally unrelated to the event described by the consequent. Although this might seem to be a minute difference, it is in fact critical, for, as we shall see below, this means that alternative semantics that avoid Conjunction Conditionalization do not necessarily avoid tricks.
For example, the analysis of disposition ascriptions that I defended in Contessa (2013), which is one of the few attempts to salvage the Simple Conditional Analysis that explicitly tackles mimics, does not seem to be able to handle tricks. On the other hand, the solution to the problem of mimics suggested in Lewis (1997) would seem to be analogous to the solution that I call the Easy Fix and seems to suffer from the same problems, so, I think, it would not be an effective solution to either problem.
Note that, for the sake of simplicity, in what follows, I omit the ‘(x)’s from the predicates ‘\(D_{(T \rightarrowtail M)}(x)\)’ and ‘M(x)’.
Leo is, of course, just a fictional chameleon, for the actual relationship between skin pigmentation of chameleons and their environment is much more complex than this toy example suggests.
Or, if one rejects Strong Centering in favour of Weak Centering (i.e. the thesis that no possible world is closer to the actual world than the actual world itself), the closest possible worlds at which Leo is not sitting on a ripe tomato happen to include the actual world, where Leo is already red.
This proposal is adapted from McGlynn (2012). McGlynn’s proposal is meant to be part of an alternative semantics for counterfactuals that does not entail Conjunction Conditionalization. While his proposal seems to succeed in this respect, it does not avoid tricks, which seems to show that tricks are not merely a consequence of the fact that Standard Semantics entails Conjunction Conditionalization.
Or, more precisely (and temporarily re-introducing the variables), \(D_{(T \rightarrowtail M)}(x, t) \Leftrightarrow [(\Diamond _{N} \lnot M(x, t^*)\wedge \Diamond _{N}T(x, t)) \wedge (\lnot M(x, t^*) \,\boxright\, (T(x, t) \,\boxright\, M(x, t^*)))]\), where \(t^* \ge t\) is the time at which we would expect the disposition to manifest itself if it were triggered at t and ‘\(\Diamond _{N}\)’ is interpreted as ‘it is nomically possible that’. For the sake of simplicity, I will leave these further specifications aside in what follows.
Here, I am assuming that nomically possible worlds at which the coffee does not cool down because is inside such a heated container are closer to the actual world than any nomically impossible worlds at which it does not cool down because, say, the laws of thermodynamics do not hold. I take this to be a fairly uncontroversial assumption.
I leave it to the reader to check that the Ultimate Fix handles the case of Leo sitting on a ripe strawberry in a similar way and with equally positive results.
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I would like to thank two reviewers for this journal for their helpful comments.
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Contessa, G. Dispositions and Tricks. Erkenn 81, 587–596 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9756-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9756-8