Megarian Variable Actualism

Toby T Friend*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalSpecial issue (Academic Journal)peer-review

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Abstract

Megarian Actualism is the denial of unmanifesting powers. Aristotle called such a view ‘buffoonery’ and dispositionalists have provided compelling reasons for the contrary platitude that powers need not manifest. Even so, drawing on extant treatments of quantitative powers I’ll suggest that many of the powers which feature in quantitative lawlike equations are plausibly interpreted as Megarian. This is because the powers described by such equations are best understood as being directed towards all the values of exhaustive manifestation variables. I’ll discuss the prospects for generalising these Megarian characteristics to powers not typically represented in strict quantitative terms. The result will be a strong basis for a scientifically informed and plausible dispositionalist account: Megarian Variable Actualism.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10521-10541
Number of pages21
JournalSynthese
Volume199
Issue number3-4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
I would like to thank the editors for inviting me to submit, to the department at Bristol University for their questions to my presentation of these ideas and to Sam Kimpton-Nye, Andrea Raimondi, Francesca Bellazzi and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on various drafts. This work was carried out as part of the MetaScience project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 771509).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

Research Groups and Themes

  • Centre for Science and Philosophy

Keywords

  • disposistions
  • powers
  • Megarian Actualism
  • quantitative powers
  • multi-track powers

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  • MetaScience: The Metaphysical Unity of Science

    Tahko, T. (Principal Investigator), Seifert, V. A. (Researcher), Friend, T. T. (Researcher), Kimpton-Nye, S. (Researcher), Bellazzi, F. (Student), Franklin, A. (Other ) & Morgan, W. H. (Researcher)

    1/09/1831/08/23

    Project: Research

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