Dispositional Essentialism

Dispositional Essentialism according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is:

...the position that at least some properties have dispositional essences. Some of them go beyond this to take a stronger position, that all properties or at least all sparse properties in Lewis 1986b's sense are essentially dispositional (Popper 1959; Harré 1970; Harré and Madden 1975; Shoemaker 1980; Mumford 2004; Bird 2005b, 2007a; Chakravartty 2007; Whittle 2008). This position is known as dispositional monism or causal theory of properties. Alternatively it is simply named ‘dispositionalism’. The dispositionalist holds that the essence of a property P is wholly constituted by the nomic or causal roles P plays—for short, theoretical roles. Here the nomic role of P is given in terms of the Ramsey sentence that we can get from a true and complete final theory, a sentence that represents the totality of the factual content of the theory. The causal role of P, on the other hand, is given in terms of its potential causes and effects. Dispositionalism thus implies the following transworld identity condition for properties: properties P and Q are identical iff they play the same theoretical roles. Note that the theoretical roles played by a property P determine how its instances are disposed to act or react under various circumstances. On dispositionalism, therefore, P invariably endows its instances with the same dispositions, in which sense dispositionalism implies that properties have dispositional essences—and only dispositional essences.

This is a view of nature I am strongly leaning towards due to the ineptness of a purely mechanical view of nature to account for causation (in light of Hume's philosophical exposition on causation in a purely mechanical universe). Here is a link to a seminal paper titled "Dispositional Essentialism" for this return to and Aristotelian consideration in scientific method:

http://tedsider.org/teaching/properties/Ellis%20and%20Lierse%20-%20dispositional%20essentialism.pdf

Enjoy! 

Logical/Methodological Behaviorism, Definitions Quote

In its crudest version, behaviorism says the mind just is the behavior of the body. There is nothing over and above the behavior of the body that is constitutive of the mental. Behaviorism comes in two flavors, “methodological behaviorism” and “logical behaviorism....”

Methodological Behaviorism

Methodological behaviorism was a movement in psychology. It attempted to put psychology on a respectable scientific footing, along with other natural sciences, by insisting that psychology should study only objectively observable behavior. The “laws” that such a discipline was supposed to discover were laws that would correlate the input stimulus to the organism with the output response behavior; and for this reason, behaviorist psychology was sometimes called “stimulus-response” psychology. The behaviorists were so influential that for a time they even succeeded in changing the definition of psychology. Psychology was no longer the “science of the mind” but the “science of human behavior.” This view was called “methodological behaviorism” because it proposed a method in psychology rather than a substantive claim about the existence or nonexistence of the mind. The real objection to dualism, the methodological behaviorists claimed, was not that it postulates nonexistent entities, but rather that it is scientifically irrelevant. Scientific claims have to be objectively testable, and the only objectively testable claims about the human mind are claims about human behavior....

Logical Behaviorism

Logical behaviorism was primarily a movement in philosophy, and it made a much stronger claim than methodological behaviorism. The methodological behaviorists said that Cartesian dualism was scientifically irrelevant, but the logical behaviorists said that Descartes was wrong as a matter of logic. A statement about a person’s mental state, such as the statement that a person believes that it is going to rain or is feeling a pain in his elbow just means the same as, it can be translated into, a set of statements about that person’s actual and possible behavior. It need not be translatable into statements about presently existing behavior, for a person might have a pain or a belief that he was not then and there manifesting in behavior, but then the statement has to be translatable into a set of hypothetical statements about behavior, what the agent would do or would say under such and such circumstances.

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (pp. 49-52). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Materialist View That Mental States Are Reducible to Brain States Quote

Materialism is the view that the only reality that exists is material or physical reality, and consequently if mental states have a real existence, they must in some sense be reducible to, they must be nothing but, physical states of some kind.

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (p. 48). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Perceptions Reliance on Unconscious States Quote

On standard theories of perception, we think that people perceive the shapes of objects by unconsciously inferring the real features of the object from the limited features of the physical stimulus with which they are presented. The problem for both of these notions of the unconscious is, what exactly is it supposed to mean in real terms? What facts about brain events could make them both mental and at the same time unconscious?

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (pp. 31-32). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Epiphenomenalism, Definition Quote

The view that mental states exist but are causally inert is called “epiphenomenalism.”

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (p. 30). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Problem of Intentionality Quote

The problem of how a mental state can refer to or be about something beyond itself is the problem of intentionality.

It is absolutely essential to be clear about the distinction between the intrinsic or original intentionality that I have in my head when I am thinking about something and the derivative intentionality that the marks on paper have when I write my thoughts down. The words on paper really do mean and refer, and thus have intentionality, but their intentionality is derived from mine when I intentionally wrote them down. Also we need to distinguish these two, the original and the derived, from metaphorical ascriptions, or as-if cases of intentionality. If I am now thirsty that is a case of intrinsic or original intentionality. If I write down the sentence, “I am thirsty” that sentence has derived intentionality. If I say, “My car is thirsty for gasoline” that sentence makes a metaphorical or “as-if” ascription of thirst to the car. But the car does not literally have any intentionality, either original or derived. I cannot tell you how much confusion has been generated by the failure to see these elementary distinctions.

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (p. 29). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Observer Independent/Observer Dependent Phenomena Quote

There are two distinctions....The first is the distinction between those features of a world that are observer independent and those that are observer dependent or observer relative....In general, the natural sciences deal with observer-independent phenomena, the social sciences with the observer dependent....

So there are two distinctions to keep in mind, first between observer-independent and observer-dependent phenomena, and second between original and derived intentionality. They are systematically related: derived intentionality is always observer-dependent.

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (p. 6-8). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Mind-Body Problem Quote

How can conscious experiences like your pain exist in a world that is entirely composed of physical particles and how can some physical particles, presumably in your brain cause the mental experiences? (This is called the “mind-body problem.”)

Searle, John R. (2004-11-01). Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) (p. 4). Oxford University Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Of Ex and Why? (Part IV)

Foundation 3: Causation

Look at this photograph. The photograph consists of two people facing each other chest-passing a basketball back and forth, such that the ball is exactly in between both players. Both players have their hands extended outward toward each other, one throwing and the other catching. Consider, for the sake of argument both players stances are essentially a mirror image of the other and the photo was shot with a high-speed shutter, such that there was no motion blur. Which player threw the ball to whom? Not so easy.

Let's change it up a bit, imagine that the ball was filmed this time, such that all you were allowed to see is the ball move one inch from left to right. Do you think you know who threw it now? Are you sure?