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; HarrĂ© 1970; HarrĂ© 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:
Enjoy!
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