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Dispositional Reality

A Novel Approach to Power Ontology and Metaphysics

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  • © 2024

Overview

Authors:
  1. Lorenzo Azzano

    1. University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

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  • The first book to outline a clear meta-metaphysical foundation for power metaphysics
  • Offers a novel and intuitive approach to anti-Humeanism, in the form of a wholly original dispositional treatment
  • Provides an innovative power metaphysics that does not require properties, objects, or facts

Part of the book series: Synthese Library (SYLI, volume 482)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 1-11

  3. Reality

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 13-47

  4. Appearance

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 49-77

  5. Dispositional Reality

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 79-110

  6. In Favour of Dispositional Reality

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 111-141

  7. The Extent of Dispositional Reality

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 143-169

  8. Explaining with Dispositions

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 171-200

  9. Meta-Explanatory Questions

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 201-230

  10. The Future of Dispositional Reality

    • Lorenzo Azzano
    Pages 231-236

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 237-246
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Keywords

About this book

Dispositionalism, perhaps the most popular variant of non-Humean metaphysics, submits that dispositions, powers, or capacities, are part of the furniture of the world. In this book I advance an original approach to dispositionalism revolving around the notion of Dispositional Reality; the novelty lies in the fact that the account, unlike most alternatives on the market, does not require the reification of objects, facts, properties, nor their dispositional essences – and is in fact compatible with a far more deflationary approach to dispositions, while still being true to the non-Humean spirit of the proposal. This power metaphysics without powers allows one to dispel several puzzles in recent literature, or recast them under a new light. Albeit with its own peculiarities, this proposal constitutes a variant of explanatory dispositionalism, according to which realism about dispositions ought not to be understood as an ontological inflation, but as an explanatory inversion within thenomic and modal family. Some of these explanations are hereby attempted, and a study of various types of non-causal explanation will be provided.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Lorenzo Azzano

About the author

After receiving his PhD at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa with the thesis A World with Powers, Lorenzo Azzano is now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bergamo, within a project on the metaphysics of properties. His original interests in dispositional properties, the ontology and semantics of modality, and laws of nature, have been recently paired to an interest in developments in meta-ontology and meta-metaphysics (especially on the notions of metaphysical structure, non-causal explanations, and ontological commitment). He has also written and published on mereology, plural logic, and more. His current aim is to deploy and combine a number of these tools to make power metaphysics a clearer and more engaging field of discussion for metaphysicians and philosophers of science of all stripes.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Dispositional Reality

  • Book Subtitle: A Novel Approach to Power Ontology and Metaphysics

  • Authors: Lorenzo Azzano

  • Series Title: Synthese Library

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52625-1

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-52624-4Published: 02 March 2024

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-52627-5Due: 02 April 2024

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-52625-1Published: 01 March 2024

  • Series ISSN: 0166-6991

  • Series E-ISSN: 2542-8292

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 246

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of Science

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