In Favour of Dispositional Explanations. A Christian Philosophy Perspective with Some References to Economics
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2022.012Mots-clés
philosophy of causality, dispositional explanations, divine action and natural world, philosophy of economicsRésumé
From among philosophical concepts of explanation those referring to causes have been the most influential. The aim of this paper it to show that a particular kind of causal explanations, namely dispositional explanations are particularly suited to explain the workings of the world. Apart from purely philosophical arguments, I claim that the view treating dispositions as important elements of the basic ontology of nature is in line with the Christian worldview and the ways God impacts the world. Also, this paper shows that dispositional explanations are not only appropriate in the domains studied by natural sciences but also in the ones being under investigation in social sciences, and thus the case of economics.Références
Aristotle (1984), Politics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Artigas M. (2001), The Mind of the Universe. Understanding Science and Religion, Templeton Foundation Press, London.
Bird A. (2013), "Limitations of Powers", in: R. Groff, J. Greco (eds.), Powers and Capacities in Philosophy. The New Aristotelianism, Routledge, London, 25-47.
Broadie S. (2012), "The Ancient Greeks", in: H. Beebee, C. Hitchcock, & P. Menzies (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 73-91.
Cartwright N. (1983), How the Laws of Physics Lie, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Cartwright N. (1993), "Is Natural Science ‘Natural’ Enough?: A Reply to Philip Allport", Synthese, vol. 94(2), 291-301.
Cartwright N. (1999), The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Cartwright N. (2004), "No God, No laws", manuscript presented at the conference ‘God and the laws of nature’, organised by the John Templeton Foundation, 11-13 October 2004, http://personal.lse.ac.uk/cartwrig/Papers/NoGodNoLaws.pdf
Cartwright N. (2007), Hunting Causes and Using them Approaches in Philosophy and Economics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Cartwright N., Pemberton J. (2013), "Aristotelian Powers: Without Them, What Would Modern Science Do?", in: R. Groff, J. Greco (eds.), Powers and Capacities in Philosophy. The New Aristotelianism, Routledge, London, 93-112.
Chakravartty A. (2007), A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Choi S. (2011), "Finkish Dispositions and Contextualism", The Monist, vol. 94, 103-120.
Choi S. (2021), "Dispositions", in: E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/dispositions/
Clayton P. (1997), God and Contemporary Science, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Crespo R. (2013), A Re-Assessment of Aristotle's Economic Thought, Routledge, London.
Davies P. (1992), "Is the Universe a Machine", in: N. Hall (ed.), The New Scientist Guide to Chaos, Penguin, London.
Dodds M. (2016), Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas, Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC.
Fetzer J. (1977), "A World of Dispositions", Synthese, vol. 34(4), 397-421.
Göcke B. (2015), "Did God Do It? Metaphysical Models and Theological Hermeneutics", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 78(2), 215-231.
Hardt Ł. (2017), Economics without Laws. Towards a New Philosophy of Economics, Palgrave, Cham.
Hardt Ł. (2021), "An Essay on Humble Economics", in: P. Róna, L. Zsolnai, A. Wincewicz-Price (eds.), Words, Objects and Events in Economics, Springer, Cham, 13-32.
Harré R. (1970), "Powers", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 21, 81-101.
Hausman D. (1998), Causal Asymmetries, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hempel C. (1978), "Dispositional Explanations", in: R. Tuomela (ed.), Dispositions, Springer, Dordrecht, 137-146.
Hempel C., Oppenheim P. (1948), "Studies in the Logic of Explanation", Philosophy of Science, vol. 15(2), 135-175.
Koperski J. (2020), Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature, Routledge, London.
Lawson T. (1997), Economics and Reality, Routledge, London.
Lawson T. (2015), Essays on the Nature and State of Modern Economics, Routledge, Abingdon.
Lewis D. (1986), On the Plurality of Worlds, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Mackie J.L. (1974), The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Mantzavinos C. (2016), Explanatory Pluralism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Mellor D.H. (1974), "In Defense of Dispositions", The Philosophical Review, vol. 83(2), 157-181.
Merton T. (1956), Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York.
Mill J.S. (1843), A System of Logic. Ratiocinative and Inductive, John W. Parker, London.
Molnar G. (2003), Powers: A Study in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Mumford S. (2008), Dispositions, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
O’Connor T. (2020), "Emergent Properties", in. E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/properties-emergent/
Peacocke A. (1993), Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine and Human, SCM Press, Minneapolis.
Popper K. (1978), "The Propensity Interpretation of Probabilities", in: R. Tuomela (ed.), Dispositions, Springer, Dordrecht, 247-265.
Popper K. (1995), A World of Propensities, Thoemmes Press, Bristol.
Psillos S. (2008), "Cartwright’s Realist Toil: From Entities to Capacities", in: L. Bovens, C. Hoefer, and S. Hartmann (eds.), Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science, Routledge, New York, 167-195.
Quine W. (1978), "Disposition", in: R. Tuomela (ed.), Dispositions, Springer, Dordrecht, 155-161.
Robbins L. (1932), An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, Macmillan, London.
Rodrik D., Subramanian A. (2009), "Why Did Financial Globalization Disappoint?", IMF Staff Papers, vol. 56, 112-138.
Róna P. (2018), "Ontology and Economics", in: P. Róna, L. Zsolnai (eds.), Economic Objects and the Objects of Economics, Springer, Cham, 5-8.
Schultz W. (2009), "Dispositions, Capacities, and Powers. A Christian Analysis", Philosophia Christi, vol.11(2), 221-238.
Schurz G. (2004), "Normic Laws, Nonmonotonic Reasoning, and the Unity of Science", in: S. Rahman (ed.), Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 181-211.
Smith A. (1776/1994), The Wealth of Nations, Random House, New York.
Téléchargements
Publiée
Comment citer
Numéro
Rubrique
Licence
© Scientia et Fides 2022
Ce travail est disponible sous licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.
- The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
- Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
- The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.
FULL TEXT License Agreement
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 1647
Number of citations: 0
