Departmental Colloquium: Ferenc Huoranszky, CEU, Department of Philosophy- The Issue about Dispositions

The Issue about Dispositions

Most of us think that some objects are fragile, some chemicals are poisonous, and some people are honest. But philosophers, or at least some of them, find such claims puzzling. The reason why they find them puzzling is that being fragile, being poisonous, and being honest are dispositional predicates. In this talk I shall tell a story about why many philosophers from the early 20th century on have found the ascription of dispositions puzzling, and how some have attempted to resolve that puzzle. I shall also briefly indicate which significance, if any, such debates might have to empirical research concerning the micro-foundation of macroscopic behavior.