Skip to main content
Log in

The Dispositional Nature of Phenomenal Properties

  • Published:
Topoi Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

According to non-reductive physicalism, mental properties of the phenomenal sort are essentially different from physical properties, and cannot be reduced to them. This being a quarrel about properties, I draw on the categorical / dispositional distinction to discuss this non-reductive claim. Typically, non-reductionism entails a categorical view of phenomenal properties. Contrary to this, I will argue that phenomenal properties, usually characterized by what it is like to have them, are mainly the manifestation of dispositional properties. This paper is thus divided into two parts. In the first part, after tracing a working distinction between categorical and dispositional properties, I argue that there is a form of incoherence looming behind the idea of taking phenomenal properties as categorical. In the second part, I argue in favor of the view that phenomenal properties are dispositional properties with an essential manifestation. This interpretation allows us to broaden dispositionalism so as to include the sciences of mind, thus ultimately favoring a physicalist view on the mind.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For instance, those that differentiate thoughts about water when you confront yourself with water or twin-water (Putnam 1975).

  2. Even if Chalmers (1996) considers that phenomenal properties are covered by psychophysical laws, these laws are not essential to what phenomenal properties are. Clearly, categoricalists mention dispositions. As Barbara Vetter observes: “Categoricalists hold that the world, at bottom, does not contain dispositional properties. All the sparse, the perfectly natural properties are categorical. Of course, we use dispositional idioms, and we say true things in using them.” (Vetter 2013, p. 344).

  3. See Malzkorn (2001) for a history of these attempts.

  4. Hugh Mellor (1974) has provided a dispositional analysis of triangularity, while Prior (1982) has defended the categoricity of this and other properties. Some philosophers reject the distinction altogether (Martin 1994; Heil 2003; Mumford 1998). Others have reformulated the distinction (Choi 2011a, b; Handfield 2008) by using other criteria and by considering dispositional and categorical properties to be mutually exclusive (Prior et al. 1982). See Choi and Fara (2012) and Cross (2011) for reviews.

  5. Unless one abandons the idea that the distinction is exclusive. For instance, Heil (2003) and Martin (1997) think that properties can be both dispositional and categorical. I will come to this problem later.

  6. Chalmers (1996, p. 94) characterizes our zombie-counterparts as molecule-by-molecule identical. Kirk (2005) enlists a variety of definitions.

  7. Basically, I’m endorsing the “Eleatic principle”, the reality of a property lies in the dispositions it bestows. See Shoemaker (1980).

  8. A referee, whom I thank, observed that this is not the only option: some scholars, such as Pereboom (2011), have stressed that neither dispositional properties, nor mental properties, need be functional properties: they can instead be compositional properties, where their constitutive entities can be different, given the multiple realizability view. As I read him, Pereboom thinks that taking pain to be functional doesn’t cut much ice between reductive and non-reductive physicalism. It is an important point. However, unless one declares that a compositional property cannot receive a functional interpretation, taking mental properties to be compositional doesn’t sidestep the issue.

  9. It is fair to say that not all authors agree on this reading of Jackson’s argument: David Chalmers and Galen Strawson, for instance, draw a different lesson from it.

  10. The idea is that we cannot err on our being in pain; empirical research is a further step in our privileged acquaintance with pain. The privilege is epistemic in that if we do not know which sensations we have, we are in no position to say anything about our phenomenal life at all, pretty much in analogy with Evans point on immunity to error (Evans 1982, p. 221). See Williamson (2000) for a critical perspective.

  11. For a proto-intentional perspective on phenomenal properties see Pereboom (2011).

  12. One could argue that the categoricalist may just accept that phenomenal properties are categorical and their bases are physical properties of the brain. This move, however, would run against the idea that the zombie world is physically indiscernible from the actual world.

  13. A thesis that is also crucial for Schaffer, who has argued that a common source of the skepticism ensuing from Humility is captured by the following argument: (i) If there are worlds that differ solely over which property confers which power, then we do not know which properties exist; (ii) We do know which properties exist; (iii) Therefore: there aren’t worlds that differ solely over which property confers which power” (2005, p. 16, steps renumbered). So, premise (ii) is the general version of the Identification Thesis.

  14. I thank a referee for having stressed this point.

  15. Dretske (2005) stresses that an animal can be aware of being in pain but not aware that what it is aware of is pain, so not aware of the concept of pain. This is an example of the further epistemological steps I was mentioning.

  16. Inter alia, this shows that the identification of categorical and dispositional properties, suggested by Heil and Molnar, is not acceptable to the phenomenal categoricalist, who would be at risk of giving up the crucial difference between phenomenal and psychological properties.

  17. I am very much indebted to an anonymous referee for having pressed me on this point.

  18. The variety of pain experiences is very articulated, ranging from hyperalgesia to asymbolia for pain. See some of the papers in Aydede (2005).

  19. Molnar (2003) too considers the intentional character of dispositions to be crucial. I can just note that I’m not begging the question against the categoricalist’s view that properties are independent of causal roles and laws. The intentionality here revealed is an internal relation of sensations. However, it runs against Armstrong’s assertion: “Properties are self-contained things, keeping themselves to themselves, not pointing beyond themselves to further effects brought about in virtue of such properties” (Armstrong 1997, p. 80).

  20. For instance, once the categorical reading of Chalmers is abandoned, one may take them to be types of physical states. See Hill (2005, 2009) for the positing of such a state in the context of a physicalistic understanding of pain, or multiply realizable tokens (see Bird 2018).

  21. In feeling pain one can wince, cry, or resist stoically, so physical behavior may differ. However, if pain is pain, psychological aversion ensues. Masochistic attitudes are positive attitudes toward aversive sensations.

  22. From this perspective, the qualitative nature of pain is one and the same as its dispositional nature, as Heil (2003) maintained. The two interpretations mentioned are what Bird (2018) would call the teleological function of pain.

  23. Bird, however, thinks that talk of capacities should be replaced by a teleological view of mental dispositions. It is not possible to explore this further issue here, but see note 23.

  24. For a recent defense of type-identity in the philosophy of mind, see the papers in Gozzano and Hill (2012), and for my view see Gozzano (2012).

  25. Notice, however, that the above dispositional construal of phenomenal properties doesn’t rely on having a type identity theory of mental to physical states. Defending a multiple realizability view is compatible with a dispositionalist account, provided that the causal relations that hold stable across possible worlds are those that realize P-capacities, P-manifestations and avoidance attitudes.

  26. A vexing problem for dispositionalism is that it may engender regresses. Recently, Yates (2017) argued that the two regresses that threaten dispositionalism, concerning causation and identity, can be blocked by appealing to a functional individuation of properties. Specifically, Yates thinks that the identity regress can be blocked by getting non-mental properties (input/output relations with the external world) into the causal picture, thus determining which fundamental properties are at stake. I think that the strategy I pursue regarding phenomenal properties can do the same job if the identity of the phenomenal and the physical is admitted.

  27. Mimicking the behavioral reaction to pain is not mimicking the feeling of pain, of course.

  28. See Vetter (2015) for some difficulties related to this strategy.

  29. The case, raised by a referee for this journal, whom I thank, is interesting and would deserve a better discussion, but I cannot face it in details here.

References

  • Armstrong D (1989) A combinatorial theory of possibility. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong D (1997) A world of states of affairs. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong D (1999) The causal theory of properties: properties according to shoemaker, ellis, and others. Philos Top 26:25–37

    Google Scholar 

  • Aydede M (2005) (Ed.), Pain. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bain D (2007) The location of pains. Philos Papers 36(2):171–205

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird A (1998) Dispositions and antidotes. Philos Q 48(191): 227–234

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird A (2007) Nature’s metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird A (2016) Overpowering: how the power ontology has overreached itself. Mind 125:341–383

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird A (2018) Fundamental powers, evolved powers and mental powers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 247–275

    Google Scholar 

  • Block N (1980) What is functionalism?. In: Block N (ed) Readings in philosophy of psychology, vol 1. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 171–184

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers D (1996) The conscious mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi S (2011a) Intrinsic finks and the dispositional/categorical distinction, Noûs 46(2) 289–325

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi S (2011b) What is a dispositional masker? Mind 120:1159–1171

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi S, Fara M (2012) Dispositions In: Zalta EN (ed) The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/dispositions/.

  • Clarke R (2010) Opposing powers. Philos Stud 149:153–160

    Google Scholar 

  • Cross T (2011) Recent work on dispositions. Analysis 72(1):115–124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dretske F (2005) The epistemology of pain. In: Aydede M (ed) Pain. Mit Press, Cambridge, pp 59–74

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans G (1982) The varieties of reference. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Feigl H (1967) The mental and the physical. In: The essay with a postscript. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Gozzano S (2012) Type-identity conditions for phenomenal properties In: Gozzano S, Hill C (eds) New perspectives on type identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 111–126

    Google Scholar 

  • Gozzano S, Hill C (2012) (Eds) New perspectives on type identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Handfield T (2008) Unfinkable dispositions. Synthese 160:297–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Heil J (2003) From an ontological point of view. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Heil J Dispositions (2005) Synthese 144:343–356

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill C (2005) Ow! The paradox of pain. In: Aydede M 2005 (ed) Pain. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 75–98

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill C (2009) Consciousness. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Horgan T, Tienson J (2002) The intentionality of phenomenology and the phenomenology of intentionality. In: Chalmers D (ed) Philosophy of mind: classical and contemporary readings. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 520–533

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnston M (1992) How to speak of the colors. Philos Stud 68:221–263

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim J (1998) Mind in a physical world. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirk R (2005) Zombies and consciousness. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein C (2015) What the body commands. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Kripke S (1980) Naming and necessity. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D (1972) Psychophysical and theoretical identifications. In: Block N (ed) Readings in philosophy of psychology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 207–215

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D (1980) Mad pain and martian pain. In: Block N (ed) Readings in philosophy of psychology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 216–222

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D (1997) Finkish dispositions. Philosophical Quarterly 47:143–158

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D (2009) Ramseyan humility. In: Mitchell DB, Nola R (eds) Conceptual analysis and philosophical naturalism. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 203–222

    Google Scholar 

  • Malkorn W (2001) Defining disposition concepts: a brief history of the problem. Stud Hist Philos Sci 32:335–353

    Google Scholar 

  • Manley D, Wasserman R (2008) On linking dispositions and conditionals. Mind 117:59–84

    Google Scholar 

  • Marmodoro A (2014) Aristotle on perceiving objects, Oxford University Press, Oxford

  • Marmodoro A (2017) Aristotelian powers at work: reciprocity without symmetry in causation. In: Jacobs J (ed.) Causal powers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 57–76

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin CB (1994) Dispositions and conditionals. Philos Q 44:1–8

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin CB (1997) On the need for properties: the road from pythagoreanism and back. Synthese 112:193–231

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin CB (2008) The mind in nature. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mellor DH (1974) In defense of dispositions. Philos Rev 83:157–181

    Google Scholar 

  • Molnar (2003) Powers: a study in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mumford S (1998) Dispositions. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mumford S, Anjum R (2011) Getting causes from powers. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel T (1974) What is it like to be a bat? Philos Rev 83:435–450

    Google Scholar 

  • Pereboom D (2011) Consciousness and the prospects of physicalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Prior E (1982) The dispositional/categorical distinction. Analysis 42:93–96

    Google Scholar 

  • Prior E, Pargetter R, Jackson F (1982) Three theses about dispositions. Am Philos Q 19:251–257

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam H (1975) The meaning of meaning. In: Putnam H (ed) Mind, language, and reality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 215–271

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramachandran VS, Rogers-Ramachandran D (1996) Synaesthesia in phantom limbs induced with mirrors. Proc R Soc Lond 263: 377–386

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaffer J (2005) Quidditistic knowledge. Philos Stud 123:1–32

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoemaker S (1980) Causality and properties. In: van Inwagen P (ed) Time and cause. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp 109–135

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoemaker S (2007) Physical realization. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Tugby M (2013) Platonic dispositionalism. Mind 122:451–480

    Google Scholar 

  • Tye M (1997) A representational theory of pains and their phenomenal character. In: Block N, Flanagan O, Güzeldere G (eds) Philosophical perspectives. The nature of consciousness: philosophical debates. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Vetter B (2013) Multi-track dispositions. Philos Q 63:330–352

    Google Scholar 

  • Vetter B (2015) Potentiality. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson T (2000) Knowledge and its limits. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Yates D (2017) Inverse functionalism and the individuation of powers. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1417-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

For comments and suggestions on previous drafts of this paper, I wish to thank Francesco Berto, Gabriele Contessa, Donatella Donati, Andrea Iacona, Giorgio Lando, Derek Pereboom, Daniele Sgaravatti, two referees and the Editor for Topoi.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simone Gozzano.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Simone Gozzano, the one and only author, declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gozzano, S. The Dispositional Nature of Phenomenal Properties. Topoi 39, 1045–1055 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9597-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9597-6

Keywords

Navigation