Dispositional Properties

Introduction

INTRODUCTION Contemporary empiricists frequently express their antimetaphysical bias in the style of ordinary language analysis. They say that metaphysical problems may exist, but that we have no reason to believe that they do until it is established that metaphysical issues have not been generated by misinterpreting various rules of linguistic usage. Philosophers who talk in this way are as confident as empiricists have traditionally been that metaphysics has no subject matter and no method, but nonetheless they dare invite us to prove that there are legitimate metaphysical issues, and they even specify the circumstances in which they would admit that metaphysical problems do exist. Their attitude is almost conciliatory when we compare it to the antimetaphysical strictures of a generation ago, and I think that this fact should encourage those of us who are metaphysicians to prove that our analyses meet the empiricists' requirements. This suggestion is not prompted by an ecumenical spirit. Analyses which prove that metaphysical problems are sanctioned by ordinary language will at very least succeed in demonstrating that the statement of these problems is meaningful. Empiricists may subsequently reject the arguments and definitions by which we try to solve these problems, but this will require counter-arguments. Extravagant claims of meaninglessness will no longer count as answers to a metaphysician's claims. DISPOSITIONAL PROPERTIES 4 It is with this in mind that I propose to accept the empiricists' challenge. I shall argue in this introduction that, first, there is a rule of linguistic usage which commits us to the view that minds and objects have dispositional properties, and that, second, there is no way of interpreting this rule which will justify the refusal to give a philosophic, but nonlinguistic , analysis of these properties. John Austin supports both of these conclusions in a paper where he discusses two opposing claims which contemporary philosophers have made about "can"- and "could have"-sentences.1 Austin writes: There are two quite distinct and incompatible views that may be put forward concerning "ifs" and "cans," which are fataIIy easy to confuse with each other. One view is that wherever we have "can" or "could have" as our main verb, an "if"-clause must always be understood or supplied, if it is not actually present, in order to complete the sense of the sentence. The other view is that the meaning of "can" or "could have" can be more clearly reproduced by some other verb (notably "shall" or "should have") with an "if"-clause appended to it. The first view is that an "if" is required to complete a "can" sentence: the second view is that an "if" is required in the analysis of a "can"-sentence.2 The first of these claims is partly correct, though as we shall see, it is not completely so; it is true that an "if"-clause is sometimes required to complete the sense of a "can"- or "could have"-sentence. Thus, we can imagine that a company director is remarking to an opponent on the board that he could have ruined the man at the day's board meeting, although he did not. The director would be describing what he might have done if he had controlled one more vote, and his complete statement would read: "I could have ruined you this morning, if I had had one more vote." For want of satisfaction of the condition described in the if-clause, the director was not in a position to replace the opponent with an ally, but if the condition had been fulfilled, he would have been Introduction 5 able to do so. Generally, "can"- and "could have"-sentences which require completion by an if-clause may be translated by "will be in a position to act if" and "would have been in a position to act if," and in both cases, the if-clause states a necessary condition for being in the position. Had the condition been fulfilled in our example, the director would have had the capacity and the opportunity to act, and his desire to ruin an opponent would have been sufficient then to have assured the man's defeat. While recognizing that this first account has some basis in linguistic usage, Austin denies that we must always complete "can"- and "could have"-sentences with an if-clause. His reasons are these: It is easy to see why it may be tempting to allege that it always requires an "if...