All Outputs (20)

The property of goal‐directedness: Lessons from the dispositions debate (2024)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (online). The property of goal‐directedness: Lessons from the dispositions debate. Ratio: An international journal of analytic philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12417

The system‐property or ‘cybernetic’ theory of goals and goal‐directedness became popular in the twentieth century. It is a theory that has reductionist and behaviourist roots. There are reasons to think that the system‐property theory needs to be for... Read More about The property of goal‐directedness: Lessons from the dispositions debate.

Defending Modal Platonism: Reply to Builes (2024)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (in press). Defending Modal Platonism: Reply to Builes. Analysis,

In a recent article, David Builes (2024) argues that one should not try to combine a Platonic account of properties with the recently-popular grounding theory of powers, as proposed in Tugby 2022. According to Builes, Aristotelian or nominalist theor... Read More about Defending Modal Platonism: Reply to Builes.

Dispositional realism without dispositional essences (2022)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2022). Dispositional realism without dispositional essences. Synthese, 200(3), Article 222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03554-9

Dispositional realism, as we shall use the term, is a non-reductive, anti-Humean approach to dispositions which says that natural properties confer certain dispositions as a matter of metaphysical necessity. A strong form of dispositional realism is... Read More about Dispositional realism without dispositional essences.

The Laws of Modality (2022)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2022). The Laws of Modality. Philosophical Studies, 179(8), 2597-2618. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01789-3

Nomic realists have traditionally put laws to work within a theory of natural modality, in order to provide a metaphysical source for causal necessitation, counterfactuals, and dispositions. However, laws are well-suited to perform other work as well... Read More about The Laws of Modality.

Abduction and the Scientific Realist Case for Properties (2020)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2021). Abduction and the Scientific Realist Case for Properties. Grazer philosophische Studien, 98(1), 123-145. https://doi.org/10.1163/18756735-000112

Traditionally, many arguments for realism about properties (universals or tropes) rely on a priori claims. The author argues that if we make use of an abductive principle that is commonly employed by scientific realists, a new argument for property r... Read More about Abduction and the Scientific Realist Case for Properties.

Grounding theories of powers (2020)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2021). Grounding theories of powers. Synthese, 198(12), 11187-11216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02781-2

Necessitarianism, as we shall use the term, is the view that natural properties and causal powers are necessarily connected in some way. In recent decades the most popular forms of necessitarianism have been the anti-Humean powers-based theories of p... Read More about Grounding theories of powers.

Potentiality: actualism minus naturalism equals platonism (2020)
Journal Article
Giannini, G., & Tugby, M. (2020). Potentiality: actualism minus naturalism equals platonism. Philosophical inquiries, 8(1), 117-140. https://doi.org/10.4454/philinq.v8i1.278

Vetter (2015) develops a localised theory of modality, based on potentialities of actual objects. Two factors play a key role in its appeal: its commitment to Hardcore Actualism, and to Naturalism. Vetter’s commitment to Naturalism is in part manifes... Read More about Potentiality: actualism minus naturalism equals platonism.

Power Worlds and the Problem of Individuation (2017)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2017). Power Worlds and the Problem of Individuation. American Philosophical Quarterly, 54(3), 269-281

Is it metaphysically possible for a world to contain power properties but no nonpower properties? Recently, much progress has been made by powers theorists to defend the coherence of such a possibility. But unfortunately, it remains unclear how the p... Read More about Power Worlds and the Problem of Individuation.

Modal Platonism and the Problem of Negativity (2017)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2018). Modal Platonism and the Problem of Negativity. Erkenntnis, 83(3), 465-476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9898-y

The Platonic account of modality says, roughly, that truths about alien possibilities are grounded in uninstantiated universals. Recently, Ingram has raised a problem for this kind of view, which is that it apparently requires negative facts to play... Read More about Modal Platonism and the Problem of Negativity.

On the Reality of Intrinsically Finkable Dispositions (2016)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2016). On the Reality of Intrinsically Finkable Dispositions. Philosophia, 44(2), 623-631. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9713-z

Recently, Choi (Noûs, 46, 289–325, 2012) has argued that current accounts of intrinsically finkable dispositions lead to absurd consequences in certain everyday cases. In this paper I offer a new argument for the existence of intrinsically finkable d... Read More about On the Reality of Intrinsically Finkable Dispositions.

The Problem of Retention (2016)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2016). The Problem of Retention. Synthese, 194(6), 2053-2075. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1036-x

A popular version of anti-Humeanism is one that views fundamental properties as being irreducibly dispositional in nature, and it is a view to which I am attracted. Proponents of this view typically object to Humean regularity theories of laws on the... Read More about The Problem of Retention.

Universals, Laws, and Governance (2015)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2015). Universals, Laws, and Governance. Philosophical Studies, 173(5), 1147-1163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0521-2

Proponents of the dispositional theory of properties typically claim that their view is not one that offers a realist, governing conception of laws. My first aim is to show that, contrary to this claim, if one commits to dispositionalism then one doe... Read More about Universals, Laws, and Governance.

The Alien Paradox (2014)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2015). The Alien Paradox. Analysis, 75(1), 28-37. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anu113

Platonism delivers a theory of possibility that is distinct from both Lewisian modal realism and ersatz modal theories. By putting the topic of alien properties at centre stage in our modal theorizing, a strong preliminary case for platonism can be m... Read More about The Alien Paradox.

Nomic Necessity for Platonists (2013)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2013). Nomic Necessity for Platonists. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 2(4), 324-331. https://doi.org/10.1002/tht3.99

After identifying some existing explanations offered by nomic necessitarians for the alleged necessary connections between natural properties and their dispositional or nomic features, I discuss a less explored necessitarian strategy. This strategy i... Read More about Nomic Necessity for Platonists.

Graph-theoretic Models of Dispositional Structures (2013)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2013). Graph-theoretic Models of Dispositional Structures. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 27(1), 23-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2013.783979

The focus of this article is the view about fundamental natural properties known as dispositional monism. This is a holistic view about nature, according to which all properties are essentially interrelated. The general question to be addressed conce... Read More about Graph-theoretic Models of Dispositional Structures.

Categoricalism, Dispositionalism, and the Epistemology of Properties (2013)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2014). Categoricalism, Dispositionalism, and the Epistemology of Properties. Synthese, 191(6), 1147-1162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-013-0316-y

Notoriously, the dispositional view of natural properties is thought to face a number of regress problems, one of which points to an epistemological worry. In this paper, I argue that the rival categorical view is also susceptible to the same kind of... Read More about Categoricalism, Dispositionalism, and the Epistemology of Properties.

Causal Nominalism and the One Over Many Problem (2013)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2013). Causal Nominalism and the One Over Many Problem. Analysis, 73(3), 455-462. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/ant038

The causal nominalist theory of properties appears at first glance to offer a novel nominalist approach and one that can provide an illuminating response to the one over many problem. I argue, however, that on closer inspection causal ‘nominalism’ co... Read More about Causal Nominalism and the One Over Many Problem.

Platonic Dispositionalism (2013)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2013). Platonic Dispositionalism. Mind, 122(486), 451-480. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzt071

In this paper I argue that if one subscribes to dispositionalism — the view that natural properties are irreducibly dispositional in character — then one ought to favour a Platonic view of properties. That is, dispositionalists ought to view properti... Read More about Platonic Dispositionalism.

Rescuing Dispositionalism from the Ultimate Problem: Reply to Barker and Smart (2012)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2012). Rescuing Dispositionalism from the Ultimate Problem: Reply to Barker and Smart. Analysis, 72(4), 723-731. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/ans112

Barker and Smart have argued that dispositional monism is just as susceptible to the ultimate regress problem as Armstrong’s contingent necessitation view of laws. In this response, I consider what implications this conclusion has for the disposition... Read More about Rescuing Dispositionalism from the Ultimate Problem: Reply to Barker and Smart.

Simultaneity in Dispositional Interaction? (2010)
Journal Article
Tugby, M. (2010). Simultaneity in Dispositional Interaction?. Ratio: An international journal of analytic philosophy, 23(3), 322-338. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9329.2010.00470.x

My aim is to question an assumption that is often made in the philosophical literature on dispositions. This is the assumption that, generally, the stimulation (or ‘triggering’) of a disposition temporally precedes the manifesting of that disposition... Read More about Simultaneity in Dispositional Interaction?.