A disposition is a quality of character, a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.
The terms
dispositional belief
A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to tak ...
and
occurrent belief
A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to tak ...
refer, in the former case, to a
belief
A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...
that is held in the
mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for vario ...
but not currently being considered, and in the latter case, to a belief that is currently being considered by the mind.
In
Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...
's theory of fields, dispositions are the natural tendencies of each individual to take on a specific position in any field. There is no strict determinism through one's dispositions. The ''habitus'' is the choice of positions according to one's dispositions. However, in retrospect, a space of possibles can always be observed.
A disposition is not a process or event in some duration in time, but rather the state, preparation, or tendency of a structure "in waiting". In the field of possibilities, its actual triggering has a statistical value.
Metaphysics
The debate about dispositions in
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
attempts to understand the fundamental nature of properties, including how they relate to laws of nature. The initial question asks if dispositions are real. Realism about dispositions, or dispositionalism, argues that dispositions are causally efficacious properties inherent to objects that are sufficient to produce change. Consider fragility. If a glass is suitably struck, it will break. Fragility is a property of the glass that accounts for this breaking. Paradigmatic examples of dispositional properties include fragility, solubility, and flammability. Dispositionalism maintains that even paradigmatic examples of what appears to be qualitative such as squareness has causal powers (for instance - when combined with the property of hardness - to make a square impression in soft wax). This view is historically argued for by
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...
and
Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mat ...
Stephen Mumford
Stephen Dean Mumford (born 31 July 1965) is a British philosopher, who is currently Head of Department and Professor of Metaphysics in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University. Mumford is best known for his work in metaphysics on dis ...
George Molnar
George Molnar ( hu, Molnár György) (25 April 1910, Nagyvárad – 16 November 1998, Sydney) was born in Nagyvárad, Austria-Hungary and came to Australia in 1939, where he practiced as a cartoonist and architecture lecturer.
Others answer that dispositions are not real properties.
Anti-realism
In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument ...
about dispositions, or categorical, argues that dispositions are ontologically derivative of the interaction of categorical (or qualitative) properties and laws. Accordingly calling a glass fragile, is a useful shorthand for describing the potential interactions of its microstructure (a categorical property) and the laws of nature; dispositions are not additional elements of being. Since the microstructure and laws are enough to explain fragility, there is no causal role for a dispositional property, here fragility, to play. This view is historically argued for by Descartes, Boyle,
Hume
Hume most commonly refers to:
* David Hume (1711–1776), Scottish philosopher
Hume may also refer to:
People
* Hume (surname)
* Hume (given name)
* James Hume Nisbet (1849–1923), Scottish-born novelist and artist
In fiction
* Hume, the ...
and the
logical positivists
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...
David Malet Armstrong
David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014), often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functiona ...
, and Jonathan Schaffer, continue in a neo-Human, empiricist tradition that argues for categorical on the assumption that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences.
Middle ground views are possible. The most notable is the Limit (or Identity) View defended by
Charles B. Martin
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...
and
John Heil
John Heil is an American philosopher, known primarily for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. Heil is Professor of Philosophy at the Washington University in St. Louis, Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, and an Honorar ...
. According to this view, dispositional and categorical - or as Martin prefers: "qualitative," because categorical seems to be misleading - predicates are different ways of identifying one and the same property. Additionally, the properties lie on a spectrum in which it could approach either limit; however, it can never reach either end because those concepts are unrealizable. Ontologically, however, there is no real difference between the two. Fragility, for example, is both a real disposition of glass to break upon being struck and abstraction from the underlying molecular structure. Squareness, to take another example, is both a quality of having four sides of equal length that meet at equal angles and an abstraction from the fact this property interacts with its environment to leave square impressions on soft wax (when combined with the property ‘hardness’).
Law
In law, a disposition is a civil or criminal hearing where a case can be resolved.
Education
In educational settings, learning dispositions are characteristics or attitudes to learning. These may be learned. Some examples are taking responsibility, grit, and persistence when faced with problems.
Religion
In
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
thought, "disposition" has two meanings. Firstly, it may refer to a deliberately practised habit of behaving in a certain way, for example, "a virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good." Secondly, it may refer to a state of a person that is required for reception of a sacrament, for example, a disposition of genuine repentance is required for the forgiveness of sins in
confession
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...
Ability
Abilities are powers an agent has to perform various actions. They include common abilities, like walking, and rare abilities, like performing a double backflip. Abilities are intelligent powers: they are guided by the person's intention and exe ...
*
Adaptive expertise
Adaptive expertise is a broad construct that encompasses a range of cognitive, motivational, and personality-related components, as well as habits of mind and dispositions. Generally, problem-solvers demonstrate adaptive expertise when they are a ...
Truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs ...