philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

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 ...

dispositions 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 and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind ...

laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...

philosophy of sport Philosophy of sport is an area of philosophy that seeks to conceptually analyze issues of sport as human activity. These issues cover many areas, but fall primarily into five philosophical categories: metaphysics, ethics and moral philosophy, phil ...

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

Huddersfield Polytechnic , mottoeng = Thus not for you alone , established = 1825 – Huddersfield Science and Mechanics' Institute1992 – university status , type = Public , endowment = £2.47 million (2015) , chancellor = George W. Buckley , vice_chancell ...

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

Faculty of Arts A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

Dispositions 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 and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind ...

George Molnar (philosopher) George Molnar (1934–1999) was a Hungarian-born philosopher whose principal area of interest was metaphysics. He worked mainly in the Philosophy Department at the University of Sydney but resided in England from 1976 to 1982. He published four p ...

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.philosophical papers on

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 ...

in his career, but his importance in the field should not be underestimated. After a return to the field, following a self-imposed absence, he was working on a book ('' Powers'') and continued up until his sudden and untimely death in August 1999. The book remained unfinished until Mumford, who had previously been in contact with Molnar, in the summer of 1999, with the intention of giving feedback on the work (nearing completion), was approached to edit the remaining

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

into a completed book. Mumford, along with several other figures in the field of metaphysics, including David Armstrong, were involved collaboratively in providing insight on Molnar's work, and on him as a person, but the editing was left to Mumford, as was the writing of an introductory chapter to correctly present and establish the material laid out - something which Molnar did not get round to doing before his death. Armstrong states, "We can be very grateful to Stephen Mumford for making a volume from the much that we have. His excellent introduction serves in place of the introductory chapter that was left unwritten". Mumford had discussed Molnar at a conference on Australian metaphysics, held in

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

(9–13 December 1999), but the colloquium - organised by Jean-Maurice Monnoyer, entitled "The Structure of the World: Objects, Properties and States of Affairs" - was to be the first official meeting of Mumford and Molnar as well. Mumford had considered this to be the end of the matter, but, in the spring of 2000, Mumford was contacted again concerning '' Powers''. This time, however, it was through mutual friend

Tony Skillen Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leagu ...

(lecturer in philosophy at the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

) on behalf of Molnar's former partner Carlotta McIntosh, who had given access to the

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

and who shared it with Mumford. Although the book was, in places, complete and filled with promise, there was much work to be done on the later chapters - Mumford reflects on a conversation between himself and Armstrong on the way to the

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

colloquium, mentioning Molnar's email stating the work was near finished, Armstrong replied: "it was near finished, in his mind". The main theory of powers survives, and with Mumford's help and editorial contribution is readily accessible.

Metaphysics of science

Mumford was a project leader for The University of Nottingham in the AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) funded three-year research project: the metaphysics of science. Mumford worked alongside

Alexander Bird Alexander James Bird (born 1964) is a British philosopher and Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Career In 2020, Bird was elected to the Bertrand Russell Professorship of Philosophy, succeeding Huw Pric ...

(

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

) and

Helen Beebee Helen Beebee was formerly the Samuel Hall Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manchester. She is now a professor at the University of Leeds. Beebee's work has been influential across a wide variety of fields, including causation, fr ...

(

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

) within this project with their joint focus on " causes,

laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...

,

kinds Kind or KIND may refer to: Concepts * Kindness, the human behaviour * Kind, a basic unit of categorization * Kind (type theory), a concept in logic and computer science * Natural kind, in philosophy * Created kind, often abbreviated to kinds, ...

, and dispositions". The project was described with the following abstract:

Bibliography

Books

* * * * * **Edited with an introduction by Stephen Mumford; foreword by David Armstrong * **Edited with Introductions by Stephen Mumford; ''Russell on...'' series edited by A. C. Grayling * * **''...a critical examination of reductive accounts of the meaning and ontology of dispositional discourse'' **Available for consultation at the Brotherton Library,

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

.Leeds University Library – http://lib.leeds.ac.uk:80/record=b1407863 **Constituent parts published separately include: ***''Dispositions, Supervenience and Reduction'' (1994). ***''Dispositions, Bases, Overdetermination and Identities'' (1995).

Selected articles

* "Passing Powers Around" (January 2009) — ''

The Monist ''The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was established in October 1890 by American publisher Edward C. Hegeler. History Init ...

''., vol. 92, no. 1 * "Negative Truth and Falsehood" (November 2006) — ''

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squa ...

'' (forthcoming in print, available online vi
Blackwell-Synergy
* "The Ungrounded Argument" (April 2006) — ''

Synthese ''Synthese'' () is a scholarly periodical specializing in papers in epistemology, methodology, and philosophy of science, and related issues. Its subject area is divided into four specialties, with a focus on the first three: (1) "epistemology, me ...

''., vol. 149, no. 3: 471-489 * "Function, Structure, Capacity" (March 2006) — '' Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A''., vol. 37, iss. 1: 76-80 * "Kinds, Essences, Powers" (December 2005) — ''

Ratio In mathematics, a ratio shows how many times one number contains another. For example, if there are eight oranges and six lemons in a bowl of fruit, then the ratio of oranges to lemons is eight to six (that is, 8:6, which is equivalent to the ...

''., vol. 18, iss. 4: 420-436 * "The True and the False" (June 2005) — ''

Australasian Journal of Philosophy The ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of philosophy and "one of the oldest English-language philosophy journals in the world". It was established in 1923 as ''The Australasian Journal of Psychol ...

''., vol. 83, no.2: 263-269 * "Laws and Lawlessness" (April 2005) — ''

Synthese ''Synthese'' () is a scholarly periodical specializing in papers in epistemology, methodology, and philosophy of science, and related issues. Its subject area is divided into four specialties, with a focus on the first three: (1) "epistemology, me ...

''., vol. 144, no. 3: 397-413 * "Realism and the Conditional Analysis of Dispositions: Reply to Malzkorn" (July 2001) — ''