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CAUSATION, DISPOSITIONS AND MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS 165
different conceptions of dispositions suggested by Mumford (Mumford 1998), Molnar
(Molnar 2003), Bird (Bird 2007) and others. Dispositions are properties, that is they are real
features (tropes or universals) of their bearers (the things that have the dispositions). Their
most important feature is that they are essentially linked to events or processes which are
their manifestations: fragile → breaking, inflammable → inflammation, and so on. The nature
of this link is controversial as a disposition may be present without ever being manifested, so
it is not a normal ontological relation (because one relatum may not be existent) but I will
take it as given for now. The manifestation event of a disposition (usually) takes place upon a
“trigger” of the disposition and additional conditions have to be accounted for. (There are also
untriggered dispositions like the tendency for the decay of a radioactive nucleus.) The bearer
of a disposition is (usually) involved in the manifestation process. As mentioned, I will ignore
the fact that not all dispositionalists use an ontology of events or processes (like Ellis 2001),
but take as manifestations of dispositions instead (dispositional or non-dispositional)
properties (Mumford 1998, Bird 2007). These approaches seem to be compatible to the one
sketched here as long as one can give some account of the relation of the manifested
properties to the manifestation process. Clearly, not all dispositions have to have processes as
their manifestations. If we allow second order powers the manifestation of a disposition will
be another disposition, e.g. the manifestation of the disposition to be capable to learn Finnish
is to be able to speak Finnish which in turn has the speaking of this language as
manifestation.
2.2 A Dispositional Account of Event-causation
The event-causation view seems to be the standard view in analytic philosophy (Davidson
1967). Regardless of the way the causation relation is to be understood (constant conjunction,
counterfactual dependence, transmission of a mark or of a conserved quantity), the causal
relata can usually be conceived of as events. For simplicity I will ignore alternatives that use
“facts” or propositions instead of events proper as causal relata. As long as “facts” are taken to
be immanent entities, that is as located in space and time, event causation and fact causation
seem to be sufficiently close to each other and both sufficiently different from continous time
evolution that the finer distinctions may be ignored for the present purpose. Another
distinction I will disregard is the one between events and processes where the former have no
relevant temporal substructure whereas the latter are temporally extended. I will not
distinguish between events and processes and use the expressions synonymously. Event
causation is not difficult to connect with a metaphysics of dispositions like the one sketched
above.
Briefly, the analysis of event causation in terms of dispositions and manifestations looks like
this: Dispositions are dispositions for events or processes which are their manifestations, that
is they are properties essentially linked to these manifestations. This manifestation of a
disposition is an event or process that takes place upon a “trigger” (the main manifestation
condition) of the disposition, and possibly additional conditions and several dispositions
acting together have to be accounted for. In an event-causal description we would say:
The striking of the match (cause event) caused the match’s burning (effect event).
or expressed as an ontological relation:
causes (c,e)
This can be translated into a dispositional account of causation as follows: We classify the
“cause event” (the striking) as a trigger and the “effect event” (the burning) as the
manifestation of the disposition of inflammability inhering in the match. An additional
condition for the manifestation is the presence of oxygene. Thus the causal relation is
analysed into a somewhat more complex one involving the disposition-manifestation link, the