Intentionality and the Physical: a New Theory of Disposition Ascription

This paper has three aims. First, it aims to stress the importance of the dispositional/ categorical distinction in the light of the evident failure of the traditional formulation. Second, it considers one radical new alternative that is on offer, intentionality as the mark of the dispositional, and shows what is unacceptable about it. Finally, a suggestion is made of what would be a better theory that explains all that was appealing about the new alternative. The debate has largely concentrated on the relationship between disposition ascriptions and conditionals. A traditional understanding is that disposition ascriptions entail or can be analysed by true conditional if ... then statements. This was challenged by Mellor, who observed that all property ascriptions, even the paradigmatically categorical ones such as ‘triangular’, entailed conditionals. Popper held a similar view, noting that ‘being dissolved’, as well as ‘being soluble’, was dispositional because it entailed the conditional that if the liquid is evaporated, then the solid can be recovered. The plot thickened when C.B. Martin launched another attack on the relationship between dispositions and conditionals which, although in obvious disagreement with the preceding criticism, had the same effect. He pointed out that disposition ascriptions can be true even when the associated conditional