Dispositions and Reduction

The aim of the paper is to provide, first, an overview of dispositions and powers as they appear in the writings of David Armstrong and Brian Ellis, two prominent Australian metaphysicists; and second, to examine the topic of reduction and distinction in relation to Armstrong’s assertions that dispositional properties supervene upon their categorical bases. Armstrong defends a categorical realist stance regarding dispositions and powers, laws of nature and causality (Armstrong, 1997). Brian Ellis’s version of essentialism incorporates a dispositionalist view of dispositions and powers. I will describe both Armstrong and Ellis’s positions in detail shortly, however first I would like to make clear what is generally understood by the term disposition.