Dispositional Realism, Conflicting Models and Contrastive Explanation

Abstract

Chakravartty puts forward a view of scientific knowledge that conceives of properties attributed to objects by scientific models as dispositions. Those dispositions refer to the capacity of an object to behave differently in different circumstances. This pluralism of behaviour is intended to show that perspectivalism does not exclude the possibility of non-perspectival knowledge. To support this claim, he offers an analogy between conflicting models and contrastive explanations. I examine the strength of the purported analogy between conflicting models and contrastive explanations. Then, I analyse this dispositionalist account of properties in order to assess whether ontological pluralism can meet the challenge that conflicting models pose to the scientific realism. To conclude, I contend that to accomplish this goal, a more detailed account of dispositional properties should be provided, as well as a theory of explanatory relevance.