Powerful Qualities, Not Pure Powers

Abstract

I explore two accounts of properties within a dispositional essentialist (or causal powers) framework, the pure powers view and the powerful qualities view. I rst attempt to clarify precisely what the pure powers view is, and then raise objections to it. I then present the powerful qualities view and, in order to avoid a common misconception, oer a restatement of it that I shall call the truthmaker view. I end by briey defending the truthmaker view against objections.