The Essence of Dispositional Essentialism

Abstract

Some natural properties have causal roles; call these ‘causal properties’. Dispositional essentialists think that some causal properties have their causal roles essentially. For the purposes of this paper, I treat dispositional essentialism (hereafter ‘DE’) as a claim about the properties of (ideal, completed, fundamental) science. If the basic ontology of completed science (hereafter ‘Physics’) includes charge, and attributes to it the causal role of repelling like charges, then repelling like charges is essential to charge. Dispositional essentialists often go further. The causal role R of charge isn’t just essential to charge, R is the individual essence of charge—in addition to having R essentially, having R as opposed to some other causal role is what makes charge the property it is, rather than some other property. By contrast, categoricalists hold that Physical properties have no essential (non-trivial) modal character. A canonical explanation of why such properties have their inessential causal roles appeals to laws of nature. That charge has R is determined by a second-order relation of ‘contingent necessitation’—such relations (so to speak) tell categorical properties what to