Fragility. Who would expect such an innocent concept to dominate much of 20th century philosophy? Yet that’s what it did. Fragility is a disposition, and dispositions are philosophical puzzles.
What does one mean when one says “this vase is fragile”? The first answer that arises in people’s minds is “well, if I would drop it, it would break”. And indeed, that is one of the most often analyzed sentences in philosophy.
The problem lies in the word “would”. “If I would drop this vase, it would break” only makes sense in a situation in which I did not drop the vase. But whether the sentence is true depends on the state of a possible world in which I do drop the vase. However, clearly, we don’t live in that world – otherwise the vase wouldn’t be fragile, but broken. Therefore, whether a vase is fragile depends on what would happen in a possible world that isn’t ours. Empiricist philosophers of the 20th century didn’t like that, because they thought truth should depend only on what is the case, not what could or would or will be the case.
Many tried to solve the problem by suggesting that dispositions are reducible to something more basic. They argued that “this vase is fragile” actually means “this vase has material constitution M”, where M would refer, say, to the arrangement of the molecules that make up the vase. That seems like a good idea, except that there isn’t any particular constitution M that makes a vase fragile. There are instead indefinitely many ways in which vases can be fragile, M1, M2, …, M∞.
To make things worse, there are also indefinitely many ways to break a vase. So actually “this vase is fragile” means “if I would drop the vase, and it has material constitution M1, then it would break, or if I would kick the vase, and it has material constitution M2, then it would shatter, or…”; and infinitely many “or” sentences follow. So, what binds these sentences together? Well, they all characterize a vase that is… fragile. But now we’re back at square one,: we were trying to reduce fragility to something more basic, and now it jumps back at us like a zombie in a B-movie.
Why would psychologists worry about this? Because many psychological concepts are dispositional. “Jane is intelligent” means something like “If we gave Jane a difficult problem, she would solve it, “John is resilient” means something like “If we put John in a stressful situation, he could handle it”, and “Professor Brainsweat is vain” means something like “If we gave Brainsweat a book, he would first check the references to see if he is cited”.
Unfortunately, the philosophers never tackled the problem. It has been left behind, gathering dust in a dark corner of metaphysics. Most psychologists don’t even know about it. Some day, however, someone will have to take it up and solve it, if that wicked science of ours is ever to seriously take off.
Fragility. Who would expect such an innocent concept to dominate much of 20th century philosophy? Yet that’s what it did. Fragility is a disposition, and dispositions are philosophical puzzles.
What does one mean when one says “this vase is fragile”? The first answer that arises in people’s minds is “well, if I would drop it, it would break”. And indeed, that is one of the most often analyzed sentences in philosophy.
The problem lies in the word “would”. “If I would drop this vase, it would break” only makes sense in a situation in which I did not drop the vase. But whether the sentence is true depends on the state of a possible world in which I do drop the vase. However, clearly, we don’t live in that world – otherwise the vase wouldn’t be fragile, but broken. Therefore, whether a vase is fragile depends on what would happen in a possible world that isn’t ours. Empiricist philosophers of the 20th century didn’t like that, because they thought truth should depend only on what is the case, not what could or would or will be the case.
Many tried to solve the problem by suggesting that dispositions are reducible to something more basic. They argued that “this vase is fragile” actually means “this vase has material constitution M”, where M would refer, say, to the arrangement of the molecules that make up the vase. That seems like a good idea, except that there isn’t any particular constitution M that makes a vase fragile. There are instead indefinitely many ways in which vases can be fragile, M1, M2, …, M∞.
To make things worse, there are also indefinitely many ways to break a vase. So actually “this vase is fragile” means “if I would drop the vase, and it has material constitution M1, then it would break, or if I would kick the vase, and it has material constitution M2, then it would shatter, or…”; and infinitely many “or” sentences follow. So, what binds these sentences together? Well, they all characterize a vase that is… fragile. But now we’re back at square one,: we were trying to reduce fragility to something more basic, and now it jumps back at us like a zombie in a B-movie.
Why would psychologists worry about this? Because many psychological concepts are dispositional. “Jane is intelligent” means something like “If we gave Jane a difficult problem, she would solve it, “John is resilient” means something like “If we put John in a stressful situation, he could handle it”, and “Professor Brainsweat is vain” means something like “If we gave Brainsweat a book, he would first check the references to see if he is cited”.
Unfortunately, the philosophers never tackled the problem. It has been left behind, gathering dust in a dark corner of metaphysics. Most psychologists don’t even know about it. Some day, however, someone will have to take it up and solve it, if that wicked science of ours is ever to seriously take off.
