ii A Development

So far then, I have argued that we should concede that properties are grounded in objects. Armstrong understandably claims that this constitutes an objection to causalism since, as causalists want to characterise properties relationally, this seems to exclude the thought that properties are fixed by what is intrinsic to the object. This reasoning, however, implicitly supposes that there is nothing more to a property than specifications of what it enables the objects that instantiate it to do. That is an understandable assumption to make, given Shoemaker’s statement of strong causalism as the view that properties are causal powers. But, hopefully, chapter one (see p.24-8) shows that this it isn’t the only way of interpreting this vague statement. If we interpret causalism as the view that properties are defined by their causal powers (i.e. by the basic network model see p.25), this (to a large extent - see p.25) leaves metaphysical questions concerning what properties are open. Moreover, even if we take Shoemaker’s statement at face value, it makes no claim concerning what exactly a causal power is. We could defend the strong causalist’s statement (i.e. the claim that properties are causal powers) by opting for a different understanding of causal powers. For Armstrong’s intuition only works as an objection against causalism if we to recognise that an object’s properties/relations have ceased to exist or have com e into existence. But, according to causalism, we cannot identify the object’s properties without identifying its causal powers, and this requires us to perceive their effects, i.e. the changes they make to objects. Therefore, because being able to detect an object’s properties entails perceiving changes in an object, and being able to perceive changes in an object entails detecting changes in the object’s properties, we cannot say what properties are independent o f an appeal to changes in objects, nor what changes in objects are independent o f an appeal to properties.

Swinburne’s objection seems to amount to the claim that w e cannot identify properties with possible future effects, because without the capacity to identify properties, w e w ouldn’t be able to perceive the effects in the first place. Shoemaker responds to this objection with the justified observation that w e can identify some powers that objects have, independent o f changes in objects. I think Shoemaker is right to say this, but I hope that the proposal I shall put forward later in this chapter w ill more persuasively meet the objection. I shall challenge Swinburne’s assumption that causal powers (with which properties are identified) are just potentialities for contributing to the behaviours o f objects. I shall urge that w e should reject this claim and put in its place an alternative model. This w ill, I think, allow us to say that there is something continuous in the object which grounds the property/causal power. Therefore, because this will hopefully give us reason to attribute non-

are willing to endorse the assumption that causal powers should be understood solely in terms of what objects do.

I don’t think this assumption is a very compelling one for the following reasons: first, causal powers, like properties, are attributed to objects even when the objects do not display them. We think that it is a current fact about some object that it has a certain causal power. This is why we claim that objects have causal powers when they are not manifesting them. Thus, we again need some truthmaker for the fact that an object can possess a causal power when it is not being displayed.

Second, scientific practice appears to attribute more to causal powers. When a scientist ascribes a causal power to a substance, the power of opium to produce sleep, for instance, they do not just collect statistics (although empirical tests will be run), they also do a chemical analysis of the substance to see what its chemical nature can tell us. If we just relied on the effects powers produced, we would have a problem distinguishing between seeming powers of substances and real powers. For example, a drug may be thought to have a power because it seems to have a positive effect. However, it may be discovered that the chemical composition of the drug is unable to produce any such positive effect (say because they were found to be sugar pills), thus we would have to put the improvement down to the placebo effect, and say that the drug only appeared to have a causal power.

Third, I think we have strong singularist intuitions which suggest that there needs to be something intrinsic to the cause and effect in virtue of which one brings about the other. A generalist analysis of causal powers (i.e. one which analyses the occurrence of A ’s power to cause B, in terms of all other As and Bs) seems unsatisfactory, because what it is for something to be a causal power doesn’t depend upon the particular involved. Instead of analysing what it is for A to cause B in terms of other As and Bs, therefore, it seems far preferable to focus on what it is about this A that caused that B. If this intuition is correct, then to say that A has the power to cause B, suggests that there is something intrinsic to A in virtue of which it causes

If I am right to think that there is motivation to offer an account of causal powers which appeals to the intrinsic features of an object, we can assert that an

manifested properties/causal powers to objects, we w ill be able to undercut the claim that w e identify properties solely by perceiving changes in objects.

adequate characterisation of properties and causal powers requires us to think of them as grounded in the objects that instantiate them, despite the fact that they are both identified relationally i.e. by what they enable objects to do."^^ Thus, we can also hold onto the claim that properties can be identified by their relational aspects, without forfeiting our grounding intuition.