Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies

Mauro Dorato (University of Rome) gives a talk for the Metaphysics of Relations Conference, held on 3rd-5th October 2012 in University of London.

John Heil (Washington University in St. Louis) gives a talk for the Metaphysics of Relations Conference, held on 3rd-5th October 2012 in University of London. On the received view of causation, causal relations are a distinctive species of external relation. This paper explores the implications of adopting a conception of causation according to which causal relations are understood as manifestings of reciprocal powers. On such a conception, causation would most naturally be seen as a kind of internal relation, a relation founded on non-relational features of its relata. The consequences of such a view for familiar conceptions of natural necessity are assessed.

Peter Simons (Trinity College Dublin) gives a talk for the Metaphysics of Relations Conference, held on 3rd-5th October 2012 in University of London. Many contingent facts concern objects standing in relationships by accident, prominent among these being spatiotemporal relationships, often taken as the paradigm of externality in relations. Yet the ontological basis for these facts is elusive. Closer ontological scrutiny reveals an underlying tissue of internal relationships leaving only modest scope for real, irreducible and basic external relations. In this paper we will examine the interwoven ontological origins of spatiotemporal relations, causal coincidence and contingency, in an effort to determine the extent to which the world is irreducibly relational.

Stephen Mumford (Nottingham University) gives a talk for the Metaphysics of Relations Conference, held on 3rd-5th October 2012 in University of London. Co-written by Sebastian Briceno.

Maureen Donnelly (SUNY at Buffalo) gives a talk for the Metaphysics of Relations Conference, held on 3rd-5th October 2012 in University of London. In some relational claims- e.g., 'Abelard loves Eloise'-the order of the individual terms determines what relational fact is posited in the claim. In other relational claims- 'Abelard is next to Eloise' the order of the terms seems irrelevant to the underlying relational fact. Whereas there seems to be only one possible fact involving Abelard and Eloise in the relation at issue in the latter claim, there seem to be two possible relational facts involving Abelard and Eloise in the relation at issue in the former claim. I assume that there must be some difference among relations which explains why (and how) some, but not all, relations may return distinct relational facts when combined with fixed relata. I take positionalism to be the view that each argument place of a relational predicate is associated with a particular position or role. On this view, the argument place occupied by a term in a relational claim determines what role its referent plays in the corresponding relational fact. A relation R may generate distinct relational facts involving the same relata if fixed objects may play different roles in R-facts. In this paper, I develop a version of positionalism which assumes that certain properties and relations are instantiated only relative a particular object. I show how object-relative properties can explain differences in relational facts involving the same relata and answer objections to positionalism raised by Fine and MacBride.

Jonathan Lowe (University of Durham) gives a talk for the Metaphysics of Relations Conference, held on 3rd-5th October 2012 in University of London.

Jim Hankinson (University of Texas at Austin) gives a talk for the Causing Health and Disease: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquit conference, held at Corpus Christi College on 21st-22 September 2012. The notion of a power, a dunamis, does a great deal of work in Galen. He believes that the basic functioning of the body is realized through four principal powers, of attraction, adhesion, alteration and excretion, although these come in a variety of different forms. These in turn are outgrowths of the fundamental physical powers of the basic qualities Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry. At the other end of the scale there are the psychological dunameis, such as the powers of calculation and of memory. As in Aristotle, the concept of a dunamis is tightly linked with that of an energeia; but these are not simply logical abstractions. Rather the natural energeiai are the basic functional activities of the animal body and its parts, and as health consists in proper functioning, so disease is defined as 'damage to one of the natural energeiai of the body'; and these activities are damaged when something interferes with its related dunamis. Thus dunamis is at the very heart of Galen's physiology and nosology; and it also plays a fundamental role in his pharmacology and theory of temperament. Here Hankinson tries to make sense of the apparently very different things Galen says regarding them. For example, he says that they do not inhabit our bodies as we do our houses; that is, presumably, they are not substantial or hypostasized. Equally he is perfectly clear that they are relational items: a power is a power for affecting something determinate in some determinate way. They are also said to be efficient causes. But it is not clear how these different strands fit together. In this paper Hankinson seeks to answer the basic question: What, for Galen, are powers, and how are they to be properly individuated?

Brooke Holmes (Princeton University) gives a talk for the Causing Health and Disease: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquit conference, held at Corpus Christi College on 21st-22 September 2012. One of Galen's basic philosophical commitments is to the Platonic idea of the Demiurge. No other explanation of the intelligent organization of living beings, he argues, is remotely plausible. But how is the rational design of the Demiurge actually realized in matter, not just at the moment of creation but over the course of an organism's life? In this paper, Holmes examines Galen's treatment of what he calls the natural faculties (physikai dynameis) as the vehicles of immanent intelligence of living beings, paying particular attention to the relationship of the treatise On the Natural Faculties to other later works, such as On My Own Opinions and On the Formation of the Fetus. Holmes is primarily interested in cases where the concept of the natural faculties is strained, such as the moment of conception and at the boundary between animate and inanimate beings. By focusing on these occasions, we can pose the question: How much intelligence does the concept of dynamis sustain in Galen?

Hans-Georg Moeller (University College Cork), gives a talk for the Causing Health and Disease: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquit conference, held at Corpus Christi College on 21st-22 September 2012. This paper explores the semantically ambiguous distinctions health/sickness and strength/weakness in ancient Daoist texts. He introduces and discusses several images in the Daodejing (Laozi) and allegories in the Zhuangzi which illustrate the often paradoxical reversals of these qualities, and then outline their philosophical significance

Philip van der Ejik gives a talk for the Causing Health and Disease: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquit conference, held at Corpus Christi College on 21st-22 September 2012. Greek medicine was, from the very beginnings, preoccupied with causal explanation and with theoretical reflection on causation as such. One area where the quest for causes and the question of causal efficacy was particularly pressing was that of the dunameis of substances, i.e. the powers of foods, drinks, drugs and other therapeutic measures to bring about changes in the body of the organism to which they were administered. How can these powers be determined and identified? What is their ontological status, considering that they do not always work? How are efficacy and inefficacy explained? This paper will focus on three medical thinkers who have addressed these questions: the author of the Hippocratic work On Regimen (5th-4th century BCE); Diocles of Carystus (4th century BCE); and Galen of Pergamum (2nd century CE).