Marmodoro, A. (2022). What’s Dynamic About Causal Powers? A Black Box!. In C. J. Austin, A. Marmodoro, A. Roselli (Eds): Powers, Time and Free Will (Chapter 1). Synthese Library, vol 451. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92486-7_1
[Abstract]Modern science cannot do without Aristotelian powers – thus have argued Cartwright and Pemberton (2013) among many others. Aristotelian powers are essentially dynamic entities, which account for causal phenomena, and thus explain how change comes about in the world. In this chapter I argue that explaining causation in terms of interacting causal powers places causation … beyond the reach of our understanding(!) – because causal interaction shows us what powers do, and not what powers are. Metaphysicians by and large agree that the intrinsic nature of powers is to be dynamic entities. I contend here that their dynamism is irreducible, and crucially, unknowable, rendering what powers are ‘black boxes’ to us, despite multiple attempts of defining them in the literature. The sciences discover only how powers behave, and classify them teleologically to tell us what they do. Powers, however, are mysterious and unexplorable black boxes to us, even though they are indispensable in our scientific explanations of change in the world.
[Citing Place (1996g)]  [Citing Place (1999b)]  
Citing Place (1996g) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
Section 1.3 The Directedness of Powers
Subsection 1.3.1 Physical Intentionality
* An alternative approach to the explanation of the nature of powers is the one according to which the internal complexity of powers is conceived as the ‘directedness’ of powers: a power (of type) P is directed towards its manifestation/exercise (of type) M. So, what is directedness? (And does it account for the dynamism of powers?) Some metaphysicians have described the directedness of powers as ‘physical intentionality’ (e.g., Martin and Pfeifer (1986), Place (1996), Molnar (2003), Heil (2003), Martin (2008), Borghini (2009)). Footnote 13: Molnar uses the expression ‘physical intentionality’ (2003: 60–81), Heil ‘natural intentionality’ (2003: 221), and Martin (2008: 178), Place (1999, passim), and Borghini (2009, passim) use ‘intentionality’. Others however have objected to this characterization (e.g., Bird, 2007a, b; Mumford, 1999; Mumford & Anjum, 2011; Bauer, 2016 engages in replying to the critics of the view). I consider ‘physical intentionality’ a metaphor at best, and an unhelpful one.
Citing Place (1999b) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
See citations of Place (1996g)