Thanks for the link!
The
Goodman (1954) reference might be of interest too. It talks about possibilities and dispositions from about page 40, but I think its a little excessive.
What is so mysterious about it?
I'm guessing because it is uncomfortably haunted by ideas of essentialism.
Where is flexibility? What does fragility weigh?
It seems like "disposition" is just a place-holder for a lack of understanding of the underlying physics.
That's almost certainly how it started. But any physicist will tell you that while it is possible to describe the wave function of a specific glass vessel interacting with a specific concrete floor at a certain energy, it's easier and precise enough to say 'glasses are disposed to smashing if you drop them', 'lead is malleable', etc.
Fragility is not something that is 'obvious' like size or shape. It's a property something has, that only manifests under certain conditions.
So is it different from a possibility or not?
Well dispositions are specific to entities, and are referring to real properties that have not yet manifested, but will under some condition. It's a philosophical possibility that the glass will turn to gold, but I don't think glass is disposed to turning into gold.
In that way, it seems like disposition is a bit stronger of a claim than possibility. That is, when something is disposed to whatever given such-n-such, then the whatever happens, no matter what, if such-n-such does. Conversely, if it is just a possibility, then it may or may not happen... it could, but it doesn't have too.
Does that sound right?
Sounds good. A coin might be disposed to coming to rest flat, but its only a possibility it will be head side up.
Because if it is, then Andrew isn't really using the word properly.
I'm shocked!
A disposition is a property that even though it may not emerge over a given time, or at all, has the ability to emerge none the less.
That sounds just like "possibility" to me.
No, its not bad. Not all glasses shatter. I'm not sure 'ability' is the best choice but while it remains a glass, it has the disposition to shatter.
Again, I'm not seeing how that is different from a "possibility".
In general parlance I think its quite alright to use either word, disposition is probably a more specific and perhaps more precise word. It's possible that the glass will bounce around chiming the notes from the Godfather theme but I think it would be a push to say that glasses are disposed towards doing that even in common English.