ABSTRACT
Proponents of powers disagree on whether to accept or reject the categorical/dispositional distinction, i.e. the idea that our conception of powers is conceptually incompatible with our conception of quality. Here it is argued that the categorical/dispositional distinction has its roots in the modern analytic view of properties which belongs to the neo-Humean framework. Its allure for contemporary realists is based on (i) misguided epistemological concerns, (i) on the mistaken view that it originates in Locke, and (iii) that Hume’s argument against necessary connections is somehow relevant for realist conceptions of properties. It is shown that the distinction is not present in Locke—he in fact saw properties as both qualities and powers—and that Hume’s argument about necessary connections is just as irrelevant for the contemporary realist debate about properties as for the debate about causal necessity. Finally, building on Locke’s view, a way of thinking of fundamental properties is presented, as primitive natures that we can only understand in virtue of what they do but which we should not think of as being ontologically constituted by these doings. According to this view, properties are both qualities and powers.
