Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5
Against Dispositional Monism.............................................................................................. 11
1.1 Preliminaries: Two Distinct Issues ....................................................................................11
1.2 The Truthmaking Criterion for the Dispositional/Categorical Distinction ...................12
1.3 Arguing Against Dispositional Monism From the Actual Existence of Fundamental
Categorical Features ........................................................................................................................17
1.3.1 Spatiotemporal Relations as fundamental categorical features .............................18
1.3.1.1 Introduction............................................................................................................18
1.3.1.2 Spatiotemporal Relations and Subjunctive Conditionals in pre-GR theories ..21
1.3.1.3 Bird's Argument for the Dispositional Essence of Spatiotemporal Relations ..22
1.3.1.4 An Appraisal of the Argument .............................................................................24
1.3.1.5 A Nomic interpretation of Bird's counterfactual?..............................................31
Against Identity Theory and Neutral Monism.................................................................... 35
2.1 Identity Theory....................................................................................................................35
2.1.1 Problems for Identity Theory....................................................................................35
2.1.1.1 The objection from the independent variability of dispositionality with respect
to categoricality and vice versa. ..............................................................................................35
2.1.1.2 The one categoricality-multiple dispositionalities problem................................37
2.1.1.3 How can we understand (and justify) the 'surprising' triple identity?.............38
2.1.2 A Unique Categoricality? ..........................................................................................43
2.2 Neutral Monism ..................................................................................................................45
2.2.1 Neutral Monism and the Modified Ungrounded Argument...................................45
2.2.2 Agnosticism.................................................................................................................51
In Defence of Categorical Monism....................................................................................... 53
3.1 In defence of the categoricality of fundamental properties: the argument from
renormalisation ................................................................................................................................53
3.2 Objections ............................................................................................................................58
Categorical Monism and Quidditism................................................................................... 63
4.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................63
4.2 Versions of RNDV...............................................................................................................65
2
4.3 Defending RNDV ................................................................................................................72
4.3.1 The Permutation Difficulty.............................................................................
Vassilis Livanios is a lecturer at the University of Cyprus, with interests including metaphysics and the philosophy of physical science. His work has appeared in several academic journals including Philosophical Studies, Metaphysica, Acta Analytica and Journal for General Philosophy of Science.
