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Exploring various aspects of modern and ancient metaphysics as they relate to the hypothesis that powers (or dispositions) are the sole elementary building block in ontology.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Powers/dispositions metaphysics • process vs substance ontology • causation, necessity, modality, emergence, reduction • structure/quality, relations, grounding, persistence • philosophy of science mechanisms, laws, physics • Aristotle, Stoicism, Empedocles, Galen: perception, ethics, politics, mind, responsibilityThis podcast presents academic talks that connect contemporary analytic metaphysics and philosophy of science with themes from ancient philosophy, organized around the idea that powers or dispositions may be central to ontology. Across the episodes, speakers examine how powers relate to causation, modality, laws of nature, and the structure of reality, often testing whether a powers-based metaphysics can explain necessity, counterfactuals, production, and the persistence or grounding of complex entities.
A recurring set of questions concerns emergence and levels of explanation: how macroscopic organization, mind, and agency might arise from microphysical processes, and whether “strong” emergence is coherent or defensible. Several contributions compare powers-based views with structuralist, law-based, or relation-first alternatives, including debates over whether physics supports dispositional properties, whether reality is fundamentally structural, and whether relations are internal, external, or eliminable.
The podcast also engages process ontology, treating processes as more fundamental than substances, and asks how objects and stable entities can be understood as temporally sustained patterns of activity. Related discussions address composition, coincidence of material objects, determinism, and the metaphysical status of ordinary macroscopic things and biological organisms.
Ancient philosophy is a major pillar: Aristotle’s accounts of motion, perception (including common sensibles and “common sense” as metaperception), singular thought, and ethical development are explored alongside Stoic ethics and psychology, including detailed work on Marcus Aurelius and the nature of moral self-cultivation. Further historical material includes Empedocles’ metaphysics and cosmology, ancient medical theories of powers in Hippocratic and Galenic contexts, and comparative perspectives such as Daoist treatments of health, weakness, and strength. Throughout, the episodes emphasize careful methodological reflection on what metaphysical knowledge involves and how it should interact with scientific inquiry.