Dispositional actualism (DA) has the theoretical advantage over many other theories in the metaphysics of modality that it successfully grounds the modalities on some thisworldly empirically accessible entities, the dispositions or potentials of things and persons. But previous accounts also suffer from serious problems. We argue for a new account of dispositional actualism that avoids these problems; we call it Cognitive Capacities DA account (CDA); it centres upon a disjunctive analysis of modality that includes cognitive powers in addition to physical powers. This account is recommended not only because of its high intuitive plausibility, demonstrated by the close connection between modality and cognition that has been accepted by many philosophers over the centuries. First and foremost, as we claim, it guarantees for maximal material adequacy of the analysis of modality. Our theses are as follows: (I) Cognitive capacities in which some modalities are grounded are cognitive powers or bundles of interacting cognitive powers which together manifest themselves in a cognitive output. (II) Both metaphysical and logical modalities can be analysed in terms of these cognitive capacities. Finally, (III) an analysis of modalities should be framed in terms of both physical powers and cognitive capacities to have maximal material adequacy.

Compatibilists about mental causation maintain that every effect of a mental cause also has a sufficient physical cause. This, many object, looks suspiciously like overdetermination. In response, compatibilists argue that there is a key difference between overdetermination and compatibilist mental causation: While the overdetermining causes in genuine overdetermination are independent, the causes in compatibilist mental causation are grounding-related. For this reason, they cannot overdetermine their effects.

In this paper, I argue that, to the contrary, grounding-related causes can sometimes overdetermine their effects. I present a novel counterexample, which arguably qualfies as a case of grounding-related causes overdetermining an effect. I show how this counterexample refutes two proposed necessary conditions on overdetermination, by Kroedel and Schulz (2016), and Stenwall (2021). Finally, I suggest a way to modify Stenwall’s proposal such that it no longer misclassifies the counterexample.

Dispositions’ status as explanatorily potent or impotent has long been a point of contention in the literature, with discussion typically centering on their causal potency. My aim in this presentation is not to argue for or against dispositions’ causal potency, but to consider how we might expand their explanatory potency to include non-causal cases. In the cases I consider, however, it is not enough that a disposition be instantiated for it to exhibit this non-causal explanatory potency: it must also manifest. In fact, it must manifest continuously.

I begin by elucidating dispositional manifestation, distinguishing between what I term the ‘state’ and ‘process’ views of the phenomenon. In light of these views, I develop an account of what it means for a disposition to manifest continuously in the relevant sense. I go on to claim that cases of continuous manifestation can be differentiated according to the explanatory roles played by the dispositions involved in them. Specifically, I claim that dispositions can play an ‘ongoing explanatory role’ for what they bring about when manifested, whereas in other cases they do not. In the former, dispositions can exhibit non-causal explanatory potency and, in a sense, ‘sustain’ the products of their manifestation.

The Personite Problem (Johnston 2016, 2017) purports to show that perdurantism contrasts with our moral and prudential practices. Johnston considers this result an objection to perdurantism. The key claim is that personites have the same moral status of persons, where a personite is a proper part of a person that shares her mind and some relevant part of her body.

Johnston’s Master Argument for the claim that personites have the same moral status of persons is based on three premises. Importantly, the property of having a moral profile for persons is determined by a basis of intrinsic properties. I argue that the basis of properties for a personite is different, and this makes Johnston’s premise (2) false. Specifically, I argue for the claims: i) That the mental attitudes for personites are systematically wrong is grounded on the fact that these attitudes are true when possessed by the person and that the personite is a proper part of the person: ii) The mind of the personite extrinsic and depends on its person. I also dismiss the objection that the basis of properties of the personite determines a different moral status that produces a revenge personite problem.