Dispositions need substances

Jonathan Jacobs

Dispositional essentialists ought to accept (at least) a two category ontology: dispositions and the substances that have them. The best dispositional essentialist, systematic metaphysics includes both dispositions and substances that have them. In this paper I will focus on the broadly dispositional essentialist account of causation, and will argue that, with some plausible assumptions about properties, it entails both that there are substances and that all causation is substance causation.