Realism, functionalism and conditional analysis of dispositions

The analysis of disposition concepts in terms of conditionals has recently been challenged by C.B. Martin's electro-fink examples, by means of which Martin tries to refute the project of a conditional analysis of dispositions in general, and to defend thereby a realistic account of dispositions. In replying to Martin, D. Lewis has presented a new and complex conditional analysis not subject to Martin's counter-examples. However, according to Lewis' analysis, dispositions are second-order properties and thus not efficacious. I argue that dispositions are efficacious properties, and therefore deserve a different analysis, in terms of counterfactual conditionals; this is not subject to Martin's counter-examples. I show that my analysis is not anti-realistic. On the contrary, my conceptual analysis of dispositions does not imply any ontological reduction that would deprive dispositions of their status as real properties of things. © The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, 2000.