I outline Merleau-Ponty’s critique of first-generation empiricism with its causal account of sensations of determinate qualities, which is rejected in favour of a figure background account that factors in our interests and our biological imperatives. I then show how he rejects a classical account of re-identification through associations based on the projection of memories. We do not associate past and present bundles of sensations, rather past and present configurations. I then run through his positive view of intersensory or intermodal perception, in which our senses work together from the outset because they are structured to do so. Finally I suggest how he would criticise the second-generation objective thought found in the contemporary physicalism that no longer posits unstructured sensations or externally related variables. He would show that our lifeworld, our responses to significant situations and our beliefs in proximate and distant action possibilities for ourselves and others are utterly ineliminable.

What accounts for the fact that some physical events occur while others do not? This is a question of physical modality. Three models in contemporary analytic metaphysics have dominated the investigation of physical modality: the Neo-Humean Model, the Universals Model, and the Powers Model. Each model aims to explain, in ontologically conspicuous ways, the unfolding of possibilities in space and time. This chapter explains the Neo-Humean and Universals Models, then shows that while they explicitly deny a place for powers in their fundamental ontologies, they nonetheless implicate powers. That is, they subtly assume the reality of powers. As a result, the Powers Model is the way to go in explaining physical modality. However, there are different ways of conceiving powers. After describing variations of the Powers Model, the chapter returns to the main question posed in the introductory chapter: What is the nature of powers from the inside? Stricter attention to the internality of powers is necessary to better understand the Powers Model and its metaphysical commitments.

This chapter introduces the two main questions that this book attempts to answer. First: Why powers? Second: What are powers like? It also discusses the overlap between metaphysics and science, some differences between powers and qualities, the relationship between properties and substances, how we can know powers, and different types of powers isms. The chapter then distinguishes between networking and nodal accounts of powers before previewing the central idea of the book: the 3d account of powers (a nodal account), which combines two core theses. The first is the Physical Intentionality Thesis, which concerns the fact of physical intentionality: that the power is directed toward manifestations. The second is the Informational Thesis, which concerns the content of physical intentionality: what the power is for or directed toward. Lastly, a roadmap for the rest of the book is provided.

This chapter explores the metaphysics of systems of powers, which contain no qualities and have at least two powers in a dynamic relation. In order to account for the reality of higher-level properties in the macro world and everyday experience, whether they are powers or qualities, powers must work together. This chapter first delineates different kinds of multilevel systems of properties, specifying how powers and qualities might be related across different systems. Then, building on the idea of powers holism introduced in Chapter 6, this chapter characterizes what it means for powers to form a unified system. Next, the possibility of ontologically emergent properties, particularly qualities, appearing out of a system of powers, is explored. But this assumes that there are genuine qualities, whereas this chapter ultimately suggests that what appear to be genuine qualities are quasi-qualities.

This chapter explores possible differences between powerful qualities and pure powers, argues for the Pure Powers Model, and discusses the problem of being for pure powers. It is argued that powerful qualities are modally indistinguishable from pure powers but have a denser nature. Since pure powers are ontologically simpler than powerful qualities yet equally explanatorily relevant to modality, we should reject powerful qualities. After rejecting the Powerful Qualities Model, the reality of pure powers is defended. If pure powers are to provide a stable basis for physical modality, the problem of their being or grounding during periods of nonmanifestation needs resolution. It is argued that pure powers are self-grounded. A regress argument advanced by Stathis Psillos, which challenges the self-grounding of pure powers, is deflected. Lastly, Point Theory is developed to explain the self-grounding of pure powers.

This chapter first argues against the widely accepted “mentalist” interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of the perception of external objects. On that view, the perception of objects results from an act of synthesis of the diverse perceptual input provided by the different sense modalities. I argue that Aristotle’s conception of perception does not require such mental “construction” of external objects. For him, we unfailingly perceive external objects by way of modally specific perception: perception without qualification is primarily of external 3-D objects, while modally specific perception is of perceptual qualities. As the special senses cannot operate in isolation from the perceptual system as a whole, it follows that we see colors, hear sounds, etc., and thereby perceive the objects whose colors and sounds they are. The second part offers a causal interpretation of Aristotle’s definition of perception as “reception of the form without the matter,” according to which the causal history of sensory affection fixes the content of the resulting act of perception: perception is cognitive in virtue of being the matterless presence of external things’ qualities in the perceiver.

For the last ten years many (local) policy makers and entrepreneurs have been fascinated with the economic potential of so-called creative industries and smart cities. This fascination was stirred by the conviction that creativity boosts the (local) economy. And because the urban economy is good for 70 percent of global GDP, and as more than half of the total world’s population lives in cities, creative industries are all the more relevant both socially and economically. This chapter explores a new approach to making sense of social and cultural qualities of cities in the new economy. This is the so-called Value based approach (VBA) with novel concepts, such as shared goods and practices, willingness-to-contribute (WTC) (Klamer, 2016), and, a key notion in our application, a commons, more precisely, the knowledge commons.