Why Metrical Properties are not Powers

Andreas Bartels (Bonn) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (19 Jan, 2012) titled "Why Metrical Properties are not Powers". Abstract: What has the dispositional analysis of properties and laws (e.g. Molnar 2003, Mumford 2004, Bird 2007) to offer to the scientific understanding of physical properties? – The paper provides an answer to this question for the case of spacetime points and their metrical properties in General Relativity. The analysis shows that metrical properties are not ‘powers’, i.e. they cannot be understood as producing the effects of spacetime on matter with metaphysical necessity. Instead they possess categorical characteristics which, in connection with specific laws, explain those effects. Thus, the properties of spacetime do not favor the metaphysics of powers with respect to properties and laws.