A disposition is a quality of character, a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way that may be learned. The terms dispositional belief and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind but not currently being considered, and in the latter case, to a belief that is currently being considered by the mind. In Bourdieu's theory of fields, dispositions are the natural tendencies of each individual to take on a specific position in any field. There is no strict determinism through one's dispositions. The habitus is the choice of positions according to one's dispositions. However, in retrospect a space of possibles can always be observed. A disposition is not a process or event in some duration in time, but rather the state, preparation, or tendency of a structure "in waiting". In the field of possibilities its actual triggering has a statistical value.
The debate about dispositions in metaphysics attempts to understand the fundamental nature of properties, including how they relate to laws of nature. The initial question asks if dispositions are real. Realism about dispositions, or dispositionalism, argues that dispositions are causally efficacious properties inherent to objects that are sufficient to produce change. Consider fragility. If a glass is suitably struck, it will break. Fragility is a property of the glass that accounts for this breaking. Paradigmatic examples of dispositional properties include fragility, solubility, and flammability. Dispositionalism maintains that even paradigmatic examples of what appears to be qualitative such as squareness has causal powers. This view is historically argued for by Aristotle and Leibniz. Contemporary proponents include Sydney Shoemaker, U.T Place, Stephen Mumford, Alexander Bird, George Molnar, Brian Ellis. Others answer that dispositions are not real properties. Anti-realism about dispositions, or categoricalism, argues that dispositions are ontologically derivative of the interaction categorical properties and laws. Accordingly calling a glass fragile, is useful shorthand for describing the potential interactions of its microstructure and the laws of nature; dispositions are not additional elements of being. Since the microstructure and laws are enough to explain fragility, there is no causal role for a dispositional property, here fragility, to play. This view is historically argued for by Descartes, Boyle, Hume and the logical positivists. Contemporary proponents, including David Lewis, David Malet Armstrong, and Jonathan Schaffer, continue in a neo-Humaen, empiricist tradition that argues for categoricalism on the assumption that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Middle ground views are possible. The most notable is the Limit View defended by Charles B. Martin and John Heil. According to this view, dispositional and categorical - or as Martin prefers: "qualitative," because categorical seems to be misleading - predicates are different ways of identifying one and the same property. Additionally, the properties lies on a spectrum in which it could approach either limit; however, it can never reach either end because those concepts are unrealisable. Ontologically, however, there is no real difference between the two. Fragility, for example, is both a real disposition of glass to break upon being struck and an abstraction from the underlying molecular structure. Squareness, to take another example, is both a quality of having four sides of equal length that meet at equal angles and an abstraction from the fact this property interacts with its environment to leave square impressions on soft wax.
In hermeneutics a disposition provides a way in which knowledge can be organised. Robbie Shilliam defines an intellectual disposition as framing "a set of elements into a coherent problem at the same time as this framing clarifies ethical commitments to the redressing of that problem." He derives this from the french term Dispositif used by Michel Foucault and developed by Giorgio Agamben. However, following Jeffrey Bussolini, he distinguishes a disposition from an. This then enables a periodisation within a particular topic as the way a set of elements are framed differently as the social and political contexts changes. Shilliam applies this to the Black presence in British Empire creating a periodisation of academic dispositions as follows: the white abolitionist disposition, the colonial development disposition and upon the dismantling of the empire, the race relations disposition.
In educational research, a learning disposition are characteristics or attitudes to learning. These may be learned. Some examples are taking responsibility, grit and persistence when faced with problems.
In Catholic thought, "disposition" has two meanings. Firstly, it may refer to a deliberately practised habit of behaving in a certain way, for example, "a virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good." Secondly, it may refer to a state of a person that is required for reception of a sacrament, for example, a disposition of genuine repentance is required for the forgiveness of sins in confession.
