I investigate the intrinsic/extrinsic nature of stemness in muscle stem cells (MSC) by relying on recent research on quiescence, with the aim of shedding light on the nature of dispositions and deriving some consequences about stem cells. First, I argue why the study of quiescence is the best available way to establish any claim about the intrinsicness/extrinsicness of stemness at least is some stem cells. Drawing on that, I argue that MSC’s stem capacities result from the combination of intrinsic cues plus extrinsic factors from the stem cell niche, making stemness an extrinsic disposition in MSC. Importantly, it is shown that the niche allows the instantiation of stemness in MSC by acting as a masker of its manifestation. This shows that stemness is, at least in MSC, what I call an extrinsically structurally masked disposition (SMD); that is, a disposition whose instantiation requires, as a condition of possibility, the interaction between the bearer and a masker. Finally, I conclude by suggesting some potential consequences of this observation for the philosophical study of dispositions and for stem cell research.

我依靠最近对静止的研究来研究肌肉干细胞 (MSC) 中干性的内在/外在性质，目的是阐明倾向的性质并推导出一些关于干细胞的结果。首先，我争论为什么静止研究是建立任何关于干性的内在/外在性声明的最佳可用方法，至少是一些干细胞。以此为基础，我认为 MSC 的干细胞能力是由内在线索加上来自干细胞生态位的外在因素共同作用的结果，使干性成为 MSC 中的一种外在倾向。重要的是，表明利基允许通过充当掩蔽器在 MSC 中实例化干性它的表现形式。这表明，至少在 MSC 中，干性是我所说的外在结构掩蔽配置 (SMD)；也就是说，作为可能性条件，其实例化需要承载者和掩蔽者之间的交互。最后，我总结了这一观察对倾向的哲学研究和干细胞研究的一些潜在影响。