Individual objects have potentials: paper has the potential to burn; an acorn has the potential to turn into a tree. Barbara Vetter investigates the metaphysics of such potentials, and develops a dispositionalist view of metaphysical modality which takes account of contemporary developments in metaphysics, logic, and semantics.

• 1: The Project


• 2: Dispositions: against the standard conception


• 3: Dispositions: an alternative conception


• 4: Varieties of potentiality


• 5: Formalizing potentiality


• 6: Possibility: metaphysics and semantics


• 7: Objections


• A: Formal adequacy


• Bibliography


• Index

Barbara Vetter has a BPhil and a DPhil in Philosophy from the University of Oxford and is now a junior professor for theoretical philosophy at Humboldt-University, Berlin.