Alexander Bird is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol.

• 1. Introduction - laws and properties ; 2. Dispositions ; 3. Dispositional essentialism and the laws of nature ; 4. Categoricalism ; 5. Dispositional essentialism, modality, and intentionality ; 6. The regress objection ; 7. Structural properties ; 8. The illusion of nomic contingency ; 9. Are there any laws, and if so what are they? ; 10. Concluding remarks ; References

no one has yet elaborated and defended with so much subtlety, rigour, and depth the exciting new metaphysics of nature that replaces both versions of the traditional categoricalist picture of nature...Reading Bird is highly rewarding: he sheds new light on many problems by analysing them in a new way...Bird's book holds promise to become the authoritative statement of the new dispositionalist metaphysics.

Alexander Bird is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol.

• 1. Introduction - laws and properties ; 2. Dispositions ; 3. Dispositional essentialism and the laws of nature ; 4. Categoricalism ; 5. Dispositional essentialism, modality, and intentionality ; 6. The regress objection ; 7. Structural properties ; 8. The illusion of nomic contingency ; 9. Are there any laws, and if so what are they? ; 10. Concluding remarks ; References

no one has yet elaborated and defended with so much subtlety, rigour, and depth the exciting new metaphysics of nature that replaces both versions of the traditional categoricalist picture of nature...Reading Bird is highly rewarding: he sheds new light on many problems by analysing them in a new way...Bird's book holds promise to become the authoritative statement of the new dispositionalist metaphysics.

Alexander Bird is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol.

• 1. Introduction - laws and properties ; 2. Dispositions ; 3. Dispositional essentialism and the laws of nature ; 4. Categoricalism ; 5. Dispositional essentialism, modality, and intentionality ; 6. The regress objection ; 7. Structural properties ; 8. The illusion of nomic contingency ; 9. Are there any laws, and if so what are they? ; 10. Concluding remarks ; References

no one has yet elaborated and defended with so much subtlety, rigour, and depth the exciting new metaphysics of nature that replaces both versions of the traditional categoricalist picture of nature...Reading Bird is highly rewarding: he sheds new light on many problems by analysing them in a new way...Bird's book holds promise to become the authoritative statement of the new dispositionalist metaphysics.