An extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers on the many problems associated with dispositions which is then linked to other issues, such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.'. Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their distinctive accounts cover many of the issues surrounding dispositions such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation. Dispositions illuminates this central topic in analytic philosophy and at the same time highlights deeper concerns of metaphysics.

`This book furnishes fertile soil within which many different theories could take root and extract nourishment'`We stongly recommend this book on Dispostions.Each of the three participants provides very persuassive arguments for different parts of the full story which seek concerning dispostions. The many arguments in this book can help to draw a reader, as they have drawn us, very much closer towards a satisfying understanding of some of the deepest and most central problems in metaphysics''This is a book on one of the most central issues in current metaphysics by three figures who are and have been right in the eye of the storm ... The many arguments in this book can help to draw a reader, as they have drawn us, very much closer to a satisfying understanding of some of the deepest and most central problems in metaphysics.' - Canadian Journal of Philosophy'The waters of metaphysics rise ... here in Disposition, are not one but three grand old men of the sea to pilot us through them.' - Times Literary Supplement