Adjectives like ‘water-soluble’ or ‘conductive’ are typical ‘dispositional’ predicates. Such ‘dispositional’ predicates tell us something about the causal roles played by the items these predicates apply to. Often such predicates are said to ascribe dispositional properties or, in short, dispositions, to certain items. In order for an item to have a certain disposition, it is not necessary that it actually plays that causal role at any point in time, i.e. that its disposition is ever realised or manifested; it is sufficient that it is disposed to do so, were appropriate circumstances to obtain. Dispositional properties are normally contrasted with ‘categorical’ properties. Different Types of dispositions correspond to different types of events – namely, the events that realize the dispositions (and may or may not happen). For categorical properties, however, there is no such correspondence with events. The word ‘disposition’ is often taken in a narrow sense to refer to ‘sure-fire dispositions’ only, i.e. to dispositions that will invariably realize given appropriate realizability conditions. In a wider sense, it can also be used to include other kinds of realizable entities, like abilities, …

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