Alexander Bird has done an excellent job in injecting argumentative rigour into a debate that has come to seem to some as having reached stalemate.... The sheer weight and quality of argument in this book show that this is a debate that has a long way to run yet.

• 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

Alexander Bird has done an excellent job in injecting argumentative rigour into a debate that has come to seem to some as having reached stalemate.... The sheer weight and quality of argument in this book show that this is a debate that has a long way to run yet.

• 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

Alexander Bird has done an excellent job in injecting argumentative rigour into a debate that has come to seem to some as having reached stalemate.... The sheer weight and quality of argument in this book show that this is a debate that has a long way to run yet.

• 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