ABSTRACT
Because the actual world is so large and unwieldy, we never grasp it in its entirety. Instead, we only grasp certain limited aspects of it. This we do by situating aspects of the world within matrices of possibility. These form conceptual grids for our inquiries about the world. A matrix of possibility (we’ll also refer to it as a possibility matrix, a matrix of possibilities, or a matrix of possible outcomes) is a collection of possibilities relevant to an inquiry. It provides a window on the actual world. Just as a window always has a frame, and thus views some things but not others, so a matrix of possibility limits inquiry to some aspects of the world, excluding others.1
