ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the idea of a dispositional modality has an independent motivation; it just seems to be the way the world is. And then once an idea is embraced, many things that seemed to be difficulties – sometimes irresolvable – were suddenly explained. It is, therefore, an additional argument for the dispositional modality that there is a pattern of explanation running through different contexts. Acceptance that the world is a world of tendencies, where theories concern what tends to be, is an idea that has unifying explanatory power. A reader might think that in each case a solution has been offered that has some credibility: at least some ring of truth, even if there are other theories that purport to do the same. The traditional extremes come from the hand we were dealt: a received view of modality with only two values, neither of which properly applies.
