There are no possible objects; there are only objects that make possibilities. There are, then, objects and what objects are capable of doing. What objects are capable of may often be referred to as dispositions, powers, capacities or tendencies. We need make no distinction here between the various ways in which an object does what it can do, only between what an object is currently manifesting and what else an object can do or could have done. To say that X is possible, metaphysically speaking, is to assert that there are some objects or some powers that could bring X about, whether one can specify those conditions or not. This X could be an object, an event, a proposition, or anything else we may want to say is possible. In other words, while talk of possible objects and possible events is common, it should not be taken literally. Instead, such talk of possibilities should be understood as referring to the conditions that could bring about the possibilities described. These conditions need not currently exist as long as these conditions themselves are possible, which is to say that these conditions are themselves within existing powers in some way.

Grounding truths about possibility implies the attempt to ground modal truths in general. From a formal point of view, possibility and necessity are co-defined, and are generally taken to be the two species of non-actual, modal truths. What, then, of the necessary, that for which it is never possible that it is not the case? If, as I maintain, there exist only this-worldly objects and all objects are contingent, then how is it that necessary truths can be grounded?