Philosophy
The Metaphysics of Dispositions and the Conditional Analysis
Quick fact
The simple conditional analysis—that a disposition is just a counterfactual, like 'if struck, it would break'—fails because of cases where the object is 'masked' (e.g., a fragile glass wrapped in bubble wrap) or 'finked' (e.g., a property that changes when tested), so the simple analysis gives the wrong answer in these situations.
Why this is interesting
You know a wine glass is fragile even before it shatters. But what does that mean if nothing has happened yet? Could it be that to be fragile is just to be the sort of thing that would break if dropped?