Abilities and Tryings
I am trying to write a seminar paper about the ability to try (or perhaps the ability to will, or the ability to choose). It seems to me that commonsense recognizes, in at least certain situations, a non-trivial question about whether an agent has the ability to try to perform an action. However, given the close connection between the concepts of ability and trying, there is reason to believe that the question might be trivial, or even incoherent, after all. This is the issue I am investigating, and I'm going to try to do some blogging on the subject in...
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Topic(s):
Abilities
,
Action Theory
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Jennifer Hornsby
,
Kadri Vihvelin
,
Ludwig Wittgenstein
,
Metaphysics
,
Michael Fara
,
Paul Grice
,
Philosophy
,
Richard Taylor
,
Trying
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Kenny at
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On Omnipotence
In my last Sobel post, I discussed Sobel's proposal that, since the Stone Paradox shows essential omnipotence to be incoherent, the traditional God, since he would have his properties essentially, would have essential ONSLIP, or only necessarily self-limited power, but that this would not amount to omnipotence. Here I want to propose an alternative account of omnipotence, an attribute worthy of that name and which would be had essentially. First, however, we must distinguish power from freedom. To be omnipotent is to be all powerful. God is also supposed to be free in his exercise of power, and this creates...
Continue reading "On Omnipotence"
