What Could a Two-Way Power Be?

Frost, Kim

doi:10.1007/s11245-018-9628-3

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In this construal, the stimulus conditions and some relevant properties will be causal bases of dispositions. 9 And the causal bases are certainly essential to the airplane ' s ability in the sense that their causal efficacy guarantees them to be an inevitable part in the definition of correspondent dispositions.…”

Section: The Extrinsic Account and Causal Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In light of Lewis ' s exposition and standard definition of intrinsicality, we can outline the extrinsic account of the airplane ' s ability. The essential place of human pilots is licensed by its causal efficacy to bring about the airplane ' s ability to fly, which can perfectly pass the standard counterfactual test 9 Lewis's account stirs up many discussions, for further debates and defense, see Hauska, 2008. for causality such that the airplane in all relevant possible worlds cannot fly given the absence of human pilots. 10 Thus, there is a good reason to establish human pilots as an essential and extrinsic causal basis 11 and, as a result, we have the extrinsic account of the airplane ' s ability.…”

Section: The Extrinsic Account and Causal Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1). The exact suggestion of this concept is still controversial, some philosophers (Frost, 2019) claim that the agent who possessed a two-way power has control over in which way (between two opposite ways) her abilities can be manifested, others hold (Steward 2020: 348) that two-way powers are about how "things might proceed" and "[t]hat the power is ' two-way ' would then mean that exercise of the power and also its nonexercise are both possible in the conditions that obtain at the relevant time ". Disagreement on this point will not affect my argument.…”

Section: From Dispositions To Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Composite Agency and Artifact Abilities

2022

Journal of Human Cognition

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Since we have witnessed the rampant development of technology in recent years and worries concerning the independence of artifacts and potential antagonism between artifacts and human beings are proliferated, a philosophical investigation into the nature of artifacts is especially pressing. This essay invokes the resources from the contemporary philosophy of dispositions and abilities to provide a novel perspective of the metaphysical nature of artifact function (and hence artifacts abilities) with a special focus on the role of human beings in relation to artifacts via the process of their ability-manifestation. By introducing and discussing some interconnected issues in contemporary debates including semantic analysis, intrinsic/extrinsic distinction, and causal basis, this essay is anticipated to establish a sophisticated account of artifacts abilities, which suggests that artifacts abilities must be understood as the composite agency with human beings are an essential constituent. KEYWORDS Disposition; Abilities; ArtifactWe live in a world full of artifacts. One point that stirs philosophical interest in artifacts is the nature of artifact function since our modern life is deeply entangled with artifacts equipped with various functions: a smartphone can record videos; a navigation application can find you the right way; an airplane can fly and carry hundreds of people across the globe. Although these functions are impressive and complicated so that they sometimes go beyond the intellectual grasp of ordinary people, we should not forget the fact that all artifacts are designed, manufactured, and supposed to work only in situations where human operators are available, therefore they are still in some sense dependent on human beings. It is this feature of artifacts that renders the place of artifacts in human society (or put it in another way, the place of human beings in a world of artifacts) an arresting topic of philosophical concern.Facing this issue, philosophical debates on artifact function are mainly the endeavor to account for the embeddedness of artifacts in human society and lay the major part of attention on the history of how artifacts are produced and reproduced (Preston 2020). Inspired by Searle (1995), many hold the view that artifact functions are dependent on and derivative of a collective human intention since their reproduction will not be maintained without the collective human intention. Philosophers on the other side resist the intentionalist picture of artifact functions and emphasize the fact that the collective human intention of artifact production and reproduction has its base in artifact function, which seduce, channel, and reinforce the unfolding of the material and productive culture of human society in a certain direction (Preston 2013). Between these two extremes, there is

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Section: The Extrinsic Account and Causal Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Extrinsic Account and Causal Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: From Dispositions To Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Composite Agency and Artifact Abilities

2022

Journal of Human Cognition

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“…But many find the notion of a two-way power mysterious, or even nonsensical; and in this paper I want to do something to try to allay the sense that the idea of a two-way power might ultimately be an incoherent one. In particular, I want to try to defend the use I make of the idea of a two-way power from a certain kind of very basic criticism that has been levelled at itmost recently and most perspicaciously by Kim Frost (2019). Frost claims that there is something troubling about the very idea of a two-way power and that indeed a fairly simple argument is available which suggests that (on certain, ostensibly rather plausible assumptions) there simply could not be such a thing.…”

Section: Agency As a Two-way Power: A Defencementioning

confidence: 99%

Agency as a Two-Way Power: A Defence

Steward¹

2020

The Monist

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This paper presents a dilemma which it has been alleged by Kim Frost must be faced by any defender of the notion of a two-way power and offers a solution to the dilemma which is distinct from Frost’s own. The dilemma is as follows: assuming that powers are to be individuated by what they are powers to do or undergo, then either there is a unified description of the manifestation-type which individuates the power, or there is not. If there is, then two-way powers are revealed really to be one-way powers, after all. If there is not, then it is difficult to explain why the two-way power does not simply dissolve into a mere combination of two one-way powers. The paper offers an account of what a two-way power is that is distinct from the one Frost takes for granted, and argues that this different conception is the key to avoiding the dilemma. It is also argued that this alternative conception has several further advantages over its rival and also that it has no less of a claim than Frost’s notion to be prefigured in Aristotle’s original discussion.

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“…Thanks to Wolfgang Schwarz for raising this issue with us.5 The control requirement is invoked in the debate on free will, e.g. byvan Inwagen (2000),McKay (1996),Frost (2020), andSteward (2020), as well as in the debate on the semantics of ability ascriptions, e.g. byBrown (1988),Mandelkern et al (2017), Willer (forthcoming), and Boylan (forthcoming).…”

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confidence: 99%

Agentive Duality reconsidered

Loets

Zakkou

2022

Philos Stud

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A growing consensus in the literature on agentive modals has it that ability modals like ‘can’ or ‘able to’ have a dual, i.e. interpretations of ‘must’ or ‘cannot but’ which stand to necessity as ability stands to possibility. We argue that this thesis (which we call ‘Agentive Duality’) is much more controversial than meets the eye. While Agentive Duality follows from the orthodox possibility analysis of ability given natural assumptions, it sits uneasily with a wide range of alternative proposals which are unified by the idea that ability requires control. In particular, we show that against the background of a control requirement on ability, Agentive Duality can be used to derive absurd predictions featuring this dual. Far from being a purely definitional thesis, Agentive Duality thus affords a new lens through which to assess the long-standing debate between possibility analyses of ability and their discontents.

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What Could a Two-Way Power Be?

Cited by 5 publications

References 9 publications

Composite Agency and Artifact Abilities

Composite Agency and Artifact Abilities

Agency as a Two-Way Power: A Defence

Agentive Duality reconsidered

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