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<p>What distinguishes things that are endowed with agency from those that lack it? Some scholars in the Aristotelian tradition suggest a distinction in terms of two kinds of powers: agents have both one-way and two-way powers; non-agents, by contrast, have only one-way powers. I call this view <i>Aristotelianism</i>. In this paper, I examine different ways to think of one-way and two-way powers. First, I argue that the conditional analysis faces a problem that resists well-known repair strategies for conditional analyses of dispositions and abilities. Second, I argue that a prominent alternative to the conditional account, as well as variations of it, yield a certain form of <i>Megarianism</i> when combined with Aristotelianism: for non-agents, power collapses into actuality—that is, non-agents have the power to do something iff they manifest it. This might not be a knock-down argument against Aristotelianism, but does call for a reinvestigation of one-way and two-way powers.</p>

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Power collapse

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月27日

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  • Julia Zakkou

摘要

What distinguishes things that are endowed with agency from those that lack it? Some scholars in the Aristotelian tradition suggest a distinction in terms of two kinds of powers: agents have both one-way and two-way powers; non-agents, by contrast, have only one-way powers. I call this view Aristotelianism. In this paper, I examine different ways to think of one-way and two-way powers. First, I argue that the conditional analysis faces a problem that resists well-known repair strategies for conditional analyses of dispositions and abilities. Second, I argue that a prominent alternative to the conditional account, as well as variations of it, yield a certain form of Megarianism when combined with Aristotelianism: for non-agents, power collapses into actuality—that is, non-agents have the power to do something iff they manifest it. This might not be a knock-down argument against Aristotelianism, but does call for a reinvestigation of one-way and two-way powers.