Some Puzzles About Ability
Abstract
This thesis aims to solve two metaphysical puzzles about ability. The first belongs to the free will debate: is determinism compatible with the ability to do otherwise? The second pertains to time travel: what things can a backward time traveler do in the past? By introducing two principles about an agent’s ability regarding the past, I defend the following modal principle about ability: what an agent can do must be compossible with the past. This principle generates solutions to the two puzzles.
Description
Keywords
Philosophy
Citation
Yao, B. (2017). Some Puzzles About Ability (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27830