In ordinary speech we often ascribe powers to persons and things. So too in philosophy, where many theories foreground concepts of agency, capacity, disposition, affect, potential, possibility, and virtuality.
All such concepts suggest that persons and things hold something in reserve that they might come to manifest. That is the mark of a power concept, because a power is precisely a real property that is not necessarily always actual. Whenever we talk about the fragility of a vase, the kindness of a person, the solubility of salt, or the potential of a student, we are ascribing powers to entities. But can such properties really exist?
Whenever we talk about the fragility of a vase, the kindness of a person, the solubility of salt, or the potential of a student, we are ascribing powers to entities.
Research questions
This project explores what powers are. First, are powers real properties of entities or is powers talk just a way of speaking? Second, if powers are ontologically real, then how to extend that fact into a unified worldview that also accounts for metaphysical categories such as time, space, modality, and causality?
Earlier research
This project builds on an earlier monograph (“Alles is een machine”), two author studies (“Against Continuity” about Gilles Deleuze and “De constructie van de wereld” about Bruno Latour) and several published articles