Some Puzzles About Ability

Dissertation, University of Calgary (2017)
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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.

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Ability and the Past.Bokai Yao - 2019 - American Philosophical Quarterly 56 (4):397-406.

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