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    Propositional states of affairs cannot capture agent-rela... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Omnipotence should be analyzed in terms of the power to bring about certain possible states of affairs, understood as propositional entities which either obtain or fail to obtain.

    Propositional states of affairs cannot capture agent-relative powers, such as the power to freely choose, which require a willing subject.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Propositional states describe static facts, but free choice involves dynamic agency—a subject actively determining outcomes, not merely instantiating propositions.
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    • 2.The subjective experience of deliberation and willing is causally efficacious; reducing it to propositions omits the constitutive role of conscious agency.
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    • 3.Agent-relative powers are perspectival—they depend on who the agent is. Propositions express impersonal truths indifferent to particular subjects.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Any power, including free choice, can be captured propositionally: 'Agent S has the power to do X' is itself a proposition about capacities.
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    • 2.The 'willing subject' distinction presumes substance dualism or non-physical agency, but subjects themselves can be constituents of propositional states.
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    • 3.Dynamics and agency are themselves representable through propositions about state transitions, causal relations, and dispositional properties.
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    Related

    Agent-relative powers are perspectival—they depend on who the agent is. Proposit...Any power, including free choice, can be captured propositionally: 'Agent S has ...Dynamics and agency are themselves representable through propositions about stat...Omnipotence should be analyzed in terms of the power to bring about certain poss...
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    Propositional states describe static facts, but free choice involves dynamic age...The 'willing subject' distinction presumes substance dualism or non-physical age...The subjective experience of deliberation and willing is causally efficacious; r...

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