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Not so Powerful Pure Powers

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  • Joaquim Giannotti
Joaquim Giannotti
Núcleo de Ciencias Sociales y Artes, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile / African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36446/af.e1247

Publicado 2026-04-08

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Este trabalho está licenciado sob uma licença Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Resumo

Ontologias de potência pura sustentam que todas ou muitas propriedades naturais fundamentais são completamente poderosas. Sua natureza se esgota nos vários papéis causais, disposicionais e nômicos que desempenham. Analiso um desafio subestimado à perspectiva da potência pura com base em considerações da física: como podemos harmonizar a tese da potência completa e o caráter manifesto qualitativamente estrutural, geométrico e matemático das propriedades físicas? Identifiquei e testei cinco abordagens que poderiam responder a esta questão: (i) eliminativismo, (ii) a perspectiva identitária, (iii) essencialismo, (iv) prioritarismo e (v) emergentismo. Qualquer resposta satisfatória ao desafio deve preservar a primazia do poder sobre a qualidade e evitar que a perspectiva do poder puro recaia sobre um de seus concorrentes. Eu argumento que cada um de (i) a (v) falha em atender a esses desideratos ou levanta novos problemas para a perspectiva de poderes puros.

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