Abilities, in contrast to mere dispositions, propensities, or tendencies, abilities seem to be features of agents that put the agent herself in control. But what is the distinguishing feature of abilities vis-à-vis other kinds of powers? Our aim in this paper is to point, in answer to this question, to a crucial feature of abilities that existing accounts have tended to neglect: their adaptivity. Adaptivity is a feature of how abilities are exercised. The main reason for its relative neglect has been that most extant accounts have focused solely on whether abilities are exercised successfully in certain possible situations and have mostly understood the exercise of an ability in terms of complete successful performance. We begin by pointing out two aspects of abilities with regard to which current accounts seem (at best) incomplete: control and exercise. We then introduce adaptivity as we understand it, and end by putting it to work in developing a fuller understanding of abilities that does better than current accounts.

中文翻译：

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适应能力

能力，与单纯的性情、倾向或倾向相反，能力似乎是使主体自己能够控制的主体特征。但是，能力与其他类型的能力相比有什么区别呢？为了回答这个问题，我们本文的目的是指出现有账户往往忽视的能力的一个关键特征：适应性。适应性是能力如何锻炼的一个特征。其相对被忽视的主要原因是，大多数现存的叙述仅仅关注能力在某些可能的情况下是否成功地运用，并且大多从完全成功的表现角度来理解能力的运用。我们首先指出经常账户似乎（充其量）不完整的能力的两个方面：控制和行使。然后，我们引入我们所理解的适应性，最后将其用于发展对比经常账户表现更好的能力的更全面的理解。