Power is an odd word to use for that idea. In physics, Power is related to the amount of Work you can do, or Force you can apply. In sociology it kind of means “how much you can change the environment,” without reference to a specific goal or reason for doing so.
In this essay, you use Power to mean some kind of “result” which is a different category of thing.
I don’t think it’s odd, although you may not have explicitly thought of ‘power’ that way before. Many philosophers use ‘power’ to refer to an individual’s ability to do a wide range of different things. This corresponds to the dispositional school of thought on what the word ‘means’ (see (Sattarov, 2019) for more). I defend this terminology more in this section of Seeking Power is Often Robustly Instrumental.
(Also, this essay casts ‘Power’ as ‘one’s expected ability to bring about desirable results, for many definitions of desirable’; Power shouldn’t be understood as “some kind of ‘result’.”)
Power is an odd word to use for that idea. In physics, Power is related to the amount of Work you can do, or Force you can apply. In sociology it kind of means “how much you can change the environment,” without reference to a specific goal or reason for doing so. In this essay, you use Power to mean some kind of “result” which is a different category of thing.
I don’t think it’s odd, although you may not have explicitly thought of ‘power’ that way before. Many philosophers use ‘power’ to refer to an individual’s ability to do a wide range of different things. This corresponds to the dispositional school of thought on what the word ‘means’ (see (Sattarov, 2019) for more). I defend this terminology more in this section of Seeking Power is Often Robustly Instrumental.
(Also, this essay casts ‘Power’ as ‘one’s expected ability to bring about desirable results, for many definitions of desirable’; Power shouldn’t be understood as “some kind of ‘result’.”)