[cap-talk] Don't understand capabilities

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:13:42 +0100,
David Hopwood <david.nospam.hopwood at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> > At Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:19:38 -0700,
> > Jed at Webstart <donnelley1 at webstart.com> wrote:
> > 
> >>If we haven't adequately conveyed that message so that somebody can 
> >>do "much reading" on the capability concept and still not understand 
> >>it then I think something is seriously wrong with "our" message.
> > 
> > Mmmh.  I have a gut feeling here.  Capabilities may be difficult to
> > understand because they are not "natural", in the sense that they are
> > not a concept that comes out of human experience.
> 
> They are no more or less so than "objects" in the object-oriented
> programming sense.

Why do you think so?  Certainly, the human mind has a great capacity
to identify and abstract objects in the real world.  Furthermore,
"operating on an object" seems also to be a concept inherent to the
human mind, as the passive voice shows which is part of our language
(have to check with a linguist if it is universal, but it's hard to
imagine exceptions).

I don't see how a similar argument could be constructed for
capabilities.

Thanks,
Marcus