ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that the 'can' of personal power is analysable by means of hypotheticals, the subordinate clauses of which bring in a reference to such things as motives, fondnesses and efforts. The analysis of 'I can' into hypotheticals gets much of its allure from its relation to a very general and ipso facto attractive philosophical attitude. There is an even more obvious but philosophically extremely important asymmetry between the evidence for and the evidence against 'I can'. The epistemological relationship between trials and abilities can explain, then, why what a person chooses or wants to do, or what kind of person he is morally, or whether or not he had a motive or occasion for doing something, are all irrelevant to the question of what he can do. A discussion of the inductive verification of ascriptions of unexercised powers is an appropriate context in which to mention briefly another kind of theory about the meaning of 'I can'.
