Inclination and Ability: The Differentiation of Readiness

If inclination is the universe’s posture of leaning, ability is its competence for doing. Both are dimensions of readiness, yet they diverge in their degree of generality and their mode of manifestation. Inclination is pervasive: every system, every field of potential, every relational horizon bears an inclination toward certain forms of actualisation. It is not a force or cause but a bias of potential, an orientation within possibility.

Ability, by contrast, is never general. It is domain-specific, emerging only where the structured potential of a system affords particular modes of enactment. Inclination tells us that something is disposed to happen; ability tells us what can happen and how.

In this sense, inclination describes the posture of potential across scales. Ability is articulated through the relational architecture of a given system. A quantum field inclines toward fluctuation, but its ability is limited by the form of its field equations. A living system inclines toward persistence, but its abilities depend on the metabolic, ecological, and semiotic configurations that sustain it. A social formation inclines toward coordination, yet its abilities are bounded by the infrastructures, institutions, and symbolic resources that make collective action possible.

Where inclination is potential, ability is subpotential—it only becomes intelligible through enactment. Inclination persists even when nothing happens; ability is revealed in the happening itself. This is why inclination could be treated as a general feature of cosmogenesis, while ability demands a differentiated analysis of how readiness becomes structured, constrained, and amplified across domains.

In evolutionary terms, inclination is like the system of potential, whereas ability is the variety of registers that arises from it. Each domain invents its own way of translating leaning into capacity.

To think relationally, then, is to see that readiness is not uniform. Reality is not simply inclined; it is capably inclined—its tendencies are always modulated by the architectures through which they may be expressed. The relational ontology must therefore account for both: the general inclination of potential and the specific ability of systems.

Inclination is the tilt of being; ability, the articulation of that tilt within constraint. Together they compose the differential poise of the real—the way the universe leans, and the means by which that leaning becomes world.