Information about the powers and abilities of acting entities is used to coordinate their actions in societies, either physical or digital. Yet, the commonsensical meaning of an acting entity being deemed able to do something is still missing from the existing specification languages for the web or for multi-agent systems. We advance a general purpose abstract logical account of evidence-based ability. A basic model can be thought of as the ongoing trace of a multi-agent system. Every state records systemic confirmations and disconfirmations of whether an acting entity is able to bring about something. Qualitative inductive reasoning is then used in order to infer what acting entities are deemed able to bring about in the multi-agent system. A temporalised modal language is used to talk about deemed ability, actual agency, and confirmation and disconfirmation of deemed ability. What constitutes a confirmation and a disconfirmation is left to the modeller as in general it depends on the application at hand. So to illustrate the methodology we propose two extended examples, one in practical philosophy, the other in system engineering. We first use a logic of agency and ability to obtain a version of Mele's general practical abilities. Then, we look at the management of abilities in a supervised system.

翻译：关于行动实体权力与能力的信息被用于协调其在物理或数字社会中的行为。然而，现有面向网络或多智能体系统的规约语言仍缺乏对行动实体被推定具备某项能力这一常识性概念的描述。我们提出了一种基于证据的能力的通用抽象逻辑框架。其基础模型可视为多智能体系统的持续运行轨迹，每个状态记录着系统对行动实体能否实现某事的确认与否定判定。通过定性归纳推理，可推断出多智能体系统中哪些行动实体被推定具备实现特定目标的能力。我们使用时态模态语言来描述推定能力、实际行动力以及对推定能力的确认与否定过程。确认与否定的具体判定标准交由建模者根据实际应用场景定义。为阐明该方法论，我们提出两个扩展案例：一个来自实践哲学领域，另一个来自系统工程领域。首先运用行动与能力逻辑推导出梅勒通用实践能力理论的一个变体，继而探讨受监督系统中的能力管理机制。