We explain what capacity is, its different meanings and what legal capacity is. Also, differences with skill and competence.
What is capacity?
We normally use the word capacity in a very wide range of contexts and with similar, but different, meanings. In general, these meanings have to do with the possibility or suitability of something or someone to perform a job, serve a task, or resist some type of phenomenon . Everything will depend on the area to which we refer.
The word capacity is obtained from the adjective ableand etymologically these words come respectively from Latin: capatis and capaxboth derived from the verb caperetranslatable as “take” or “collect.” Hence, capacity has to do with the possibility that something harbors something else inside it .
Thus, for example, in the world of physics it is common to use “capacity” as a synonym for volume: a vehicle fuel tank usually has a capacity of about 40 liters of gasoline. This clearly means that above this capacity, the liquid will overflow and spill.
With that same logic in mind, we can also talk about caloric capacity, when we talk about the amount of heat that a body can store, or electrical capacity, when what is stored is electrical energy by a conductive material. As will be seen, they are different meanings of the same mental principle.
Something similar happens when we talk, in other contexts, about cranial capacity: the amount of gray matter that fits in our skull (or that of other species). On the other hand, channel capacity is the amount of information that a communication channel can withstand, transmitting it reliably. Above this capacity, the quality of the information is lost.
A slightly different meaning is the one that involves other uses of the word, such as when talking about aerobic capacity or anaerobic capacity. In this case, instead of containing something, we mean the possibility of functioning of the body in the face of different types of efforts : one rich in oxygen (aerobic) and another low in oxygen (anaerobic).
Our body has the ability to work efficiently in both contexts for a certain time, before presenting symptoms of fatigue. We could think of this as our body can “store” (figuratively) only a certain amount of effort of each type, before being “exceeded” (although in reality, it lacks the energy to continue with the effort).
Legal capacity
In matters of civil law, we speak of legal capacity to refer to the possibility of a person being the holder of legal relations or acting on his or her own in civilian life.
This becomes evident when someone's incapacity is declared, that is, their inability to respond to their obligations and look after their own interests, as occurs with minors, or with people in an irreparable coma, or with people suffering from a disabling mental illness.
There are, in general, two forms of legal capacity:
- Legal capacity for enjoyment which is the ability to have both civil rights and obligations with respect to the group. In principle, every natural person has this capacity.
- Legal capacity to exercise which is the ability to assert one's rights and contract new obligations voluntarily.
Capacity, ability and competence
It is also common to talk about capacity, or rather capabilities, when describing the personality and/or way of being of an individual. Specifically, this term refers to certain types of individual characteristics that allow someone to perform efficiently in the face of a responsibility, and that can be differentiated from each other in the following way:
- Capacities. They are the basic conditions or aptitudes, fundamentally intellectual or personality, that enable a person to do something or at least learn to do something. A certain linguistic ability is required, for example, to learn other languages.
- Skills. They are the skills, innate or learned, that allow a person to do, that is, carry out certain tasks using what they have at hand. For example, a person with manual skills will be able to carry out repair or construction tasks with much greater ease than someone who lacks them.
- Competence. They are the capabilities of excellence in carrying out a task, that is, the possibility of carrying it out in an efficient, unique, original or singular way. Competencies are usually the product of talent and learning, that is, the sustained development of one's own capabilities and the acquisition of useful skills along the way.
References
- “Capacity (disambiguation)” on Wikipedia.
- “Capacity” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Capacity” in Legal Encyclopedia.
- “Capacity” in Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary (Chile).
- “Competences, capabilities and abilities: what differences are there?” in Endalia.
