Act and Potency: Real Concepts?

[bcirka]

I’m decently well read in thomistic metaphysics, and have been challenging myself to explain why scholastic concepts can compete with modern scientific theory. I’ve been stuck though on act and potency. I understand the concepts, and understand how they interact and their implications. However, I’m not sure I can provide compelling evidence that act and potency are real features of the world.

So, let’s put it this way, “How can it be proved that act and potency are real concepts, and not simply descriptive language?”

Thank you!!!

 

[MPat]

I’m decently well read in thomistic metaphysics, and have been challenging myself to explain why scholastic concepts can compete with modern scientific theory.

Hold it!

Thomistic metaphysics and modern science are not in competition. It would be something nonsensical, like competition between abstract algebra and arithmetic.

When you want to perform a simple calculation, you are not going to think about rings, groups or fields, unary and binary operations. It would be too high level of abstraction.

Likewise, most scientists do not have to think about metaphysics while performing their work, as it would be too high level of abstraction.

That is, you could be explicitly thinking: “I have to add those numbers. Addition is a binary operation. Thus it takes two operands.” and the like. And the scientists could be explicitly thinking: “There is this electron. It is a substance. It has accidents, and one of its accidents is energy. The actual energy is 1 GeV. But it is potentially 2 GeV. This potential can be actualised by an effective cause, which in this case would be the electrical field.” and the like. It wouldn’t be wrong, just somewhat inconvenient - it is more convenient to leave all that implicit.

However, explicit use of abstract algebra is useful for, let’s say, developing or explaining public-key cryptography, and explicit use of Thomistic metaphysics is useful for, let’s say, proving God’s existence.

I’ve been stuck though on act and potency. I understand the concepts, and understand how they interact and their implications. However, I’m not sure I can provide compelling evidence that act and potency are real features of the world.

So, let’s put it this way, “How can it be proved that act and potency are real concepts, and not simply descriptive language?”

Thank you!!!

OK, how exactly would “descriptive language” differ from “real features”?

If you simply want an application of them, I can offer you, let’s say, the Finite state machines (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine).

 

[bcirka]

Thanks SO much for the response, MPat. Let’s get the dialogue going.

Fair points that you made. Let me use an example to illustrate where I think the rub is. And please excuse the generalized stereotypes

The thomistic metaphysician says, “Act and potency are real features of the universe. A ball must have a potential for being red. And at some point an efficient cause may actualize that potential. If the ball did not possess that potentiality, then something (red) would come from nothing (not red), and this is impossible.”

But wouldn’t the materialist scientist simply say, “Concepts like act and potency are unnecessary, for the ball was simply coated with red paint. And thus the pigments of the molecules which make up the red paint reflect red light at the observer.”

 

[thinkandmull]

I don’t think anyone would deny that there is potency and actuality in the world. Everyone can paint a chair. It only becomes philosophically important when applied to God vs world

 

[tm21]

I highly recommend the book “Aquinas” by Edward Feser (2009, Oneworld publications). He explains quite clearly and in fairly easily understandable terms how Aquinas’ metaphysics is not at odds with modern science.

 

[pulsence]

Act and potency come from the observation change, which science also observes. Potency means some could be but is not currently, while act means it currently is (in some way).

But wouldn’t the materialist scientist simply say, “Concepts like act and potency are unnecessary, for the ball was simply coated with red paint. And thus the pigments of the molecules which make up the red paint reflect red light at the observer.”

That though demonstrates act and potency. Before being coated, the ball had the potency to be coated with that particular kind of red paint. Then it was coated and was red in act. Not all paints can coat all objects and not all color of paint respond similarly with the underlying color of the object. So the ball by it’s material properties has the potency when coated with a the right kind of paint with the right kind of shade of the color red to appear red. A black ball made of plastic is going to behave differently with an oil based red paint than a wooden ball. The result comes from the potency in the respective balls.

This brings to light a way that my metaphysics professor explain act and potency. Potency can be seen also as a limit to how a thing could be in act. Potency denotes that a thing can be in some way, which also means that it can’t be in other ways. (This is enlightens what St. Thomas means and the Church means when we say God is without potency, is pure act, and is without limit.)

Back to the balls example. The potency of the black plastic ball limits how the oil based red paint will appear (that is the paint won’t stick and that which does will be a darker red because of the underlying black) and so to will the potency of the wooden ball’s potency will limit how the paint effects the resulting color.

 

[thinkandmull]

I highly recommend the book “Aquinas” by Edward Feser (2009, Oneworld publications). He explains quite clearly and in fairly easily understandable terms how Aquinas’ metaphysics is not at odds with modern science.

The problem with Aquinas is that he thinks a bed has 'bedness" or a gun “gun-ness”, which is refutable. If a bed is used as a ceiling to a small room its bedness leaves and now it has ceilingness? That’s hard to imagine so let’s take the gun. Imagine everyone who knew a gun could fire had died. There is one gun left and it has no bullets; it is now used to keep papers from flying off a desk. Does it still have gun-ness? A thing is what it is materially, and then it has its uses. Gun-ness, bed-ness, and all that are adult thoughts that abstract too far. They are easily refuted

 

[pulsence]

I don’t think anyone would deny that there is potency and actuality in the world. Everyone can paint a chair. It only becomes philosophically important when applied to God vs world

Not to detract from your overall point, however, act and potency is philosophically important for much more than God vs world. Act and potency is the fundamentally units of thought if you will of Thomistic and Aristotelian metaphysics. From act and potency we get being vs essence, form vs matter, species vs individuals. It comes into play in substance and accidents. From this we then get to the relation of God and creation. But even before that we need act and potency to demonstrate God’s existence, because causality is linked with act and potency.

So to say act and potency only becomes philosophically important when applied to God in relation to His creation I feel is a bit understated for it’s importance metaphysical thought as a whole.

 

[pulsence]

The problem with Aquinas is that he thinks a bed has 'bedness" or a gun “gun-ness”, which is refutable. If a bed is used as a ceiling to a small room its bedness leaves and now it has ceilingness? That’s hard to imagine so let’s take the gun. Imagine everyone who knew a gun could fire had died. There is one gun left and it has no bullets; it is now used to keep papers from flying off a desk. Does it still have gun-ness? A thing is what it is materially, and then it has its uses. Gun-ness, bed-ness, and all that are adult thoughts that abstract too far. They are easily refuted

You’re confusing the notion of nature. Strictly speaking only substances can have natures, and only living things can be substances. Further a nature is not depended upon being know but is internal to the thing. So a gun not being living doesn’t properly speaking have a “gun-ness” nature. Instead we speak analogically and apply the notion of nature to describe the properties of “gun-ness” which are found in certain objects. This though is not the proper sense of nature.

Further, yes the gun acting as a paper weight would have “gun-ness”. Natures are derived from motion which is proper to a thing. Motion is the incomplete actualizing of a potential. So just because a thing isn’t currently doing what it could, doesn’t mean it lost the potential. So the gun still fully (assuming it wasn’t damaged) has the potential to be used as a gun, if anyone could figure that out. So, it still has “gun-ness”.

What makes a thing a thing is it’s form, which is immaterial, not the matter. The material part of a thing, makes that thing an individual of some form (or species), which would be a substance (form + matter = substance speaking simply). So the form makes a thing, some kind of thing, and the matter makes in this particular kind of thing.

 

[thinkandmull]

All those thoughts can be understood in the modern scientific sense. Anything else can be disproven. Aquinas believed a barn had barn-ness and when people moved in it suddenly had inn-ness. Instead of atoms rearranging when fire struck, he posited unprovable forms. What if there was a natural catastrophe, and some future civilization used a toilet for the king’s throne. We would be having a cow seeing that! They would insist though it was a throne. Matter is just how you look at it. It has its scientific properties and that’s it.

If you had a ball, does it have one form (ball-ness)? Cut it in half. Are there two forms or one still? Use the halves as breast implants. Are they breast implants or balls cut in half? This simple thought experiment refutes Aquinas’s theory of forms very neatly

 

[thinkandmull]

You’re confusing the notion of nature. Strictly speaking only substances can have natures, and only living things can be substances. Further a nature is not depended upon being know but is internal to the thing. So a gun not being living doesn’t properly speaking have a “gun-ness” nature. Instead we speak analogically and apply the notion of nature to describe the properties of “gun-ness” which are found in certain objects. This though is not the proper sense of nature.

Further, yes the gun acting as a paper weight would have “gun-ness”. Natures are derived from motion which is proper to a thing. Motion is the incomplete actualizing of a potential. So just because a thing isn’t currently doing what it could, doesn’t mean it lost the potential. So the gun still fully (assuming it wasn’t damaged) has the potential to be used as a gun, if anyone could figure that out. So, it still has “gun-ness”.

What makes a thing a thing is it’s form, which is immaterial, not the matter. The material part of a thing, makes that thing an individual of some form (or species), which would be a substance (form + matter = substance speaking simply). So the form makes a thing, some kind of thing, and the matter makes in this particular kind of thing.

Aquinas specifically said a bed has “bed-ness” as its form. But it would have “ness” for every other use of it so what good is the idea of form? When growing up a ball was a ball. We didn’t have to think of two principles of prime matter and form. I think children are wiser in this respect than adults

 

[thinkandmull]

A blanket can be a curtain for example. My point is, since everything can be used in countless ways, everything would have countless forms. What would forms even mean at that point?

 

[GEddie]

Aquinas specifically said a bed has “bed-ness” as its form. But it would have “ness” for every other use of it so what good is the idea of form? When growing up a ball was a ball. We didn’t have to think of two principles of prime matter and form. I think children are wiser in this respect than adults

Well, while a bed can be used in other ways than primary (i.e., to stack clothes on, for children to jump on, etc), it’s design parameters are as a surface to lie the human body on for rest and sleep. That is what it’s “accidents” reflect: the length and width represent a human body’s dimensions; its floor height reflects an ability for the human being to climb onto it; etc. These are attributes of the “form.”

Those “accidents” allow it to be used for other things coincidentally, i.e. The soft resilient surface for the human body to lie on also invites children jumping on it. This does not change the “form.”

I agree that teasing Thomistic principles out of everything is useful only when studying Thomistic philosophy, and that philosophical wannabes probably do it far too much, especially in the area of human life itself (mind vs. body vs. soul, as opposed to just human being; etc.)

ICXC NIKA

 

[pulsence]

A blanket can be a curtain for example. My point is, since everything can be used in countless ways, everything would have countless forms. *What would forms even mean *at that point?

As GEddie was getting at, you’re confusing substance and accidents. A thing can have countless accidents which have a form to themselves and a “nature” or “essence”. Further as I said, when talking about non living things, we can only use these term analogically (aka the terms don’t quite fit right). What makes a blanket now a curtain is that it now has the “form” of a curtain. Form is both more simply and complex than you are providing for it.

Things can have seemingly countless accidental forms, but not countless substantial forms (in a way prime matter can though). The human soul (our form) generates only certain kinds of bodies. Our soul can’t generate a dogs body. The form makes the thing what it is. The human soul is what makes us human. Also the form is what makes a thing intelligible, because form is what gives matter its being in material things.

 

[Wesrock]

Since the language is not common, it’s easy to mistake the terms “act” and “potency” as referring to some mysterious concept or voodoo ethereal thing. They are not. It’s the only compelling argument I’ve seen for change, and the alternative either seems to be to deny change at all or believe that nothing persists.

That a thing is one way and has a range of possible ways to change (perhaps at different probabilities) isn’t incompatible with science. Nor is the idea that a thing doesn’t change unless acted upon by another.

 

[Wesrock]

If we’re talking forms, it’s necessary to distinguish between substance and artifact, and the ideas of substantial form and accidental form. The bed is an artifact and has no substantial form. The trees it was made of had intrinsic teleology, but not the bed. Whatever purpose a bed as a thing has is imposed on it by something extrinsic. Anyway, I don’t think speaking of ‘bedness’ or any other accidental form is very helpful as a starting point.

Again, unfamiliar terminology that probably sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to the uninitiated, but if one were to delve into learning the actual distinctions and understanding the schoolmen had, it would seem like a pretty obvious and common sense catgeorization. It’s very refined and common sense at the same time, not vague and mysterious.

 

[EnosJadon]

That a thing is one way and has a range of possible ways to change (perhaps at different probabilities) isn’t incompatible with science. Nor is the idea that a thing doesn’t change unless acted upon by another.

Nice to see you weigh in Wesrock. There does appear to be at least one distinct difference between the way science approaches change, and the way metaphysics approaches change. To a scientist, change is never unilateral, as Newton so accurately pointed out, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Nothing can ever be the cause of change, without it also being changed. Which implies that if Newton’s Third Law is true, then Aquinas’s First Way must not be, for it inevitably reaches a point where Newton’s Third Law must be violated.

 

[Wesrock]

Nice to see you weigh in Wesrock. There does appear to be at least one distinct difference between the way science approaches change, and the way metaphysics approaches change. To a scientist, change is never unilateral, as Newton so accurately pointed out, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Nothing can ever be the cause of change, without it also being changed. Which implies that if Newton’s Third Law is true, then Aquinas’s First Way must not be, for it inevitably reaches a point where Newton’s Third Law must be violated.

That is a law of physics, not a universal principle, and physics is the study of matter and motion through space and time. Something that is not matter and that doesn’t have extension in space would be outside the scope of its study and principles, yes? It is not special pleading if it naturally falls outside the scope of the field.

 

[MPat]

Thanks SO much for the response, MPat. Let’s get the dialogue going.

Fair points that you made. Let me use an example to illustrate where I think the rub is. And please excuse the generalized stereotypes

The thomistic metaphysician says, “Act and potency are real features of the universe. A ball must have a potential for being red. And at some point an efficient cause may actualize that potential. If the ball did not possess that potentiality, then something (red) would come from nothing (not red), and this is impossible.”

But wouldn’t the materialist scientist simply say, “Concepts like act and potency are unnecessary, for the ball was simply coated with red paint. And thus the pigments of the molecules which make up the red paint reflect red light at the observer.”

A materialist (who, by the way, is unlikely to be a scientist) might well say so. That’s what materialists are for.

Now the question is this: what exactly are you trying to achieve?

If you want to make sure that you yourself know the answer, just look at the two accounts. There is no contradiction. The “scientific” account just explains how the potential was actualised, what the effective cause was.

If you want to give an answer that explains things to “neutral” observers, the answer is the same.

If you want to give an answer to the materialist, so that he would be given an answer - the answer is the same.

But if you want to persuade the materialist - don’t expect too much. You are not going to persuade someone who really really really doesn’t want to be persuaded.

Now, as we see, “thinkandmull” has agreed to play the part of “materialist”, and we can see how that looks.

The problem with Aquinas is that he thinks a bed has 'bedness" or a gun “gun-ness”, which is refutable. If a bed is used as a ceiling to a small room its bedness leaves and now it has ceilingness? That’s hard to imagine so let’s take the gun. Imagine everyone who knew a gun could fire had died. There is one gun left and it has no bullets; it is now used to keep papers from flying off a desk. Does it still have gun-ness? A thing is what it is materially, and then it has its uses. Gun-ness, bed-ness, and all that are adult thoughts that abstract too far. They are easily refuted

So much ridicule and such strong declaration - “which is refutable”!

And yet, it is not so easy even to write as if Thomism was wrong. So, we still get “a bed” and “one gun”, even after the “changes”. I guess that should prove that pretending not to notice “bedness” and “gunness” more successfully requires pretty advanced skills. I doubt they are accessible to an average materialist…

And all that happened with artifacts, which have only accidental forms. Just imagine, how hard it is to pretend not to notice the substances - cats, dogs, horses!

There are also some misrepresentations. For example:

When growing up a ball was a ball. We didn’t have to think of two principles of prime matter and form. I think children are wiser in this respect than adults

“Matter and form” here is replaced by “prime matter and form”. That ignores the point that matter itself consists of form and matter, until we reach prime matter.

Of course, after this correction it would be easy to see that children are quite capable of noticing that a rubber ball is made of rubber and has a form of a ball.

Sure, they might not know what is the matter and form for rubber (matter consists of atoms of carbon, hydrogen and sulphur; carbon and hydrogen are in long chains which are connected by atoms of sulphur - that is obviously a description of form), but that’s because it takes more studying to learn that.

Aquinas specifically said a bed has “bed-ness” as its form.

Having a reference would be beneficial here.

 

[bcirka]

Wow! I get home from work,and there are two pages of responses. So much to cover, but I think I’m going to stay focused on MPat’s response, who conveniently, summarized much of the previous dialogue.

And I’ll humbly ask your patience, as I try to reason through these concepts at an amateur’s pace

Now the question is this: what exactly are you trying to achieve?

Thanks for asking this. I should have clarified this a bit earlier. I want to be able to use Thomistic Metaphysics in my theological conversations with interlocuters–whether believers or unbelievers. I find it a useful tool in so many areas–discussions of the soul, transubstantiation, etc.

But my concern is best illustrated by your statement below:

just look at the two accounts. There is no contradiction. The “scientific” account just explains how the potential was actualised, what the effective cause was

I assume the materialist would claim Occam’s razor, and say that if the scientific explanation satisfies the question, you shouldn’t posit further explanations (like act & potency).

So what is that persuasive piece of evidence that answers the challenge of Occam’s razor here. Why must act and potency be features of reality?

A gracious thank you for all your time and patience!