The topics of potentiality and actuality are related to the O.P., but don’t wander too far off, try to keep them related to the points I raised in the O.P. I think determinism and time would be unrelated to the issues in the O.P. To discuss them you should start a new thread.Okay so here the clip I watched with Dr Feser, It concerns his thinking in the area being talked about and he also mentions Aristotle. ( in that the first cause is in highlight and I would imagine from all this he is a Thomist) Is everyone good with the concepts and idea’s because I have a few observations regarding the application of potentiality, .actuality , determinism and overall with respects to time.
vimeo.com/60979789
but this is the problem, I feel there is already wandering in the exploration ( actuality + potentiality use of word cause and relative assumptions). Was surprised with listening to the tape. ( don’t get me wrong, nothing to do with the arriving conclusion just the path)The topics of potentiality and actuality are related to the O.P., but don’t wander too far off, try to keep them related to the points I raised in the O.P. I think determinism and time would be unrelated to the issues in the O.P. To discuss them you should start a new thread.
I’ve watched the video before. Dr. Feser does not deal specifically with the issues I raised.
Linus2nd
Relative to whatever substances we are considering. Material substances may change, either substantially ( whereby a thing becomes a totally different substance from what it was or is now ) or accidentally ( change in quantity, quality, or location or even relation ). Material essences ( tree, dog, water, man, etc ) are composed of matter and form ( which makes a thing " what " it is and gives it existence ). The matter is open to receiving a certain limited set of forms. So the matter is the " potency or potentiality " principle in each essence, whereas the form represents the act or actuality principle. The form is educed from the matter under the action of some external cause - electrolysis, heat, advice, education, mating, weather, force, etc. But it is God who gives existence or actuality, he is operative in every change/motion, whereby some " influence " reduces some potentiality to an actuality, a form which actually exists in this thing or substance or being.but this is the problem, I feel there is already wandering in the exploration ( actuality + potentiality use of word cause and relative assumptions). Was surprised with listening to the tape. ( don’t get me wrong, nothing to do with the arriving conclusion just the path)
edit
For an intro example,
In the tape Dr Feser suggests after some dialog, so now we can establish a distinction between potentiality and actuality…
relative to what ?
This thread is assuming the validity of Aristotle’s concept of " potency and act. "Okay thanks and this reply would be brief for now , a bit on the fly. ( so I could of been a bit not clear and thanks ahead for reading.
First paragraph…
A concept is introduced using a number of examples. Dr Feser introduce’s a cup of coffee on a table.
Once an analogy is introduced which is the only way something can be justified in the context of the concept, things about the classification of these two values( actuality and potential change or become more acute for a reasonable analogy explaining the concept.
For example,
A ready race horse could be said to have accomplished its potential giving way to actuality, its not dying and it is not in training.
A promising young horse relative to above only contains the potential to be a ready race horse.
A born new well bread baby race horse only contains the potential to be a young race horse in training .
Yet, in all three none have crossed the finish line which again would be the race horse actuality.
Above is also relative only to the owner of the horse, relative to the horse there is no potential once it has been born, it is a horse and will be a horse having reached its potential in the parent horse’s accomplishing, and is within its actuality.
The cup of coffee introduced by Dr Feser.
He suggests the coffee becomes cool but there needs to be a potencial and cause for the coffee to become cool,
Question :
Relative to what ? For the moment I can posit the room wants to become more warm and the coffee is the cause, not the environment at all as suggested.
I will make a suggestion:
There is no difference between potentiality and actuality save a relative supposed need.
Therefore building an argument with a decided contrast of any kind between actuality and potentiality is irrational because there is nothing concrete as a constant, which would be outside relative perspective and bias , justifying the itemizing to begin the discourse in the first place.
Example, An apple falls from the tree. The event does not express anything except all which would contribute to the event itself. And the event itself is contributing to the next and the next in the system of determinism and non deterministic values at the same time. Each exact precise moment is both contributing to the system, relative to itself it is full determined in the instant , allowable by the moment itself, in order to express reality. But…at the same time it is also contributing to the next by satisfying the expression.
Mental thought and deliberation is able to imagine both past and an imaginary set of events for a proposed imaginary world…but…it is not all together imaginary because the mind can imagine anything and adapt to a close reflection of the real world and consider outcome.
So these guys Aristotle and so on have it all wrong. A foundation for a concept needs to be solid and the idea’s cannot be backed up without an attached assumption which is tucked in there with no justification.
I thought you were trying to establish what Aristotle and Aquinas had in common. And, iin this regard, you were pointing out that both of them subscribed to the natural immortality of an intellectual soul.I don’t see what this has to do with anything I have said. I can’t comment on your first sentence. From what I read in the Metaphysics, A. did not say much more than that the intellect ( soul ) survived death. And it was unclear ( to me, as far as I remember ) whether he stood pat on that or was merely speculating.
Linus2nd
I’m not doubting what you say. It has been several years since I read De Anima, so I can’t personally endorse your conclusion. I just don’t remember what he said. However, from reading Metaphysics, I think he referred to the Unmoved Mover as an Agent Intellect. I could be wrong. Memory you know can be faulty, especially at my age.I thought you were trying to establish what Aristotle and Aquinas had in common. And, iin this regard, you were pointing out that both of them subscribed to the natural immortality of an intellectual soul.
I was merely clarifying that Aristotle, in contrast to Aquinas, did not believe that our individual intellectual “souls” were immortal - only that a singular transindividual Agent Intellect was immortal.
Aristotle’s Agent Intellect was not even human.
So, as far as Aristotle is concerned, you and I don’t survive death at all. This is where there is an important difference between Aristotle and Aquinas. The latter, of course, argues each human being has his/her own agent intellect and thus has a certain type of natural immortality.
For more info on Aristotle’s Agent Intellect, see his De Anima.
Aristotle would not have been able to understand Aquinas’ ipsum esse subsistens. And he would not have been able to understand Aquinas’ assertion that the ipsum esse subsistens was the efficient cause of esse commune, i.e., the esse that belongs to beings which are “parts” of the cosmos ( “worldly beings”).All true as far as I can tell. But what has that got to do with anything I have said? I will say that there is no " tension " between A. and T… Thomas held A. in such high regard that he ofter refers to him as The Philosopher. All I have pointed out is that Thomas got most of his Philosphy from A, at least in germ form. And I insist that he well could have gotten his idea of existence from A - as I state in the O.P. and have defended right along.
Linus2nd
Certainly he would have, why not? A’s God had the same properties as T’s, therefore they are the same. The only difference is that A saw his God as a part of the universe, I think.Aristotle would not have been able to understand Aquinas’ ipsum esse subsistens. And he would not have been able to understand Aquinas’ assertion that the ipsum esse subsistens was the efficient cause of esse commune, i.e., the esse that belongs to beings which are “parts” of the cosmos ( “worldly beings”)
To our way of thinking you are correct. However that does not matter for the purposes of my argument. I have said, and continue to say that the two God’s had the same properties and therefore they were the same. You can’t blame A’s logic simply because he, apparently, knew nothing about a supernatural essence as such and that it could not be a part of the universe, unless placed there by God. He did not have the advantage of Divine Revelation. So while you are technically correct, you can’t fault A. or his God.Aristotle’s unmoved mover is the most perfect being in the world (“perfect” because it has completely “actualized” its essence with no potentiality left unfullfilled) - but nonetheless it remains a part of the world. The esse of this most perfect being falls within the category of esse commune (“worldly esse”).
Again I say that A did not know that, so you can’t blame his God. All I am saying is that when Thomas read A, he could not have missed the significance of what A said. What A said about potency and act and about his God who was pure act could well have been, and I maintain was, the source of T’s concepts of the distinction between essence and existence and a God who was simply Purus Subsistens Esse. A man ot T’s intelligence could not have missed the implications. .Aquinas’ ipsum esse subsistens is radically different from esse commune. It transcends the world completely. Such “esse” is not “esse” in the same sense as esse commune. It is not the esse of a being within the world (and this is the reason why Aquinas’ God is not one being among other beings).
Already addressed that.Aristotle understood only esse commune, worldly esse. He would not have been able to understand the meaning of an “esse” that transcended the world.
Why not? Esse is a perfection. Indeed, according to T, it is the perfection of perfections. And A certainly identified his God as the perfect Good, and One, both of which in T is the equivalent to Being and the True. Although, as far as I recall, he did not address an efficient cause of goodness in material beings. And that reminds me, A spoke of being as the first object of knowledge, the first thing in the world outside the mind of which we are aware ( Physics ). T certainly didn’t miss that. A’s whole Metaphysics was about being qua being, things simply as existing. And here he is very close to T’s distinction between essence and the act of existence. And I contend that he failed to grasp the import of that idea because of his prior " prejudices, " he was a victum of his past philosophical culture.Additionally, Aristotle would not have been able to understand an efficient cause of “esse”. His sense of efficient causality was limited to “motion”. You could say that Aristotle took “esse” for granted (like many others on this forum). “Esse” as such did not require an explanation because Aristotle did not know about the radical contingency of “esse commune”.
Saved by the bell!In the last paragraph of my previous posting (#48), I referred to Aristotle’s efficient causality as limited to “motion”. Of course, this “motion” is not just locomotion. The Greek word is closer to our English word, “change”. It could be a change in form, or a change in “accidents” (quality, quantity, or some other “accidental” change"). But most definitely it was a not a change from “nothing” to “esse”. Only Aquinas talks about this type of “existential” change.
That’s why the ipsum esse subsistens and its “efficient causality” of the “to be” or “esse” of things takes us way beyond Aristotle.
I found the following in Thomas’ Commentary on A’s Physics, Book II, Lecture 4, para 175: " But how forms are totally separated from matter, and what they are, .or even how this form, i.e., the rational soul, exists insofar as it is separable and capable of existence without a body, and what it is according to its separable essence, are questions which pertain to first philosophy. "I thought you were trying to establish what Aristotle and Aquinas had in common. And, iin this regard, you were pointing out that both of them subscribed to the natural immortality of an intellectual soul.
I was merely clarifying that Aristotle, in contrast to Aquinas, did not believe that our individual intellectual “souls” were immortal - only that a singular transindividual Agent Intellect was immortal.