Potency

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Blue_Horizon said:
PT I suspect you are asking if this is an analytic truth or a synthetic one.

I will stick my neck out and say that change/potency/act/matter/form/Aristotle’s 5-causes are all terms that basically imply each other in a seamless whole. (i.e. an analytic truth).

Just a more complicated version of nephew/uncle. If you accept the definition of nephew…then you accept uncles exist. Unfortunately that seems to have very little do with what is actually happening in “reality” (whatever that is) as opposed to an invented “dictionary”.

What happens “in reality” (which is what you seem to seek surety about) involves attaining to “synthetic truths.” Like, “all creatures with hearts have kidneys.” They always seem to be “less certain” but at least they are “real.”

Potency/act as you are using them seems more like a circular exercise in analytics than synthetics.

If its analytic, then we know it is always true.
But whether we are talking about the real world is a completely different matter.
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I have just explained why potency refers to the real world. 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
I have just explained why potency refers to the real world. 🙂
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I was actually keen to hear Polytropos’s views.

Which post did you explain this - I cannot see anything explicitly non-analytic in your posts?
 
Blue_Horizon said:
Which post did you explain this - I cannot see anything explicitly non-analytic in your posts?
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#40 …The only way to evade the concept of potency is to assume that everything has come from nothing: sheer nonsense! There is not one jot of evidence that nothing has produced anything, let alone everything.
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Are those analytic statements? :confused:
 
Blue_Horizon said:
PT I suspect you are asking if this is an analytic truth or a synthetic one.
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More or less. It has been claimed that distinctions between actuality and potentiality are just “in the mind.” I think it is very clear that actuality and potentiality are analytically consistent. The question is whether or not one could coherently deny that they apply to the world.

Actuality is what a thing is; potentiality is what a thing is not but can be. But I do not think it is unreasonable to say that actuality and potentiality precede our defining them.
 
tonyrey said:
Don’t you regard those statements as completely certain? 😉
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Then you believe in total uncertainty - yet you also believe there are others will read your posts… And you also believe your statements are likely to be true…
 
tonyrey said:
Such categorical denial implies certainty! 😉
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So, when I say, “Yes, I believe in total uncertainty”, this implies certainty and when I say, “No” this also implies certainty?
I love Catholic logic.
 
belorg said:
So, when I say, “Yes, I believe in total uncertainty”, this implies certainty and when I say, “No” this also implies certainty?
I love Catholic logic.
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And we wish your side was capable of being logical. Merely to assert opinions over and over and over ( attempting to exhaust your opponent ) does not demonstrate the validity of your opinions. Your position is bankrupt, it leads nowhere. Ours may be difficult to understand but it does lead somewhere - to God, the goal of all creation. And if you can’t be logical, then just be a man of Faith. Nothing wrong with that.

Linus2nd 🙂
 
polytropos said:
Actuality is what a thing is; potentiality is what a thing is not but can be. But I do not think it is unreasonable to say that actuality and potentiality precede our defining them.
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I am not sure what this statement really means!

I prob agree with your definition of potency.
I am not sure about your definition of “actuality”.

Your definition sounds more like a definition of “essence”.
Isn’t “actuality” rather talking about “what a thing has become.”
These are really just different ways of understanding a single known transformation,
starting with one terminus (the material in potency to an absent form) and ending with another terminus (that form now acting on the same material).

The thing about “potentiality” is that its an all or nothing game only known in hindsight.
If the new form we envisage for this “material” (subjected to another form at the moment) is not possible (eg lead cannot be turned into gold) then there is no potency at all.

But back to your original question: “…can state of affairs A transform into state of affairs B if A did not have B in potency?”

Does one need to investigate “reality” to see that the answer to this question is always NO. Your definition of “potency” above seems to make that quite clear.

I think your other form of the question is similar: “Prior to E’s occurring, was there necessarily a potential for E to occur?”

According to your definition of “potency” above the answer would have to be YES.

However if you are refering to “Creation from nothing” then I believe we are outside of the frame of discourse that your definition of potency above applies to.

You defined “potentiality” to mean “what a thing is not … but can be.”

That suggests any discourse on “nothing” (I do not know how that is defined as nobody as ever definitively discovered the existence of “nothing” let alone experimented with it) lies outside the application of this definition.

By this definition it seems we can only apply “potentiality” to existing things.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
And we wish your side was capable of being logical. Merely to assert opinions over and over and over ( attempting to exhaust your opponent ) does not demonstrate the validity of your opinions. Your position is bankrupt, it leads nowhere. Ours may be difficult to understand but it does lead somewhere - to God, the goal of all creation. And if you can’t be logical, then just be a man of Faith. Nothing wrong with that.

Linus2nd 🙂
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Who exactly is “my side”?
And I have not asserted my opinions over and over and over, I have argued for my position over and over and over, but you have failed over and over and over to respond to my arguments.
Which leads me to think that you are a man of Faith because you can’t be logical.
Nothing wrong with that, but impossible to have a rational conversation with such a person.
 
Blue_Horizon said:
I am not sure what this statement really means!

I prob agree with your definition of potency.
I am not sure about your definition of “actuality”.

Your definition sounds more like a definition of “essence”.
Isn’t “actuality” rather talking about “what a thing has become.”
These are really just different ways of understanding a single known transformation,
starting with one terminus (the material in potency to an absent form) and ending with another terminus (that form now acting on the same material).

The thing about “potentiality” is that its an all or nothing game only known in hindsight.
If the new form we envisage for this “material” (subjected to another form at the moment) is not possible (eg lead cannot be turned into gold) then there is no potency at all.

But back to your original question: “…can state of affairs A transform into state of affairs B if A did not have B in potency?”

Does one need to investigate “reality” to see that the answer to this question is always NO. Your definition of “potency” above seems to make that quite clear.

I think your other form of the question is similar: “Prior to E’s occurring, was there necessarily a potential for E to occur?”

According to your definition of “potency” above the answer would have to be YES.

However if you are refering to “Creation from nothing” then I believe we are outside of the frame of discourse that your definition of potency above applies to.

You defined “potentiality” to mean “what a thing is not … but can be.”

That suggests any discourse on “nothing” (I do not know how that is defined as nobody as ever definitively discovered the existence of “nothing” let alone experimented with it) lies outside the application of this definition.

By this definition it seems we can only apply “potentiality” to existing things.
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Exactly my position. And Aristotle’s, for that matter.
 
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