Hi,guys!I'm interested how exactly do scholastics define "potency"?I'm quoting from Feser's 'Aquinas':But in addition to these features, we can distinguish the various ways the ball potentially is: blue (if you paint it), soft and gooey (if you melt it),and so forth. So, being and non-being are not the only relevant factors here; there are also a
thing’s potentialities. Or, to use the traditional Scholastic jargon, in addition to the different
ways in which a thing may be “in act” or actual, there are the various ways in which it may
be “in potency” or potential'.This sounds really odd for me.Does the ball share multiple modes of being(actual and potential)?It seems unnecesary to appeal to a potential mode of being.The ball is actually red and by painting it blue it becomes actually blue.So there's no need to posit a mode of non-actual being.Or is this mode of being just a metaphorical way of desribing potency?I find it better to describe potency as a property of a thing that allows it to undergo change.And this property is grounded in the actuality of that thing,and as scholastics would say,potency is a property that follows from a thing's essence.So,is potency a weird mode of non-actual being or is it just a property grounded in the actuality of a thing?And if the second alternative is correct,why does Feser use that weird description of potency?