1 - ML
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Act, Potency, and Change
Hello everyone,
I'm having trouble understanding how change necessarily leads to the act-potency division. Take the example of a red apple turning green. Supposedly, the apple's greenness has to come from somewhere, and since it can't come from (actual) being or non-being, it has to come from potential being.
But why think the greenness has to *come from* somewhere at all? Why not just say this: the apple is red at time 1, and is green at time 2? There's no need to posit any "coming from" here; the greenness did not come from anywhere at all. (This is different from saying that the greenness came from nowhere; the scope of the negation is different.) And if the apple's greenness didn't come from anywhere, then there's no need to posit the act-potency division.
Best,
ML
- Dennis
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
That's a very odd way to look at change, if it didn't come from anywhere, how is it ever even there? If the apple is red at t1, and then the same apple is green at t2. The transition from t1 to t2 is a mystery? Why do you think the explanation should not be bothered with at all?
- ML
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
I'm questioning the assumption that the apple's greenness *came from* somewhere, which is what the act-potency argument relies on. I'm not questioning the claim that the apple's greenness was caused by something; it's true that the apple's greenness was caused by something, but the act-potency argument doesn't rely on this claim, if I understand it correctly.
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Thread Starter- Dennis
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
Consider the apple, the apple is susceptible to many kinds of change, but no matter what you do, it will not become an elephant. Why is this so? I think the the divisions of act/potency necessarily commit us to a Hylemorphic analysis of nature, i.e. that everything is made up of matter and form. Where the form determines the kinds of change(potency) a thing-in-act can receive, yet retain its identity. So, why can't the apple become an elephant? Because there is no such potency to receive. The analysis of causation here has at least the following elements;
a) A Causal suitor(what causes the apple to turn from red-to-green,
b) The inherent capability of an object(the apple) by virtue of its form (which is in act) to receive the causal suitor, while retaining its identity (potency).
You need both (a) and (b). The potency is determined by the specific form it possesses. So the Red Apple is in potency to being a Green Apple, but it is not in Potency to becoming an Elephant.
Hope this helps, let the people know if you still have confusions.
I should add, I've been been told that a reductionist account of change, at least on the inorganic level has been demonstrated. If this is true, I'm not sure how we could affirm Act/Potency by means of such examples. John, could you please make a thread about this in due time? Thanks!
- ML
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
Thanks, that's an interesting argument for the act-potency division. I think it's a different argument from the one I'm considering though. 
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Thread Starter- Timocrates
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
ML wrote:
Hello everyone,
I'm having trouble understanding how change necessarily leads to the act-potency division. Take the example of a red apple turning green. Supposedly, the apple's greenness has to come from somewhere, and since it can't come from (actual) being or non-being, it has to come from potential being.
But why think the greenness has to *come from* somewhere at all? Why not just say this: the apple is red at time 1, and is green at time 2? There's no need to posit any "coming from" here; the greenness did not come from anywhere at all. (This is different from saying that the greenness came from nowhere; the scope of the negation is different.) And if the apple's greenness didn't come from anywhere, then there's no need to posit the act-potency division.
Best,
ML
Hello ML,
Please remember the maxim - especially important for physics - that from nothing comes nothing. This truism is one reason why we can't just say things spontaneously appear into existence (unless, of course, you are a modern physicist - but there is nothing so absurd but one can find some modern physicist who has said it).
Furthermore, I would also keep in mind that in change there really is a point where something just is or becomes (though this not denying it needed a cause if it really did truly come to be). At some point the greenness just is (and try not to get too lost in things like shades or differences; there are and can be differences of degree, such as varying shades of green - all of which, however, truly possess greenness).
Last edited by Timocrates (2/16/2016 12:24 pm)
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- Scott
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
I'm having trouble understanding how change necessarily leads to the act-potency division. Take the example of a red apple turning green. . . . [W]hy think the greenness has to *come from* somewhere at all? Why not just say this: the apple is red at time 1, and is green at time 2?
Basically, in the context of your question, because that would amount to, not an analysis, but a denial of change. (Or at least a postponement of the analysis!)
Your question itself, at least as you've phrased it, presumes that there is an apple, persisting or enduring over time, that goes from being red to being green. Thus far you're accepting the reality of change (as you would arguably not be if you regarded the apple(s) at the two different times merely as three-dimensional slices or temporal parts of a four-dimensional "hyperapple").
If it's the same apple at both times, and yet it undergoes a real change, then -- to put it roughly but, I hope, intuitively -- the apple in its earlier state must "have something about it" that "allows" it to undergo that change to its later state. Its nature, form, essence, or what-have-you must, even at that earlier time (or at least at the time the change begins), include a power or disposition to turn green under certain conditions; otherwise it's not the apple that's changing. (It might, for example, just be receiving a coat of green paint.)
It's in that sense that the greenness is said to be present in the apple: virtually, in the power to (be) turn(ed) green. And that power is what we call a potency.
(I see Timocrates has responded while I was composing this. Our replies seem to be complementary, so I won't change anything in mine.)
- Timocrates
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
Hello everyone,
I'm having trouble understanding how change necessarily leads to the act-potency division. Take the example of a red apple turning green. Supposedly, the apple's greenness has to come from somewhere, and since it can't come from (actual) being or non-being, it has to come from potential being.
But why think the greenness has to *come from* somewhere at all? Why not just say this: the apple is red at time 1, and is green at time 2? There's no need to posit any "coming from" here; the greenness did not come from anywhere at all. (This is different from saying that the greenness came from nowhere; the scope of the negation is different.) And if the apple's greenness didn't come from anywhere, then there's no need to posit the act-potency division.
Best,
ML
Also ML (and I believe this either ties into or perhaps overlaps with Scott's points) there is the sense in which a potency is a capacity for something.
Our minds (as Scott's post suggests) almost intuitively realize that if X is Y, in any number of situations it is equally true and necessary that X must have a capacity to be Y. When looked at this way, even the original red apple implied that the apple had a potency to be red (and taking it even further, that the apple had a potency to be or exist; though, of course, this begins to raise deeper questions because it is impossible for something to actualize itself). But let's just think about the apple's being red. The point is that even absent a change here, our minds still see that apples must of necessity have some kind of a capacity to be or become actually red. So even if one were to deny change (at least in some cases), that doesn't necessarily remove the need (again at least in some cases) for positing or having a notion like potency.
I hope that helps a bit.
P.S - hey Scott! 
Last edited by Timocrates (2/16/2016 1:47 pm)
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- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16 (3).
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- Timocrates
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
Consider the apple, the apple is susceptible to many kinds of change, but no matter what you do, it will not become an elephant. Why is this so? I think the the divisions of act/potency necessarily commit us to a Hylemorphic analysis of nature, i.e. that everything is made up of matter and form. Where the form determines the kinds of change(potency) a thing-in-act can receive, yet retain its identity. So, why can't the apple become an elephant? Because there is no such potency to receive. The analysis of causation here has at least the following elements;
a) A Causal suitor(what causes the apple to turn from red-to-green,
b) The inherent capability of an object(the apple) by virtue of its form (which is in act) to receive the causal suitor, while retaining its identity (potency).
You need both (a) and (b). The potency is determined by the specific form it possesses. So the Red Apple is in potency to being a Green Apple, but it is not in Potency to becoming an Elephant.
Hope this helps, let the people know if you still have confusions.
I should add, I've been been told that a reductionist account of change, at least on the inorganic level has been demonstrated. If this is true, I'm not sure how we could affirm Act/Potency by means of such examples. John, could you please make a thread about this in due time? Thanks!
Hello Dennis,
I don't see how a reductionist account could even in principle remove or deny a metaphysical principle like potency. In effect they would have to deny meaningful change.
Indeed, even 'mere' essential differences between things - including a thing considered in itself (see my preceding post, for example) - can involve a need for potency.
Furthermore, the simple essence-existence distinction itself involves potency. So take a quark or whatever irreducibly basic particle (or in anyway physical thing at all, really) and note that its nature (definition) just isn't simple existence as such. It will always involve something else or further or otherwise distinct from existence. Moreover, whatever it is said that the thing can do will again involve potency. Now whatever aspect in the definition of the thing is not itself just existence, then, that stands in need of itself, in turn, being made to be or itself having or sharing or participating in existence. That, then, will involve the thing in potency - at least to that extent.
Of course, the modern materialist is going to do his utter best to make some physical thing as necessary as possible because he needs there to be such a thing for his system to work (absent something outside or beyond that system; i.e., absent something non-physical). We should be weary of this highly conscious endeavor on his part and never allow theory and any subsequent theoretical necessities to masquerade as fact.
Last edited by Timocrates (2/16/2016 2:43 pm)
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Re: Act, Potency, and Change
Briefly:
I should add, I've been been told that a reductionist account of change, at least on the inorganic level has been demonstrated. If this is true, I'm not sure how we could affirm Act/Potency by means of such examples. John, could you please make a thread about this in due time? Thanks!
I'm not sure where the distinction between organic and inorganic comes in. Suppose all inorganic matter is reducible to bottom level particles. Absent further argument, there's no reason to think those particles lack potencies.
If you're talking about this thread, the first two Pruss links, and the reductive at-at theory of change, I'm not sure it's that big a deal for powers theorists unless the B-theorist also denies causal relations or essentialism. (It would be weird to say that B-theoretic eternalism holds for inorganic stuff, but not organic stuff, though.)
Last edited by John West (2/16/2016 4:09 pm)