Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Feser's account of change

**Posted by mnels123** 4/06/2018 3:51 am

Hi everyone,

I came across an interesting critique of Ed's Book, that focused mostly on what it means for change to = the actualization of a potential.

If anyone has a minute to read through it and discuss it with me in this thread, I'd love to do so.

-Mike

**Posted by seigneur** 4/06/2018 8:15 am

First, why is this critique interesting? The writer keeps introducing a bunch of distinctions, and when he doesn't see some of those distinctions met, he claims ambiguity. This is a conscious tactic of missing the forest for the trees. What's interesting about it?

Breaking concepts and arguments apart can be good constructive polemics, but not when you lose track of the substance in the process. Happens often with formalists and nominalists.

Last edited by seigneur (4/06/2018 8:16 am)

**Posted by FrenchySkepticalCatholic** 4/06/2018 8:36 am

I second seigneur's comments, plus I'll add these ones :

a) Why say that Feser's points are "ambiguous"? There's nothing ambiguous. The restriction of "potential" to "natural tendency" is a wrong move. Because it's where the "strong point" of the objection stands on, in the author's own words, "that we are NOT dealing with all logical possibilities concerning X". But this is expressly what Feser doesn't do.
a) Why using "sex change" as a critique? It's wrong. It's actually not possible to turn a boy into a woman. What he's doing is making a boy look like a woman. But that's something possible. We can slice through "Such a boy did NOT have “the potential to become a woman”, and yet he actually did become a woman, by means of surgery, hormone therapy, and psychological counseling." by two points, either by showing that the boy did have "the potential to become a woman", but the restriction of the critique makes it impossible (but then, it's not Feser's mistake, it's the author's); or by denying that "the potential to become a woman" is impossible.

There're a few more points to be said, but again, why is this critique interesting ? It muddles the waters.

God bless,
FSC

**Posted by Miguel** 4/06/2018 12:16 pm

Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me how critics fail to grasp the act/potency distinction. It is not even meant to be very sophisticated. It is actually somewhat trivial: if something can have, or become, X, then that something has a potency to have or become X. Re: the sex change example. If the boy could become a woman, that would *just* mean that the boy had the potential to become a woman, not that there is no potency in him (of course, what actually happens in sex change is that the man has a potency to *look like* a woman and come close to behaving like one; but it is not actually a woman, which is why we call them trans in the first place).

It's not hard. Can you eat soup? Then you have a potency to eat soup. Can a seed turn into a tree? Then it has a potency to become a tree, it is a tree in potency. It is not logical possibility, either; it is logically possible that I can jump all the way to the moon, but I don't actually have such a potency (unless, say, a supernatural being were to give me such a power).