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Full Idea
How are we to conceive of a field of potentials when the very point of the notion is that it serves to describe what would happen at various places, and is not a description of what did or is happening?
Gist of Idea
What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events?
Source
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.III)
Book Ref
Harré,R/Madden,E.H.: 'Causal Powers: A Theory of Natural Necessity' [Blackwell 1975], p.175
A Reaction
I suppose the answer is induction. If there were no events, the field would be beyond us. We infer the field from observed events, and infer possible events from the patterns of behaviour in the field, and its nature.
| 11938 | The Megarans say something is only capable of something when it is actually doing it [Aristotle] |
| 15766 | Megaran actualism is just scepticism about the qualities of things [Aristotle] |
| 15767 | Megaran actualists prevent anything from happening, by denying a capacity for it to happen! [Aristotle] |
| 21491 | Peirce's later realism about possibilities and generalities went beyond logical positivism [Peirce, by Atkin] |
| 16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
| 15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
| 15315 | What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events? [Harré/Madden] |
| 15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
| 9499 | Megarian actualists deny unmanifested dispositions [Bird] |
| 14350 | If a disposition is never instantiated, it shouldn't be part of our theory of nature [Corry] |
| 19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |