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Full Idea
Water has no potentiality to break. But water has a potentiality to be frozen and turn into ice, which does have a potentiality to break. So water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break.
Gist of Idea
Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing)
Source
Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.6)
Book Ref
Vetter,Barbara: 'Potentiality: from Dispositions to Modality' [OUP 2015], p.136
A Reaction
Thus potentially has an 'iterated' character to it, and an appropriate modal logic for it will have to allow for those iterations. She suggests a version of System T modal logic.
Related Idea
Idea 19021 I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter]
| 15777 | A 'potentiality' is a principle of change or process in a thing [Aristotle] |
| 15778 | Things are destroyed not by their powers, but by their lack of them [Aristotle] |
| 14544 | Potentialities are always for action, but are conditional on circumstances [Aristotle] |
| 15774 | We recognise potentiality from actuality [Aristotle] |
| 11254 | Matter is potentiality [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| 12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
| 23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
| 19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
| 19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
| 19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
| 19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
| 19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |