more from Barbara Vetter

Single Idea 19037

[catalogued under 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / e. Possible Objects]

Full Idea

Is it not possible that there be objects with (natural) properties that no actual thing ever had the potentiality to have, to produce, or constitute? (Call such properties 'super-alien properties').

Gist of Idea

Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce?

Source

Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.5)

Book Reference

Vetter,Barbara: 'Potentiality: from Dispositions to Modality' [OUP 2015], p.269


A Reaction

This is a problem for her potentiality account of possibility. Her solution is (roughly) to either deny the super-aliens, or have chains of iterated possibility which take this case back to actuality. That sounds OK to me.