display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
| 12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental thesis of real essentialism is that every finite material body has a twofold composition, being a compound of act and potency. ...Reality can take on new kinds of existence because there is a principle of potentiality inherent in reality. | |
| From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: I take from this remark that the 'powers' discussed by Molnar and other scientific essentialists is roughly the same as 'potentiality' identified by Aristotle. |
| 22281 | A material conditional cannot capture counterfactual reasoning [Potter] |
| Full Idea: What the material conditional most significantly fails to capture is counterfactual reasoning. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 04 'Sem') | |
| A reaction: The point is that counterfactuals say 'if P were the case (which it isn't), then Q'. But that means P is false, and in the material conditional everything follows from a falsehood. A reinterpretation of the conditional might embrace counterfactuals. |