display all the ideas for this combination of texts
14 ideas
| 19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Necessity and possibility had a revival with the development of modal logic, treating them as special cases of the existential and universal quantifiers, ranging over an infinity of possible worlds. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: The problem seems to be that possible worlds offer a very useful and interesting 'model' of modality, but say nothing at all about its nature. Any more than a weather map will show you what weather is. |
| 19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Necessities mark the limits of the potentialities that objects have. More precisely, it is necessary that p just in case nothing has, or had, or will have a potentiality to be such that not-p. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: [See Vetter's other ideas for her potentiality account of modality] If we wish to build a naturalistic account of modality (and if you don't want that then your untethered metaphysics will drift away in logical space) then this is the way to go. |
| 19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: When we speak of possibility, we speak of potentiality in abstraction from its possessor; a possibility is a potentiality somewhere or other in the world, no matter where. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: I note that, as so often, this is psychological abstraction, which is usually sneered at by modern philosophers (e.g. Geach), and yet is employed all the time. This is Vetter's key thesis, which I like. |
| 19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality is, metaphorically speaking, possibility anchored in individual objects; I claim that all possibility is thus anchored in some individual object(s) or other. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This will be fine for specific physical possibilities, but may become tricky for possibilities that are increasingly abstract, or universal, or idealised. I agree with the general approach. Anchor modality in reality (which is physical!). |
| 19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We should think of possibility as potentiality in abstraction from its bearer. So 'it is possible that p' is defined as 'something has an iterated potentiality for it to be the case that p'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: If possibilities are abstractions from potentialities, I am inclined the treat potentialities as abstractions from dispositions, and dispositions (and properties) as abstractions from powers. Powers are not abstractions - they are the reality. |
| 19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality can now be recognised as the common genus of dispositions and such related properties as abilities. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Vetter defends a metaphysics of modality based on potentialities, rather than on narrower concepts such as dispositions, powers or essences. She can evade the problems which those narrower concepts raise. |
| 19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
| 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. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.6) | |
| 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. |
| 23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Although not all potentialities are dispositions, Vetter claims that all dispositions are potentialities which are had to a sufficiently high degree. | |
| From: report of Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015]) by Friend/Kimpton-Nye - Dispositions and Powers 2.4.2 | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible. A potentiality could be faint or negligible, but once it is a serious possibility it becomes a 'disposition'. ...I suppose. But if the meteor is probably going to hit my house, it doesn't mean it has a disposition to do so. |
| 19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: This book is a plea for recognising potentiality as an explanans in the metaphysics of modality, rather than as something in need of explanation or reduction. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Something has to do the explaining, and it is obviously much better to have some aspect of the real world do the job, rather than remote abstractions such as laws, possible worlds or Forms. Personally I like the potentiality of 'powers'. |
| 19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The logic for potentiality corresponds to modal system T, the minimum for metaphysics. The S4 axiom ◊◊φ → ◊φ says iterated potentialities collapse, and the S5 ◊φ → □◊φ says potentialities can't be lost. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.9) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems persuasive. I nice example of modern analytic metaphysics, that you have to find a logic that suits your theory. N.Salmon defends system T for all of metaphysics, though most people favour S5. |
| 19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentialities are 'potentialities to ....', while possibilities are 'possibilities that ....'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: This feels a bit like a stipulation, rather than a precise description of normal usage. That said, it is quite a nice distinction. It sounds as if an event follows a potentiality, and a state of affairs follows a possibility. Active and passive? |
| 19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentialities may get exercised despite having a degree that is too low for them to qualify as dispositions. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.7.4) | |
| A reaction: The key reason why her book is called 'Potentialities', rather than 'Dispositions'. She still wants to offer a naturalistic picture which ties potentialities to individual objects, but I am wondering whether potentialities are too abstract for the job. |
| 19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: If possible worlds are sets of propositions, we need some way to distinguish those sets of propositions that do from those that do not correspond to genuine possibilities. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The idea of a 'genuine' possibility does not seem to play a role in the conceptual scheme of those who treat possibility entirely in terms of possible worlds. If possibility is primitive, or is a set of worlds, there can be no criterion for 'genuine'. |
| 19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
| 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'). | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.5) | |
| 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. |