display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Properties are not powers. But properties have powers. They bestow powers. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. In this view, powers become extremely vague things, ranging from the fine-grained to the hugely broad. It seems to me that powers are precise and real, but properties are the vague unhelpful things. |
| 18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Powers must surely issue in manifestations that are something more than just powers. A world where potency never issued in act, but only in more potency, would be one where one travelled without ever having the possibility of arriving. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: Tricky. The picture I favour is that the distinction between powers and categorical properties is a misunderstanding. What is fundamental is active and powerful categoricals. |
| 18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: If masses are powers, the forces generated between two particulars have to vary inversely with the square of their distance apart. Have not the masses got to 'know' at what distance they are from each other, to exert the right amount of force? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a good warning against a simplistic account of powers doing all the work, but I suspect that more sophisticated physics would offer the fan of powers a solution here. The power is to 'spread' the force around. |