Philosophy of Being and Knowledge

Metaphysics (Philosophy of Being)

Actuality and Potentiality

The emergence of anything new involves the transformation of one thing into another. For instance, crafting a table involves transforming wood, while education transforms a student into a specialist. For such a transformation to occur, it must be possible. One cannot turn water into a table or a cat into a professor. However, water can be turned into a drink, and a cat can become an excellent rodent deterrent. Any entity can be transformed into something specific but cannot be transformed into something else. This distinction leads to two aspects of substance:

• The actual state of a thing, that is, what a thing is, is termed its actuality (from the Latin "actus"). Actuality encompasses all the characteristics a thing possesses in reality, which are reflected in its definition.
• Every thing has the potential to be transformed into something else. The set of possible transformations is limited. For example, wood can be transformed into a table, but it cannot become a bird. The potential for transformation of a thing is referred to as its potentiality (from the Latin "potentia" - possibility).

The set of potentialities is not fixed; it changes as they are actualized. When a specific potentiality is realized, the number of future possibilities decreases. For example, wood can be made into a table, a chair, or a cabinet, but once a carpenter has made a table, all other possibilities are lost. A child can attend different schools, but once the child starts at one school, they forfeit the opportunity to choose another. Realizing potential is a form of refinement, and refinement is simultaneously a narrowing of possibilities. An experienced surgeon is more skilled in their profession than a medical student, but the student has the potential to choose a specialization, while the surgeon has already made that choice. The surgeon may change specializations in the future but cannot return to their student days to choose a different initial specialization. By creating something, a person actualizes their potential but also eliminates all other potentialities of the same class.

The problem of actuality and potentiality has remained relevant throughout the history of philosophy. In modern and contemporary philosophy, it gave rise to the concept of modality and the theory of possible worlds. This theory was developed by René Descartes and Wilhelm Leibniz in early modern philosophy and has been further interpreted by contemporary American logicians Saul A. Kripke (b. 1940) and David Kellogg Lewis (1941-2001). The theory of possible worlds is a theoretical construct explaining the relationship between different degrees of modality. It posits that, apart from the actual world, a myriad of other worlds could exist; there could be enough variations to realize any conceivable proposition. For instance, why could there not be a world in which Rome is the capital of France? In the real world, Rome is not the capital of France, but this does not contradict common sense. Possible worlds are constructs of the mind that allow for the realization of all possibilities. According to this theory, propositions have one of three degrees of modality. There are propositions that are true in all possible worlds, known as apodictic. These include absolute truths, such as mathematical propositions. In all possible worlds, a square has four sides, and a triangle has three angles. There are also propositions that are true only in the actual world but not in other possible worlds. For example, the proposition "Paris is the capital of France" is true in the actual world but does not have to be true in other possible worlds, as another city could be the capital of France. Such propositions are termed assertoric. The third type of propositions is problematic. They are true in some possible world but not in the actual one. For example, "Rome is the capital of France" might be true in some possible worlds but not in the actual world. The falsity of "Rome is the capital of France" differs from the falsity of "A square has five sides." In the first case, the proposition is false, but with a change in historical and political circumstances, it might become true. In the second case, the proposition can never become true under any circumstances. There are absolute truths that can never become false and absolute falsehoods that can never become true. Distinguishing propositions by their modality shows that possible changes have clearly defined limits. No substance has an infinite number of possibilities.

Recognizing the limitation of potentialities sets rational boundaries for planning activities. For example, it is unreasonable to wish to violate the laws of mathematics or the laws of nature, as no effort can actualize what is not possible, that is, what is not a potential.