By contrast, the hydrogen and oxygen in water are virtual or potential rather than actual. … That it is in the water only virtually or potentially rather than actually is the reason you cannot burn the hydrogen in water, which you could do with actual hydrogen. (Edward Feser, Aristotle's Revenge, p. 313)
In general, the particles of which any true physical substance is composed exist within it virtually or potentially rather than actually. For example, if a stone is a true substance, then while the innumerable atoms that make it up are real, they exist within it virtually or potentially rather than actually. What actually exists is just the one thing, the stone itself. (pp. 313-314)
This echoes the Aristotelian position that parts exist in a substance virtually or potentially rather than actually. (p. 317)
Indeed, there is a sense in which these ordinary objects are more fundamental than the particles that make them up, insofar as the particles exist in them only virtually, only relative to the wholes of which they are parts. (p. 330)
Using an electron microscope, we can see individual atoms. It should be evident therefore that the idea that atoms of molecules like water, or even the various atoms in stone, are only there "virtually" and not actually, is nonsense.
2 comments:
The argument seems to be a nonsequiter (we see X so X doesn't virtually exist) unless you can argue that given a part's virtue existence we should not be able to see it. In which case, as you say, the idea of virtual existence might just be doomed.
As described by Feser or by David Oderberg here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14E9GlIy_ExFCFJfkfpnu0G-v6zI_VRAo/view?usp=drivesdk I don't see why we should expect not be able to see atoms on the notion that they exist virtually when they are part of a larger substance.
Sean
Hi Sean,
If we can see the atoms, how can they be said to be "virtual"? Unless Feser is using a different definition of "virtual," I do not see how it can be said that atoms exist only virtually in a substance, and only become actually existing when the substance is split into atoms.
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