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#Post#: 176--------------------------------------------------
Feser's Aristotelian Proof fails in demonstrating the existence
of Pure Act
By: Valtteri Date: July 2, 2020, 7:38 am
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I have been scouring the internet for quite some time now
searching for an answer to this objection. Looking at the
archives of the old CT Forum the objection was brought up there
as well, especially by RomanJoe, but never was a satisfactory
answer given. The objection is this: from the premises of
Feser's Aristotelian Proof (potentialities are actualized, an
essentially ordered causal series must have a first member, a
potency can be reduced to act only by something that is in act)
we cannot deduce the existence of something that is purely
actual, only the existence of an unactualized actualizer which
exists in an underived way (nothing actualizes its existence).
Whenever this objection is brought up, the answer is usually
that if this unactualized actualizer were to have any potencies,
it would be a composite, and a composite cannot exist in an
underived way, so the unactualized actualizer has to be purely
actual. Sometimes the answer given is that if the unactualized
actualizer had a distinction between its essence and its
existence, it would not exist in an underived way, so its
essence and its existence have to be identical, and such a thing
has to be purely actual. I would certainly agree with both of
these assertions. However, the point is that from the given
premises of Feser's Aristotelian Proof, we cannot arrive at that
which is Pure Act. Thus the argument fails as a standalone
argument for demonstrating the existence of God; to arrive at
God, we have to appeal to further premises, premises that are
not part of the actual argument.
Am I mistaken? Can we actually arrive at the existence of Pure
Act from the three premises of the argument?
#Post#: 184--------------------------------------------------
Re: Feser's Aristotelian Proof fails in demonstrating the existe
nce of Pure Act
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 4, 2020, 10:30 pm
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You end up needing to argue for the actualization of existence,
which is basically the existential proof in De ente et essentia
expressed with a focus on the terminology of actualizing
potencies.
#Post#: 185--------------------------------------------------
Re: Feser's Aristotelian Proof fails in demonstrating the existe
nce of Pure Act
By: RomanJoe Date: July 5, 2020, 1:25 am
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Boy, I remember wracking my brain over that issue for
awhile--it's good to see I've contributed something useful to
the age old canons of the elder forum. I'll need to dust off
Feser's book again and have a look into how he spells out the
argument precisely. I've taken a hiatus from philosophy for the
past several months and I'm starting to realize it wasn't a very
good choice. I feel like my mind is goop.
#Post#: 233--------------------------------------------------
Re: Feser's Aristotelian Proof fails in demonstrating the existe
nce of Pure Act
By: ClassicalLiberal.Theist Date: August 30, 2020, 7:29 pm
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I too have in my early days of learning, struggled with such an
objection. I think this objection stems from a lack of
understanding of the actul argument. When Feser lays out the
argument, he starts off with the existence of change; however,
such a rhetorical move is only made in order to establish or
attempt to establish the metaphysical principles act and
potency. But it is not from this which he derives something that
is pure act. It is the sustanence of potencys in act rather than
the temporal actualization of a potency itself. For example, it
is the refrigerators ability to continually actualize waters
potential to be ice, rather than its ability to actualize what
was once water into ice.
Now having understood this, that it is the continued
actualization of potentialities rather than temporal ones, the
obejction fails. If, for example, we arrive at the existence of
the ontologically absolute (Which is in fact what the argument
arrives at), then your objection could be stated: but why must
this thing be immaterial, divinely simple, and the like? It
could just as well be composed of parts but have no
potentialities to actualize. But this is mistaken. Continually
actualized potentialities exist in the composed, which is what
the argument is seeking to eleminate; the composed wholes
potentility to be whole is itself continually actualized by each
part, and is therefore not really pure act; there must be
something even lower, so to speak, which holds this in
existence. If one follows the logic, you will arrive at
something which is pure act. Not something which just has no
capacity to not exist, but something which has no capacity to
not exist and whos capacity is kept in existence in terms of
"itself", rather than something else. Your argument would leave
you with something logically necessary and of derivative
existence, but the argument actually leads you to something
deeper: something logically necessary and something which is of
underived existence; something truly pure act.
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