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Document Details : Title: Reality, Virtuality, and Play Author(s): MASSIE, Pascal Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies Volume: 8 Date: 2024 Pages: 143-166 DOI: 10.2143/EPH.8.0.3292516 Abstract : This essay explores the ontology of non-actuality. The term ‘non-actuality’ refers to being insofar as it is not actual and yet is not reducible to non-being simpliciter (pure nothingness). Potentiality or virtuality, for instance, seem to occupy an intermediate space since these are neither actual nor pure nothing. In the first part, I propose a critique of actualism, the ontological position that considers that only that which is actual is real by considering an ancient version (Diodorus Cronus) and a contemporary debate on modalities (modal realism and modal fictionalism). I then analyze non-actuality through the case of virtual reality, the ontology of power, Aristotelian dunamis, and Deleuzian virtuality and reject the common reduction of potentiality to a lack or privation. As an alternative, I propose to conceptualize the form of process ontology that would accommodate virtuality and potentiality in terms of play (Spielraum). |
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