A Balderdash and Piffle Kinda Question?

Question

There's something that's really baffled me since i ever thought about the origins of words and phrases. i've searched up and asked friends and they've been confused about it as well, and there's no explaination about this phrase. It's a bit weird to ask, but where does the phrase "virtually" come from

as in i've got virtually nothing

no literally this would be as if you had nothing in something "virtual", but what it means is basically, or simply, as in "i've got near to nothing"

Please try to answer and if you can't, say what you think.

Answer 1

Virtual is force, is potency.1 According to French philosopher Pierre Lévy, scholastic philosophy used this term to refer to what is or exists potentially. By potential it can be understood, following Aristotle in his metaphysics, as what is capable of being or what is possible to happen. Something that potentially exists is something that is latent, something that can happen. It may appear, actualize and realize its full existence. Something that is potential is something
that is capable of being or becoming something, something else; or that has the power over something to change it (Aristoteles 1994).

We speak about potential and actual to refer to a way of existing. For instance, it is said that a seed is a potential tree. The seed’s “being a potential tree” will no longer be potential when it is actualized and the seed becomes a tree. Then
the seed will no longer be a potential tree, and we will be able to speak about the realization of the potency, of its actualization.

1 On the Latin origin of the word “ virtual” , see Pierre Lévy’s work Qu’es-ce que le virtuel? Éditions de la Découverte, París. 1995.

Virtual, then, is not opposed to what is existent, such as a common prejudice would make us believe. Virtual must be understood as potential. Likewise, virtualization must be understood as potentialization, and it is opposed to or
distinguished from the notion of actual. As Lévy wrote: “ virtualization may be defined as the inverse movement of actualization” (Lévy 1999: 19).

What is actual is distinguished from what is potential in that what is actual is the result of the realization of the potency. Potency becomes an act and thus fully realizes itself. The inverse movement, that is turning an act into potency, is
what we call virtualization. This is what happens when a text is digitalized and turned into hypertext.

Answer 2

brilliant question - I didn't quite understand the first answer but I looked in Chambers. As I understand it, if the chairman dropped dead, the acting chairman would be the virtual chairman. In effect, he is the chairman. I know it's not the best analogy. In the Catholic mass (this was in Chambers), Christ is virtually present in the bread and the wine: He is, in effect, present. Virtual can mean potent (force) and true.

Answer 3

You would use the word when every bone in your body tells that something is true; but you can't prove it.