Ancient Philosophy: The Fundamentals by Daniel W. Graham

Author:Daniel W. Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ancient & Classical, History & Surveys, Philosophy
ISBN: 9781119110170
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 2020-03-11T03:00:00+00:00

5.4.2 Potentiality and Actuality

Besides hylomorphism, Aristotle has another powerful theory of change, that of potentiality and actuality. He expounds this theory most systematically in Metaphysics IX (although not as clearly as one would like). Aristotle starts out by describing power (dunamis) as “a source of change in another thing” (1046a11). He notes that there are active and passive versions of power. For instance, the hot is an active source of heating of a piece of wood. The wood, by contrast has the passive power of being heated. Schematically, x has the power of making y F, while y has the power of being made F by x. Aristotle connects the word dunamis with the corresponding verb dunasthai ‘be able,’ and notes that it has several meanings. (Remember that at the beginning of the Categories he had recognized that words [or things named by words] can have several meanings.) The same term, dunamis, also means ‘potentiality,’ but I translate it differently to keep the sense apart. This use of dunamis as ‘power,’ active or passive, goes back to the Presocratics and is thus not new to philosophy.

Aristotle later goes on to expand the meaning of the term dunamis and its philosophical importance. In chapter 6 (1048a30–b9), he introduces the term ‘actuality’ (energeia, a word coined by Aristotle and cognate with our word ‘energy’; its etymological meaning is ‘being at work’). Actuality is the opposite of potentiality (dunamis in a different sense than ‘power’). He does not give a definition of the two terms here, but he does give helpful examples: (1a) as what is able to build is to what is building, (b) what is sleeping to what is awake, (c) what is able to see but has its eyes shut to what is seeing, and (2a) the matter to something shaped out of matter, (b) something unmanufactured to something manufactured. He says the first member of each comparison exemplifies potentiality, the second actuality. There are, moreover, two subtypes, (1) and (2). In the former, capacity is contrasted with activity; in the latter, matter is contrasted with substance. Potentiality and actuality are correlative terms referring to two very different states of being. But what are these?

Potentiality: Actuality

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.