Tag: Capability

The Relativity of Dynamis

“Up to the end of Theta 5, even though the end of Theta 3 had initiated the ontological inquiry, it is principally the kinetic dunamis [potentiality] that we have explored. The first lines of Theta 6 close this first moment: now that we have treated dunamis in relation to movement, it is necessary, writes Aristotle, to take an interest in energeia [act]. We note anew the dyssymmetry already raised: it is the study of energeia, not of dunamis, that presides over the extension of energeia as of dunamis from the kinetic sense to the ontological sense.”

“Energeia and dunamis will be initially characterized as two distinct sides of one thing of huparkhein, of existing. They are thus designated as two distinct modes of being, where the difference, nonetheless, can be known only through their opposition. This opposition constructs in-potentiality as relative to energeia [act as “in-a-work-ness”, or something realized in a work] — thereby rejoining the definition of dunaton in Theta 3 as that of which the act can exist (huparkhe he energeia). Thus, the in-potentiality is to be understood as that of [the statue of] Hermes in the wood, or that of the half-line in the whole line, because the one and the other can be separated…, or again as the way in which someone knows something without contemplating it, if it can be contemplated. If in-potentiality thus finds itself characterized only relatively to energeia, the latter in its turn is not explicitly defined, but implicitly identified with what is separated in the first example (the Hermes and the half-line), and with the exercise in the second (contemplation)” (Aubry, Dieu san la puissance, 2nd ed., ch. 4, p. 130, my translation throughout). 

“Theta 8 will show, in conformity with what Theta 3 already affirmed, that it is the ontological sense [of dynamis and energeia] that is primary: it thus appears that movement can be called energeia insofar as it is taken as the manifestation of being, or again of the work, or again of the end. It is indeed the kinetic sense that will appear as an extension of the ontological sense, and of a more determinate sense by virtue of which act is not only another name for being, but for being in the end” (p. 132).

Aubry points out that the last lines of Theta 6, which somewhat confusingly emphasize a distinction between whether an end is immanent or not, have been regarded by leading scholars (including Werner Jaeger and Miles Burnyeat) as an addition to the text.

She notes that in Theta 8, “we will read that movement can be considered as a form of energeia insofar as, in certain cases, it can serve as an end…. Far from being opposed to energeia as that which does not have its end in itself to that in which the end is immanent, kinesis will be presented as a form of energeia insofar as it can serve as an end, which leads us to suspect the last lines of Theta 6″ (p. 133).

“As was already the case in Theta 5, we are here formulating restrictive conditions, which rule out saying that any matter whatsoever is in-potentiality for any form whatsoever. In-potentiality is only said of a determinate matter in relation to a determinate form. More precisely, in-potentiality indicates the very possibility of the relation of such a matter to such a form. Even in formulating the conditions of the equivalence dunamis–hyle posed by the analogy, Theta 7 thus justifies the formula of Eta according to which ‘the proximate matter and the form are one and the same thing, the one in-potentiality and the other in act’.”

“If in-potentiality names the capacity of matter to acquire a determinate form, the division of dunamis from hyle is no less maintained, at the same time as it is given measure. In effect, for the products of tekhne [art] as well as for the phuseis [natures], we can establish a common criterion: the uniqueness of change. Potential is thus distinguished from the indeterminate possibility in virtue of which any matter whatsoever could [supposedly] acquire any form whatsoever. But it is also distinguished from the actual….”

“If Theta 7 prolongs the analyses of Theta 5, a change of perspective is also evident: in effect, the question posed is no longer to know only of what a thing is capable, dunaton, but for what it is in-potentiality, dunamei…. A double displacement is marked here: first, the distinction between active power and passive power, with which we began, is effaced before the notion of in-potentiality…. [And second,] the notion of in-potentiality thus serves to name, beyond the distinction between active power and passive power, the very possibility of the interaction of an agent and a patient with a view to a determinate change.”

“In what follows, we will ask not only when a thing is in-potentiality for another, but when a thing is in-potentiality in another: in so doing, we ask not only about in-potentiality as a principle of change, but about in-potentiality as a mode of being” (p. 134, emphasis in original).

“This transition will be completed in chapter 8….”

“The text [of chapter 8] opens with a redefinition of dunamis…: this new definition, which is more expansive, is in effect formulated in such a way as to include natural beings…. In the same way, natural beings are defined in Physics II as ‘having in themselves a principle of motion and rest’. Nature can thus be said to belong to the same genus as dunamis, since it is an immanent principle of movement. Thus redefined, dunamis will be envisaged in the order of immanence more than in that of transitivity: we thus integrate the results of the previous chapter, which defined in-potentiality at the conjunction of the active and the passive, and beyond this distinction. The extensive definition of dunamis thus marks the definitive adoption of a new point of view, in virtue of which potentiality [puissance] will no longer be considered in the order of the correlation of agent and patient, but in its relation to act. Dunamis will thus appear as the principle of a movement that can take place within something, which is essentially teleological [finalisé] (even if it can have no other end than itself), and which is a transition from a certain non-being to full reality” (p. 135, emphasis in original).

Next in this series: Interim Recap

Critique of the Megarians

Euclid of Megara (not to be confused with the geometer) was a student of Socrates who combined Socratic and Eleatic ideas. He reportedly claimed that virtue is knowledge of the Parmenidean One Being, which he also identified with the Good, God, reason, and mind. At a time when Megarians were banned from Athens for some reason, he is said to have entered the city disguised as a woman in order to listen to Socrates. He was present at Socrates’ death, and afterwards offered refuge to Plato and others in Megara. Socrates reputedly rebuked him for arguing more for the sake of winning than for the truth, but Euclid was said to have been very concerned with moral virtue. Plato credits him with having written down an actual conversation between Socrates and Theaetetus, which became the basis of Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus.

Euclid’s students were mainly interested in logic and argument. Some of them apparently founded a separate school, known as the Dialecticians, which developed a form of propositional logic. This latter group is considered to have been the major source for Stoic logic.

In chapter 3 of book Theta of the Metaphysics, Aristotle criticizes Megarian arguments that there is no distinction between power and act. Aubry quotes Aristotle’s restatement of the Megarian claim, “It is when a thing acts that it can act, but when it does not act, it cannot act” (Dieu san la puissance, 2nd ed., ch. 4, p. 122, my translation throughout).

Independent of Aristotle’s development of a normative and teleological dimension of act that plausibly extends even to physical motion, he is also very concerned to carefully distinguish between power and its exercise. Thus he had to confront the Megarians, who argued that there is no such distinction.

Later writers of quite varying persuasions have wittingly or unwittingly developed variants of this Megarian position. Nietzsche, for instance, explicitly denied the reality of anything that is not actual. Any kind of argument for complete determinism has a similar effect, as does theological occasionalism, which subsumes all becoming under the model of creation.

“Against this thesis, it is necessary to affirm not only the distinction of act and power but, more precisely, that with a given act can coexist not only the power of which it is the effect, but the power for another, opposed, act” (ibid).

Aubry noted a bit earlier that the emphasis on contraries in the discussion of rational powers is rather accidental. The more general point — expressed at the level of potentiality rather than power — is that potentiality includes multiple alternate possibilities concretely grounded in the same state of actuality. The more specific notion of contrariety only comes into play because — due to the fact power is consistently understood by Aristotle as power to do or undergo something definite — related deliberation may be conceived as about exercising a power or not.

She quotes Aristotle, “It is possible for a thing to be capable of being and nonetheless not be, or capable of not being and nonetheless be” (ibid).

This, it seems to me, is an unavoidable presupposition of any coherent account of becoming. It is again also the foundation of Aristotle’s account of human freedom. This way of approaching freedom is greatly to be recommended, because it avoids both the dubious and dangerous concept of a separate faculty of will distinct from reason, and the worse concepts of arbitrary will, or will as “superior” to reason.

“The critique of the Megarians indeed carries a double, and paradoxical, positivity: it invites us to think at the same time becoming in relation with dunamis, and energeia in relation with being. In doing this, it indicates also the double stakes of the inquiry: to think becoming and being at the same time; to determine the mode of their articulation.”

The dynamis–energeia pair is what uniquely enables Aristotle to think of being and becoming in a non-opposed way, though this is far from exhausting its significance.

“The extension from the kinetic sense of energeia to the ontological sense is presented as a deepening: otherwise said, and in conformity to what Theta 1 noted already, it is the ontological sense that is primary. In effect, if we have a tendency to consider that energeia is manifested above all in movement, this is insofar as we take it as an index of being” (p. 123, emphasis in original).

“For not to be in act but to be capable of being so, is also a mode of being: that which in-potentiality names. Of certain things that are not, but are nonetheless capable of being, one says thus that they are dunamei” (pp. 123-124).

Here we have a good example of the explicitly dative grammatical form of dynamis (dynamei) that she finds to be associated with Aristotle’s distinctive notion of being in potentiality. These are things that have being potentially, or are potentially thus-and-such. Here the emphasis is all on “things” in a state of potentiality, or potential “states of affairs”. Potentiality (as distinct from actuality) is the modality in which these have being and are said. This is indeed clearly different from a power to do, cause, or undergo.

“That which is in-potentiality, nonetheless, is not, ‘because it is not an entelechy‘” (p. 124).

We do not say of that which is in-potentiality that it “is” simply, or in an unqualified sense.

At the link above, I suggested that entelechy is probably the most important guiding concept of the Metaphysics. I have also suggested that entelechy serves as a kind of explanation for how ousia or (substance or essence, or what Sachs calls “thinghood”) works. In turn, Aristotle uses ousia to help disambiguate and organize what is meant by the various ways in which we say something is something. In the quote above, he directly uses entelechy as the criterion for what we do and do not say “is”. It is vitally important that he appeals to this much more nuanced concept, instead of referring back to the blunt instrument of a common-sense notion of existence or reality. For Aristotle, being, existence, or reality is not an explainer; instead, it needs to be explained.

Nonetheless, Aubry points out that here, Aristotle does not explicitly invoke the normative aspect of entelechy. We are still primarily investigating the more common “kinetic” sense of dynamis and energeia that accounts for physical motion. The aspect of entelechy that is to the fore is therefore that of the continuing activity that constitutes a substance as something persisting, or a motion as ongoing.

Next in this series: Potentiality and Possibility