User:Andrew Lancaster/Drafts/Potentiality and actuality


 * NOTE. This contains an incomplete draft for work on the text and footnotes of the article Potentiality and actuality. It was started by copying from this version. Because the article has been involved merge proposal, which I suppose, and involving articles which in any case overlap in content, I will also be drawing on various versions, including old versions, of both this article, energeia, entelechy, dunamis, and Actus et potentia. The section header notes like this one below are all made at a particular time and describe a particular version. But work to further edit and improve continues.


 * NOTE: Have added a disambiguation line at the top of the article which is how I imagine the final merged article might be.


 * This article is about Aristotle's philosophical distinction between actuality (energeia, entelecheia, entelechy) and potentiality (potency, etc). For similar sounding words with etymological or other connections, but with different meanings also see Energy (disambiguation), Energia (disambiguation), dunamis (disambiguation), power, potential, potency, and capacity (disambiguation).

In philosophy, Potentiality and Actuality are principles of an important dichotomy used extensively by Aristotle to analyze motion, causality, human ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics and work on the human psyche.

Roughly speaking, a potentiality is most generally any possibility that a thing can be said to have. Aristotle however emphasized the importance to his understanding of those specific possibilities which things will tend to have of their own accord whenever the conditions are right and nothing stops them. Actuality on the other hand is the motion, change or activity which represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense.

Potentiality

 * NOTE. The starting point here is from Potentiality and actuality, just the first paragraph

Potentiality is one translation of  Dunamis  or  dynamis  (δύναμις) which is an Ancient Greek word which could also be translated as "potency", "potential", "capacity", "ability", "power", "capability", "strength", "possibility", "force". It was a Greek word before Aristotle used it, and that word is the root of the English words "dynamic", "dynamite", and "dynamo". The word " dunamis " is sometimes seen untranslated in English texts because of its importance in philosophy. In Latin the word is translated as potentia which is the root of the word potential.

Distinguishing his own understanding of this concept from the general use of this Greek word, Aristotle says that all the ways in which the word dunamis were used either mean that something "might chance to happen or not to happen", or else in a stronger sense "they might do so well". This distinction is necessary "because sometimes we say that those who can merely take a walk, or speak, without doing it as well as they intended, cannot speak or walk". The stronger sense, requiring that something can do something well, is mainly said of living things, although it can also be said of things like musical instruments.

Throughout the works of Aristotle, characteristics of things which are stable or persistent, having their own tendency to be in a particular action rather than just a possibility of happening by chance are clearly held distinct and treated as more real. "Natures which persist" are said by him to be one of the causes of all things, while natures which are not persistent "might often be slandered as not being at all by one who fixes his thinking sternly upon it as upon a criminal".

Actuality

 * NOTE: This section of the draft includes what I think are all preferred version debated on Potentiality and actuality, as a combined, less repetitive, "compromise". More accurately and simply though, this is just an attempt to re-start work on making the paragraph better, by removing an obvious non-neutrality issue, and an obvious repetition of the same basic point said in two conflicting ways in one paragraph - with editing on the article previously having been effectively blocked by reverts. This is not to say it can not be improved further.

Actuality, is often used to translate both  energeia  and  entelecheia  (sometimes rendered in English as "entelechy"). These two words were coined by Aristotle in order to explain his philosophy, and he stated that their meanings were intended to converge. Some authors and translators consider the two words to be interchangeable. They both refer to something being in action or at work, as are all things when they are real in the fullest sense, and not just potentially real. "Actuality" comes from Latin   and was a traditional translation, but its normal meaning in Latin is of anything which is currently happening. Aristotle uses energeia and entelecheia as words which are designed by Aristotle to converge in meaning.

Energeia

 * NOTE: From potentiality and actuality

 Energeia  is a word based upon  ergon , meaning "work". It is the source of the modern word "energy" but the term has evolved so much over the course of the history of science, that noting the etymology of the modern term is not helpful in understanding the original as used by Aristotle. It is notoriously difficult to translate his use of  energeia  into English with consistency. Joe Sachs renders it with the phrase "being–at–work". Aristotle says the word can be made clear by looking at examples rather than trying to find a definition.

Two examples of energeiai in Aristotle's works would be pleasure and happiness (eudaimonia). Pleasure is an energeia of the human body and mind whereas happiness is more simply the energeia of a human being a human.

Energeia is also sometimes compared to kinesis (movement or perhaps sometimes change). See below.

Entelechy or Entelechia

 * NOTE: From potentiality and actuality

Entelechy, in Greek  entelécheia , was coined by Aristotle and transliterated in Latin as  . According to, p.245:

"Aristotle invents the word by combining entelēs  (complete, full-grown) with  echein  ( = hexis, to be a certain way by the continuing effort of holding on in that condition), while at the same time punning on  endelecheia  (persistence) by inserting telos (completion). This is a three-ring circus of a word, at the heart of everything in Aristotle's thinking, including the definition of motion."

Sachs therefore chooses to translate the term with a complex neologism of his own, "being-at-work-staying-the-same".

Entelecheia, as can be seen by its derivation, is a kind of completeness, whereas "the end and completion of any genuine being is its being-at-work" (energeia). The entelecheia is a continuous being-at-work (energeia) when something is doing its complete "work". For this reason, the meanings of the two words converge, and they both depend upon the idea that every thing's "thinghood" is a kind of work, or in other words a specific way of being in motion. All things which exist now, and not just potentially, are beings-at-work, and all of them have a tendency towards being-at-work in a particular way which would be their proper and "complete" way.

Sachs explains the convergence of energeia and entelecheia as follows, and uses the word actuality to describe the overlap between them: Just as energeia extends to entelecheia because it is the activity which makes a thing what it is, entelecheia extends to energeia because it is the end or perfection which has being only in, through, and during activity.

Motion

 * NOTE: The starting point was from potentiality and actuality but re-titled. The intention is to give a section for discussion about Aristotle's theory of motion which is inseparable from this subject overall. With this idea in mind, the section is being expanded a lot.

Actuality in Aristotle is discussed in his Physics in a way which is quite different from modern science, and Aristotle's understanding of motion is closely connected to his concept of actuality. Taken literally, Aristotle defines motion as the actuality (entelecheia) of a potentiality (dunamis) as such.

What Aristotle meant however is however the subject of several different interpretations. A major difficulty comes from the fact that the terms actuality and potentiality, linked in this definition, are normally understood within Aristotle as opposed. lists three major interpretations:


 * 1. The interpretation of Averroes, Maimonides, and W.D. Ross which is, to use the words of Ross "it is the passage to actuality that is kinesis”.

The argument of Ross for this interpretation require him to assert that Aristotle actually used his own word entelecheia wrongly, or inconsistently, only within his definition, making it mean "actualization", which is in conflict with everything else in Aristotle. According to this explanation also can not account for the "as such" in Aristotle's definition.


 * 2. The interpretation of St Thomas of Aquinas.

explains his resolution of "the apparent contradiction between potentiality and actuality in Aristotle’s definition of motion by arguing that in every motion actuality and potentiality are mixed or blended". Motion is therefore "the actuality of any potentiality insofar as it is still a potentiality". Or in other words: The Thomistic blend of actuality and potentiality has the characteristic that, to the extent that it is actual it is not potential and to the extent that it is potential it is not actual; the hotter the water is, the less is it potentially hot, and the cooler it is, the less is it actually, the more potentially, hot.

As with the first interpretation however, objects that: One implication of this interpretation is that whatever happens to be the case right now is an entelechia, as though something which is intrinsically unstable as the instantaneous position of an arrow in flight deserved to be described by the word which Aristotle everywhere else reserves for complex organized states which persist, which hold out in being against internal and external causes tending to destroy them.


 * 3. The interpretation of Sachs himself.

proposes that the solution to problems interpreting Aristotle's definition is to be found in the distinction Aristotle makes between two different types of potentiality, with only one of those corresponding to the "potentiality as such" appearing in the definition of motion. Sachs gives the example of a man walking accross the room and says that...
 * "Once he has reached the other side of the room, his potentiality to be there has been actualized in Ross’ sense of the term". This is a type of energeia however, is not a motion, and not relevant to the definition of motion.
 * While a man is walking his potentiality to be on the other side of the room is actual just as a potentiality, or in other words the potential as such is an actuality. "The actuality of the potentiality to be on the other side of the room, as just that potentiality, is neither more nor less than the walking across the room."

, in his commentary (pp.78-79) of Aristotle's Metaphysics book III gives the following results from his understanding of Aristotle's definition of motion: "The genus of which motion is a species is being-at-work-staying-itself (entelecheia), of which the only other species is thinghood. The being-at-work-staying-itself of a potency (dunamis), as material, is thinghood. The being-at-work-staying-the-same of a potency as a potency is motion."

The importance of actuality in Aristotle's philosophy

 * NOTE. Needs not only refs but expansion. Compared to old versions it should be noted that this section is intended to link up the potentiality/actuality distinction not just to causality in Aristotle but also being. In other words this will be where material comes equivalent to the Potentiality and actuality section which was about this subject. In the present article (22 August) that section represents a re-insertion of older material by one editor whereas this section here represents another editors attempt to get to the core of the old material and start re-writing a new version. The two sections still have some of the same material in them, redundant, which is obviously not a reasonable long term situation to keep.

The actuality-potentiality distinction in Aristotle is a key element linked to everything in his physics and metaphysics.

Aristotle describes potentiality and actuality, or potency and action, as one of several distinctions which are made between things which exist or do not exist. In a sense, a thing which exists potentially does not exist, but the potential does exist. And this type of distinction is expressed for several different types of being within Aristotle's categories of being. For example, from Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1017a:
 * We speak of something being "seeing" whether it is currently seeing or just able to see.
 * We speak of someone having understanding, whether they are using that understanding or not.
 * We speak of corn existing in a field even when it is not yet ripe.
 * People sometimes speak of a figure (such as Hermes) being already present in a rock which could be sculpted to represent that figure.

As explained above, within the works of Aristotle himself, the terms energeia and entelecheia, often translated as actuality, differ from what is merely actual because they specifically presuppose that all things have a proper kind of activity or work which, if achieved, would be their proper end. Greek for end in this sense is telos, a component word in entelecheia (a work which is the proper end of a thing) and also teleology. This is an aspect of Aristotle's theory of four causes and specifically of formal cause (eidos which Aristotle says is energeia ) and final cause (telos).

In essence this means that Aristotle did not see things as matter in motion only, but also proposed that all things have their own aims or ends. In other words, for Aristotle (unlike modern science) there is a distinction between things with a natural cause in the strongest sense, and things which truly happen by accident. He even says that for any possibility (dunamis) to be become real and not just possible, requires reason, and desire or deliberate choice. Because of this style of reasoning, Aristotle is often referred to as having a teleology, and sometimes as having a theory of forms.

While actuality is linked by Aristotle to his concept of a formal cause, potentiality (or potency) on the other hand, is linked by Aristotle to his concepts of substance and material cause. Aristotle wrote for example that "matter exists potentially, because it may attain to the form; but when it exists actually, it is then in the form".

Neoplatonism

 * NOTE. This is an attempt to recover something from Energeia which I can not say I feel very qualified to improve. I hope I have at least improved the sentence structure and flow of discussion so someone can improve it further in the future.

Plotinus was a late classical pagan philosopher and theologian whose monotheistic re-workings of Plato and Aristotle were influential amongst early christian theologians. In his Enneads he sought to reconcile ideas of Aristotle and Plato together with a form of monotheism. Plotinus taught that The One, or Monad was force while its emanation, the demiurge or nous, was energeia, as that which is motionless but sets all (as force or dunamis) in motion. This, it was proposed, reconciled Plato's good and beautiful with Aristotle's Unmoved Mover as energeia.

Essence-Energies debate in medieval Christian theology

 * NOTE. The Eastern paragraph is adapted from Energeia. The western paragraph is adapted from Entelechy. It is not well copy-edited and not really clear material for anyone who does not already know the subject matter involved, but they appear to come from the same editors and refer to the same thing. I am not confident about them and hope someone will eventually improve them.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, St Gregory Palamas wrote about the "energies" (actualities) of God (in contrast to God's essence) in his defense of the Eastern Orthodox ascetic practice of hesychasm. Gregory and the time that he wrote his defense do not represent the expression of God and his various manifestations of energy as being a new or innovative ideology or theology, rather St Gregory is according to tradition the one who gave the traditions a defense and established these teachings as Orthodox theological dogma. Gregory wrote that God has realities Father, Son and Holy Spirit and these realities effect the created world as does the energies of God. All being in essence uncreated.

Western Medieval Christianity, in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, relied on Aristotle's entelechy, when it defined God as actus purus, pure act, actuality unmixed with potentiality. This led to conflict with Eastern Orthodox theology, because of their acceptance of uncreated essences, in contrast to the Western Christians belief that energies (actualities) and essences were of the same substance and that they were always created.

Influence on modal logic

 * NOTE. This combines two parts from Potentiality and actuality. One part was being pushed for being in the lede - before the article was frozen. I know not why. I believe it sits happier with other post-Aristotelian subjects and has no special notability to justify putting it in the lede. The other part sat uncomfortably in a messy section which was supposed to be a more detailed second section on the meaning of dunamis.

The notion of possibility was greatly analyzed by medieval and modern philosophers. Aristotle's logical work in this area is considered by some to be an anticipation of modal logic and its treatment of potentiality and time. Indeed, many philosophical interpretations of possibility are related to a famous passage on Aristotle's On Interpretation, concerning the truth of the statement: "There will be a sea battle tomorrow".

Contemporary philosophy regards possibility, as studied by modal metaphysics, to be an aspect of modal logic. Modal logic as an named subject owes much to the writings of the Scholastics, in particular William of Ockham and John Duns Scotus, who reasoned informally in a modal manner, mainly to analyze statements about essence and accident.

Influence on modern physics

 * NOTE. This is new material made while working on trying merge materials. That is when you realize what things are missing!

According to :- Leibniz, who criticized Descartes’ physics and invented a science of dynamics, explicitly acknowledged his debt to Aristotle (see, e.g., Specimen Dynamicum), whose doctrine of entelecheia he regarded himself as restoring in a modified form. From Leibniz we derive our current notions of potential and kinetic energy, whose very names, pointing to the actuality which is potential and the actuality which is motion, preserve the Thomistic resolutions of the two paradoxes in Aristotle’s definition of motion.

Entelecheia in Modern Philosophy and Biology

 * NOTE. This is adapted from Entelechy

As discussed above, terms derived from dunamis and energeia have become parts of modern scientific vocabulary with a very different meaning to Aristotle's. The original meanings are not used by modern philosophers unless they are commenting on classical or medieval philosophy. In contrast, entelecheia, in the form of "entelechy" is a word used in technical senses in recent times.

In German Idealism, entelechy may denote a force propelling one to self-fulfillment. The concept had occupied a central position in the metaphysics of Leibniz, and is closely related to his monadology in the sense that each sentient entity contains its own entire universe within it. Entelechy is also referred to by Hegel in The Phenomenology of Mind.

In the biological vitalism of Hans Driesch, living things develop by entelechy, a common purposive and organising field. Leading vitalists like Driesch argued that many of the basic problems of biology cannot be solved by a philosophy in which the organism is simply considered a machine.

Aspects and applications of the concept of entelechy have been explored by the American critic and philosopher Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) whose concept of the "terministic screen" illustrates his thought on the subject.

Old Translations of Aristotle

 * This 1933 translation is reproduced online at the Perseus Project.
 * This 1933 translation is reproduced online at the Perseus Project.
 * This 1933 translation is reproduced online at the Perseus Project.
 * This 1933 translation is reproduced online at the Perseus Project.
 * This 1933 translation is reproduced online at the Perseus Project.