Stephen Makin presents a clear and accurate new translation of an influential and much-discussed part of Aristotle's philosophical system, accompanied by an analytical and critical commentary focusing on philosophical issues. In Book Theta of the Metaphysics Aristotle introduces the concepts of actuality and potentiality---which were to remain central to philosophical analysis into the modern era---and explores the distinction between the actual and the potential.

Doing and Being confronts the problem of how to understand two central concepts of Aristotle's philosophy: energeia and dunamis. While these terms seem ambiguous between actuality/potentiality and activity/capacity, Aristotle did not intend them to be so. Through a careful and detailed reading of Metaphysics Theta, Beere argues that we can solve the problem by rejecting both "actuality" and "activity" as translations of energeia, and by working out an analogical conception of energeia. This approach enables Beere to discern a (...) hitherto unnoticed connection between Plato's Sophist and Aristotle's Metaphysics Theta, and to give satisfying interpretations of the major claims that Aristotle makes in Metaphysics Theta, the claim that energeia is prior in being to capacity and the claim that any eternal principle must be perfectly good. (shrink)

This essay offers an examination of Agamben's statement that there is an important ambiguity in Aristotle's Metaphysics Theta as to whether actuality or potentiality is primary. I argue that this ambiguity is significant because it exposes the ontological dimension of Agamben's paradox of sovereignty.

Aristotle asserts in Met. Theta 4 that „if A, then B“ is a consequence of „if A is possible, then B is possible,“ for any sentences A and B. His assertion has often been questioned, or even been suspected to be a crude mistake. After a discussion of a typical objection, it is shown that a plausible reading of Aristotle’s claim is true: The twice occurring „if – then“ has to be understood in the sense of logical entailment, and (...) sentences suitable as substitutes for the variables „A“ and „B“ are required to contain no modal expressions. The claim in question is the converse of the assertion also advanced in Theta 4 that „if A is possible, then B is also possible“ is a consequence of „if A, then B.“ An application of this cognate of pertaining to the incommensurability of a square’s diagonal is expounded. In the final section, the argument advanced by Aristotle himself in defence of is evaluated. (shrink)

Aristotle notoriously begins his examination of being in the sense ofdunamisandenergeiainMetaphysicsTheta with what he describes as the sense that is ‘most dominant’ but not useful for his present aim. He proceeds to define the not-useful sense ofdunamisas “the principle of change in something else or in itself qua other”, along with other senses derived from this primary sense. But what then is the useful sense? All that Aristotle tells us at the outset is that it is a sense that extends (...) “beyond things spoken of only in relation to motion” and nowhere in Book Theta does he explicitly identify the useful sense as such. This has allowed for very different interpretations of the useful sense in the literature, the primary ones being that it is (1) ‘possibility’, (2) the potential to receive a form, (3) being-potentially-x understood modally as encompassing all specific senses ofdunamis, and (4) capacity for substantial change. The present paper argues that there are significant problems with all of these suggestions and defends an identification of the useful sense ofdunamiswith the sense that Aristotle explicitly opposes to the not-useful sense at the start of Theta 8:phusis(‘nature’). This goes hand-in-hand with an identification of the useful sense ofenergeiawith ‘activity’ as distinguished from motion/change at the end of Theta 6. What makes these senses ofdunamisandenergeiathe useful ones for Aristotle’s present aim is that they are required to explain fully the priority ofenergeiatodunamisin substance defended in Theta 8, they support the identification in Theta 9 ofenergeiawith the good, and they explain the unity of the only substances that Aristotle recognizes as being genuinely substances: natural living substances. (shrink)

Stephen Makin presents a clear and accurate new translation of an influential and much-discussed part of Aristotle's philosophical system, accompanied by an analytical and critical commentary focusing on philosophical issues. In Book Theta of the Metaphysics Aristotle introduces the concepts of actuality and potentiality---which were to remain central to philosophical analysis into the modern era---and explores the distinction between the actual and the potential.

This thesis argues that Metaphysics ZH$\Theta$--the crux of Aristotle's metaphysics--are not, as the tradition takes it for granted, a unity which hosts a consistent doctrine of substance; rather they contain two distinct approaches to substance. I call them respectively the formal approach and the synthetical approach. They present two kinds of hylomorphism, with Z17 as a demarcation. ;The formal approach takes form or essence as a separate substance from matter and the composite and demonstrates that form is (...) the primary substance over them. In this approach Aristotle views form or essence to be an essential property of an individual material substance. The locus of this approach is mainly in Z3-16 which host two conflict schemes for avoiding Plato's Third Man Argument. One is in Z7-9 which claims that form as primary should be toionde and not separate, and the other is in the program outlined in Z3 which rejects the notion of the Categories that primary substance is primary subject and proposes that it should be tode ti and separate. Each of these two schemes has internal difficulty. The former's claim that substance is universal is criticised in Z13, and the latter's claim that substance is particular is in conflict with the universality of knowledge. Thus the formal approach is an aporematic investigation into the ontological status of form on the basis of the dichotomy of tode ti-toionde. ;The synthetical approach associates the matter/form relation with the potentiality/actuality relation. Form and matter become relative conceptions, and are not separated from each other in definition. In this approach, Aristotle views form or essence to be the formal cause or the unifying principle which makes the material substance a unity rather than a heap. The locus of this approach is Z17 and H$\Theta$. ;The formal approach leads to the science of being qua being , and the synthetical approach leads to theology . Since two approaches are distinct, Aristotle's two notions of first philosophy cannot be reconciled. (shrink)

Review of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Books Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota, translation and commentary by Montgomery Furth (Hackett: 1985).

In the recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, Martin Heidegger offers a detailed interpretation of Aristotle's definition of kinesis in the Physics. This interpretation identifies entelecheia with what is finished and present‐at‐an‐end and energeia with being‐at‐work toward this end. In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts to show that Aristotle interpreted being from the perspective of praxis rather than poiesis and therefore did not identify it with static presence. The paper also challenges later variations of Heidegger's (...) interpretation, in particular his account of dunamis in the 1931 course on Metaphysics Theta, which insists that its mode of being is presence‐at‐hand. By arguing that this reading too is untenable, the paper concludes that Aristotle's metaphysics is not a metaphysics of presence and that his texts instead point toward a possibility of metaphysics ignored by the attempts of Heidegger and others to overcome it. (shrink)

The author presents the Aristotelian conception of capacity/potentiality (dunamis) – one of the most important in Aristotle’s metaphysics. A closer inspection allows to draw conclusion, that the concept of capacity is an important link between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ (metaphysics on the one side, and practical – ethical, rhetorical, political – skills, on the other). A picture of the connection between theory and practice is based on the most important parts of Metaphysics (books delta and theta), it (...) relates metaphysical definitions to an essential element of Aristotelian practical philosophy – the concept of virtue (aretê). In the practical works of Aristotle, we can find different definitions of aretê: in Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines aretê using the notion of disposition (hexis), but in Rhetoric he formulates a definition based on the concept of capacity. Distinctive analysis of this inconsistency shows the significance of capacity in The Stagirite’s philosophy. (shrink)

While Aristotle’s explicit focus in Metaphysics Theta 1-5 is dunamis in the sense of the ‘capability’ a thing has to originate change in something else or in itself qua other, practically all translators, when they arrive at chapter four, switch to ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ as translations of dunaton and adunaton. Such a switch is neither defensible nor necessary and the relevance of Theta 4 is understood only without it.

Aristotle is one of the most important figures in western thought and his seminal work _Metaphysics _is a benchmark in the history of philosophy. This guidebook introduces and assesses: Aristotle’s life and the background to the Metaphysics The ideas and text of the _Metaphysics _including a chapter devoted to _Metaphysics_ Theta The continuing importance and contemporary relevance of Aristotle’s work to philosophy. The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Metaphysics is essential reading for all students of philosophy, and anyone (...) approaching the work of Aristotle for the first time. (shrink)

In Metaphysics Theta 3 Aristotle attributes to the Megarics and unknown others a notorious modal thesis: (M) something can φ only if it is φ-ing. Aristotle does not tell us what motivated (M). Almost all scholars take Aristotle’s report to indicate that the Megarics defended (M) as a highly counterintuitive doctrine in modal metaphysics. But this reading faces several problems. First: what would motivate the Megarics to hold such a counterintuitive view? The existing literature tries, in various (...) ways, to motivate (M) in a way neither trivial nor absurd. But, as we will argue, the main approaches end up attributing an unsustainable position to the Megarics. Second: most historical evidence for the Megaric lineage presents the group’s philosophical practice as dialectical or negative. So why think that the claim reported in Theta 3 presents a positive, and highly controversial, metaphysical claim? This paper addresses these problems by proposing a dialectical (or negative) reading of the Megarics in Theta 3. By ‘dialectical’ we here mean a mode of philosophizing that neither seeks to establish the truth or falsity of certain theses, nor takes a skeptical stance. There are different reasons why a philosopher might want to take up such a mode; in the case of the Megarics we argue that they might have wanted to put pressure on Aristotle’s idea of possibility and the ‘test’ for possibility that Aristotle mentions in several works. Reading, as we do, (M) as (part of) a paradox about possibility and actuality, we argue that the Megarics’ dialectical approach here aims to highlight a shortcoming of an intuitive conception of possibility, which underpins Aristotle’s idea of possibility and which features in his test for possibility. (shrink)

Review of Aristotle: Metaphysics Theta, translated and annotated by S. Makin.

What I will argue here is that the ethical potentiality of the human being that Aristotle cites in the Nicomachean Ethics refers to the general, rational capacity for someone to appropriate and develop their own specific, natural capacities which make them human; the name of this ability is called virtue, which, when expressed in actions, we call good. To separate out the concepts at work here demands an exegesis of the two kinds of dunamis in Metaphysics Theta, that (...) is, dunamis as causal power of change and dunamis as a potential way of being for an existent capacity. Once we grasp this, we can clarify the nature of virtue as the active, complete state of a capacity in human being which defines their function even though it must be acquired, and it need not ever be actualized. The concepts of habit ( ethos) and practical judgment ( phronesis) give Aristotle the means to solve the problem of how such a potentiality is acquired and how it is actualized, and hence we will end with a discussion of them. (shrink)

What I will argue here is that the ethical potentiality of the human being that Aristotle cites in the Nicomachean Ethics refers to the general, rational capacity for someone to appropriate and develop their own specific, natural capacities which make them human; the name of this ability is called virtue, which, when expressed in actions, we call good. To separate out the concepts at work here demands an exegesis of the two kinds of dunamis in Metaphysics Theta, that (...) is, dunamis as causal power of change and dunamis as a potential way of being for an existent capacity. Once we grasp this, we can clarify the nature of virtue as the active, complete state of a capacity in human being which defines their function even though it must be acquired, and it need not ever be actualized. The concepts of habit (ethos) and practical judgment (phronesis) give Aristotle the means to solve the problem of how such a potentiality is acquired and how it is actualized, and hence we will end with a discussion of them. -/- . (shrink)

Cleary discusses the origin, development, and use of the many senses of priority as a central thesis in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Cleary contends that one of the most revealing problems for the ambiguity of Aristotle’s relationship to Platonism is that of the ontological status of mathematical objects. In support of his claim, Cleary analyzes a curious passage from Aristotle’s _Topics, _where he appears to accept a schema of priorities that makes mathematical entities more substantial than sensible things. How does Aristotle (...) try to reconcile the ordering of things dictated by sciences like mathematics and dialectic with the ordering of sense experience upon which his own physics and metaphysics are based? To find the answer, Cleary reviews three different outlines of the many senses of priority given by Aristotle himself and found in _Categories _12-13, _Metaphysics _Delta 11, and _Metaphysics _Theta 8. Cleary suggests there is an implicit hierarchy for Aristotle that leads him to posit the Prime Mover at its apex as complete actuality and, therefore, as the focus for the concept of priority. Having reviewed Aristotle’s treatment of the many uses of priority, Cleary demonstrates how the concept is used in some typical arguments by Aristotle for his mature metaphysical positions. (shrink)

This paper offers a deconstructive reading of the pure actuality of the un­moved mover of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda. Aristotle describes this first, unmoved principle of movement as a divine sovereign—the king of the cosmos—and maintains that the good governance of the cosmos depends on its unmitigated unity and pure actuality. It is striking, then, when Giorgio Agamben claims that Aristotle bequeathed the paradigm of sovereignty to Western philosophy not through his arguments for the pure actuality of the unmoved mover (...) but rather through his description of the essence of potentiality. An interpretation of Aristotle’s account of potentiality in Metaphysics Theta therefore prepares the way for a deconstruction of the unity and pure actuality of the divine sovereign. I argue that the repetition of nous in Aristotle’s description of the divine thinking of thinking betrays traces of division and difference at the heart of divine sovereignty. If this is the case, then actuality and potentiality become indis­cernible at the level of the absolute and the sovereign corresponds to the bifurcated site of this indiscernibility. (shrink)

In the last decades, there has been a far-reaching debate about whether reason is a natural power of the human animal or a socio-historical achievement. This paper brings out and criticizes two paradigmatic views of reason entangled in that dilemma: the substantive view which construes reason as a primitive power possessing the basic forms of intelligibility; and the derivative view which traces back reason to non-rational, natural-historic processes. I approach the issue by discussing how Aristotle addresses the underlying predicament in (...) Metaphysics Theta. The predicament persuades us to overdetermine or underdetermine our natural potentiality for reason because it ignores what I call Aristotle's main insight: the understanding from which rational capacities are exercised is acquired by undertaking appropriate activities. The measure of rational capacities is neither merely naturally determined nor merely socio-historically inherited but relies on the engagement with the things falling under the purview of the pertaining activities. We must recover this Aristotelian insight, I argue, to avoid succumbing to either the substantive or the derivative view of reason. (shrink)

The notion that evil is not simply a privation but a privation of a due good has roots in Aristotle’s Metaphysics and implications for other areas of his thought. In making this case, I begin with a description of the standard view of Aristotle’s place in the development of the privation theory of evil and contend that the standard view does not do justice to Aristotle’s theory of evil. I then provide an interpretation of a portion of Metaphysics (...) Theta that utilizes recent scholarship on this book of the Metaphysics in an effort to demonstrate that Aristotle thinks of evil in such a manner as to be compatible with what the later tradition describes in terms of evil as the deprivation of a due good. I then consider several of the ways in which Aristotle’s metaphysical theory of evil has impact on other areas of his thought. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics IX and X (Theta & Iota) into Portuguese, with a few notes, experimental glossary and introduction. The translation, which was made at 2004, is preliminary and its publication was intended to provide a didactic tool for courses as well as a provisional resource in research seminars. It needs some revision. I am currently working (slowly...) on the revision of the translation and a new revised one will surely appear at some point.

This paper offers a reading of Heidegger''s 1931 lectures on Aristotle''s Metaphysics, Theta 1-3 that relates that discussion to Heidegger''s later work on The Question Concerning Technology and then, more briefly, to contemporary philosophical discussions of ecological issues. This reading is intended to open the possibility of using Heidegger''s re-interpretation of Aristotle as a source within the Western European tradition for understanding our relationship to the natural world in a way that could provide the philosophical tools for addressing (...) ecological problems more adequately and effectively. (shrink)

La distinción entre acto y movimiento que enuncia Aristóteles en Metafísica IX 6, 1048b18–35, ha causado una gran polémica entre los intérpretes aristotélicos contemporáneos. En este artículo defendemos que la distinción no está en conflicto con el resto del libro IX, ni con el Corpus Aristotelicum en general. De hecho, aparece también en ética a Nicómaco X 4 y De Anima III 7. Además, sin esta distinción no sería posible entender la inmovilidad del primer motor defendida en Metafísica XII, puesto (...) que allí se afirma que este motor es vida y que su actividad es placer y pensamiento. -/- Palabras clave: acto, movimiento, pasaje, actividad, metafísica -/- The distinction between act and movement stated in Metaphysics IX 6, 1048b18–35, has been the subject of a major controversy among contemporary interpreters. In this article I defend that the distinction does not conflict with the rest of book IX, nor with the Corpus Aristotelicum in general. Indeed, the distinction also appears in Nicomachean Ethics X 4 and in De Anima III 7. Furthermore, without this distinction the immobility of the first mover defended in Metaphysics XII would be unintelligible, since Aristotle says that the first mover is life, and that his activity is pleasure and thinking. -/- Key words: act, movement, passage, activity, metaphysics. (shrink)

Towards the end of Theta.4 of the Metaphysics, Aristotle appears to endorse the obviously invalid modal principle that the truth of A will entail the truth of B if the possibility of A entails the possibility of B. I attempt to show how Aristotle's endorsement of the principle can be seen to arise from his accepting a non-standard interpretation of the modal operators and I indicate how the principle and its interpretation are of independent interest, quite apart from (...) their role in understanding Aristotle. (shrink)

In The Metaphysics Book Theta, Chapter four, Aristotle claims that to state that “some X is possible but X will never be” is a mistake. In effect, he collapses the possible into the actual. This view conflicts with the existence of dispositions which I argue exist, as they are indispensable to science. In Theta Chapter three, Aristotle sets out a test of possibility whereby we assume that some entity exists and then see if an impossibility ensues. I (...) apply this test to Aristotle’s theory and show that it entails the impossibility of dispositions. Given the clear existence of dispositions, Aristotle’s conflation of the possible with the actual fails his own test of possibility and must be wrong. (shrink)

In various texts, Aristotle assigns priority to form, in its role as a principle and cause, over matter and the matter-form compound. Given the central role played by this claim in Aristotle's search for primary substance in the Metaphysics, it is important to understand what motivates him in locating the primary causal responsibility for a thing's being what it is with the form, rather than the matter. According to Met. Theta.8, actuality [ energeia / entelecheia ] in general (...) is prior to potentiality [ dunamis ] in three ways, viz., in definition, time and substance. I propose an explicitly causal reading of this general priority claim, as it pertains to the matter-form relationship. The priority of form over matter in definition, time and substance, in my view, is best explained by appeal to the role of form as the formal, efficient and final cause of the matter-form compound, respectively, while the posteriority of matter to form according to all three notions of priority is most plausibly accounted for by the fact that the causal contribution of matter is limited to its role as material cause. When approached from this angle, the work of Met. Theta.8 can be seen to lend direct support to the more specific and explicitly causal priority claim we encounter in Met. Z.17, viz., that form is prior to matter in its role as the principle and primary cause of a matter-form compound's being what it is. (shrink)

The creation of QCD is one of greatest achievements in the history of science. It has radically changed our conception of the fundamental ontology of the physical world and its underlying dynamics. What it has discovered are more than new particles and a new force, but rather a deeper level of physical reality, a new kind of entities. Dynamically, the strong nuclear forces are no longer taken to be fundamental, but are relegated to the status of the un-cancelled residue of (...) far stronger long range force mediated by gluon. From a long term perspective, perhaps more important than these discoveries is that it breaks a new path to explore many novel features of an unknown layer of the physical world, such as instanton, the theta vacuum and effective energy. The notion of effective energy allows us to conceptualize the mysterious quantum number flow and hadronization. Although the metaphysical status of effective energy is not quite clear at this moment, but a window is open for conceptualizing the physical world that is in complex processes of transmutations in a unified way. (shrink)

"This is a full original version of Makowski's work on Aristotelian dunamis (shortened & revised version has been previously published as "Metaphysics of Practical Philosophy" paper). The author presents the Aristotelian conception of capacity/potentiality (dunamis) – one of the most important in Aristotle’s metaphysics. A closer inspection allows to draw conclusion, that the concept of capacity is an important link between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ (metaphysics on the one side, and practical – ethical, rhetorical, political – skills, on (...) the other). A picture of the connection between theory and practice is based on the most important parts of Metaphysics (books delta and theta), it relates metaphysical definitions to an essential element of Aristotelian practical philosophy – the concept of virtue (aretê). In the practical works of Aristotle, we can find different definitions of aretê: in Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines aretê using the notion of disposition (hexis), but in Rhetoric he formulates a definition based on the concept of capacity. Distinctive analysis of this inconsistency shows the significance of capacity in The Stagirite’s philosophy.". (shrink)

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are becoming increasingly important as scientific tools, as they excel in various scientific applications beyond what was considered possible. Yet from a certain vantage point, they are nothing but parametrized functions fθ(x)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varvec{f}_{\varvec{\theta }}(\varvec{x})$$\end{document} of some data vector x\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varvec{x}$$\end{document}, and their ‘learning’ is nothing but an iterative, algorithmic fitting of the parameters to data. Hence, what could be special (...) about them as a scientific tool or model? I will here suggest an integrated perspective that mediates between extremes, by arguing that what makes DNNs in science special is their ability to develop functional concept proxies (FCPs): Substructures that occasionally provide them with abilities that correspond to those facilitated by concepts in human reasoning. Furthermore, I will argue that this introduces a problem that has so far barely been recognized by practitioners and philosophers alike: That DNNs may succeed on some vast and unwieldy data sets because they develop FCPs for features that are not transparent to human researchers. The resulting breach between scientific success and human understanding I call the ‘Actually Smart Hans Problem’. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como objetivo principal esclarecer a concepção da tradição megárica acerca do conceito de capacidade (δύναμις), tal como apresentada no livro Theta da Metafísica de Aristóteles. A análise se faz necessária devido à falta de atenção aristotélica na formulação da tese adversária dos megáricos, pois em nenhum momento Aristóteles parece nos oferecer argumentos plausíveis que justifiquem de maneira adequada a tese de seus oponentes. Partindo desta dificuldade de reconstrução do argumento megárico e visando lhe oferecer uma (...) maior dignidade, o estudo irá, em primeiro lugar, destrinchar possíveis argumentos que sustentem a tese no contexto da referida obra. Em seguida, irá provar que, mesmo a tese megárica não sendo tão facilmente refutável como uma primeira leitura poderia sugerir, há em sua estrutura problemas graves, que se evidenciam diante da concepção aristotélica da capacidade. (shrink)

In this engaging book, Kosman offers a vigorous extended defence of a distinctive and highly ambitious claim, namely, that Aristotle’s account of potentiality/ability and actuality/activity in book Theta of the Metaphysics is an integral and central part of Aristotle’s account of what being is, which means that, for Kosman, Aristotle defends the thesis that being is, precisely, activity. In addition to the distinctive character of this claim, there are two notable suppositions behind it, which, likewise, Kosman defends. First, (...) the Metaphysics is addressed to a single, overall question, namely ‘What is it for something to be?’, a question that Aristotle introduces in book Gamma, takes on in books Zeta and Eta, gives a distinctive answer to in Theta and takes to its point of culmination in Lambda. This question, as Kosman spells out instructively and at length, is tackled by Aristotle through a distinction between primary being, or substance , and other beings .. (shrink)