Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Allan Gotthelf: a biographical sketch
- Note on abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Teleology, Aristotelian and Platonic
- 2 Biology and metaphysics in Aristotle
- 3 The unity and purpose of On the Parts of Animals 1
- 4 An Aristotelian puzzle about definition: Metaphysics Ζ.12
- 5 Unity of definition in Metaphysics Η.6 and Ζ.12
- 6 Definition in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics
- 7 Male and female in Aristotle's Generation of Animals
- 8 Metaphysics Θ.7 and 8: Some issues concerning actuality and potentiality
- 9 Where is the activity?
- 10 Political community and the highest good
- Allan Gotthelf's contributions to classical philosophy
- References
- Index locorum
- General index
8 - Metaphysics Θ.7 and 8: Some issues concerning actuality and potentiality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Allan Gotthelf: a biographical sketch
- Note on abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Teleology, Aristotelian and Platonic
- 2 Biology and metaphysics in Aristotle
- 3 The unity and purpose of On the Parts of Animals 1
- 4 An Aristotelian puzzle about definition: Metaphysics Ζ.12
- 5 Unity of definition in Metaphysics Η.6 and Ζ.12
- 6 Definition in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics
- 7 Male and female in Aristotle's Generation of Animals
- 8 Metaphysics Θ.7 and 8: Some issues concerning actuality and potentiality
- 9 Where is the activity?
- 10 Political community and the highest good
- Allan Gotthelf's contributions to classical philosophy
- References
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
In Metaphysics Η.6 Aristotle famously remarks:
What then is the cause of what is potentially F being actually F in the case of things that come to be over and above the efficient cause? For, nothing other is the cause of what is potentially a sphere being actually a sphere; rather this [i.e. the cause] is what it is to be for each of them singly.
(1045a30–3)This passage and its immediate context can be interpreted in several ways. One interpretation, which I have defended elsewhere, runs as follows.
‘If we consider the issue of the unity of a composite in terms of
matter: form
potentiality: actuality
there is no longer a difficulty. What makes it the case that
potentiality: actuality
are paired in such a way as to form a composite unity is that they share a cause: what it is for each of them to be what they are (a formal cause).'
Consider an example: in the case of man the actuality, according to this view, is being alive in a given reason-involving way. This is what it is to be a man: the relevant formal cause. The matter in question is made what it is by this formal cause: it is what is capable of being alive in this way. When what is capable of being alive in this way is actually alive, there is a unified composite.
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- Information
- Being, Nature, and Life in AristotleEssays in Honor of Allan Gotthelf, pp. 168 - 197Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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