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Copyright by Brian Edward Battiste 2014 Copyright by Brian Edward Battiste 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Brian Edward Battiste Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Role of Actuality in Aristotle’s First Philosophy Committee: RJ Hankinson, Supervisor Paul Woodruff Stephen White Robert Koons Daniel Bonevac The Role of Actuality in Aristotle’s First Philosophy by Brian Edward Battiste, B.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2014 The Role of Actuality in Aristotle’s First Philosophy Brian Edward Battiste, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: R J Hankinson I show how Aristotle’s theory of the priority of actuality and his theory of non- correlative actuality help prepare the way for his own positive account of the separate, non-sensible substances. Aristotle argues that actuality is prior to potentiality in Metaphysics Θ8, and in particular that actuality is prior in substance and in a more authoritative kind of way. I show how both of these arguments are to be understood, and how the more authoritative kind of priority (which is not substantial priority, as usually thought) is again appealed to in Metaphysics Λ6 in order to draw important inferences about the primary principles. I also show how the theory of non-correlative actuality used in Θ8 is, just like the more authoritative kind of priority, again applied in Λ6 in parallel kinds of ways. It turns out that the traditional interpretation which ascribes the notion of “pure actuality” to Aristotle is mistaken, and this comes to light once Aristotle’s theory of non-correlative actuality is properly understood and the texts are properly interpreted. iv Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Priority in Account and in Time .............................................................7 Chapter 2: Priority in Substance ............................................................................15 Chapter 3: Other Interpretations of Substantial Priority ........................................50 Chapter 4: A More Authoritative Kind of Priority ................................................89 Chapter 5: Actuality in Λ6 ...................................................................................120 Chapter 6: Actuality in Λ7 ...................................................................................147 Chapter 7: Actuality and First Philosophy ...........................................................161 Appendix A: Θ8 1049b16-17 ..............................................................................186 Appendix B: Θ8 1050a12-14 ...............................................................................187 Appendix C ..........................................................................................................189 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................190 v Introduction Potentiality and actuality—we are all familiar with these concepts from our ordinary, commonsensical ways of thinking and talking. One could readily list examples of their usage, but there really is no need to. It is undeniable that they permeate our understanding of how the world operates, and of how people behave. We constantly contrast potential states of affairs with actual states of affairs as though there were an instinctual template for such cognition naturally implanted within us. Every adult human of sound mind, regardless of the level of education obtained, understands the difference between the potential and the actual. But our concern here is not with how people in general understand potentiality and actuality, but with how one man understood them, namely, the philosopher Aristotle. His was no ordinary understanding, and his application of these concepts no ordinary application. He may in fact have initially incorporated these concepts into his philosophy in ways derived from their ordinary application, but where he ended up with them in the end is far removed from anything people ordinarily understand by them. It is the goal of what follows to present Aristotle’s most sophisticated understanding of actuality and potentiality, the understanding developed in his work known as the Metaphysics, and to explain how this philosophical advancement is important for the stated goals of his first philosophy. But our goal is not to cover all of Aristotle’s philosophical applications of potentiality and actuality (dunamis and energeia). In particular, his use of these concepts to help explain change (kinēsis) in the Physics, and his notion of dunamis as a power of 1 an agent to cause a change in a patient or the capacity of a patient to be changed by an agent (presented in the earlier chapters of Metaphysics Θ), are not for us an object of study. We will begin, rather, with his theory of the priority of actuality over potentiality, a theory developed at length in Θ8, and go from there. In addition to the theory of the priority of actuality, our primary concern also encompasses Aristotle’s theory of non-correlative actuality, together with their combined significance to his first philosophy. That these two theories (let us call them theories for convenience, though Aristotle himself does not) are central to his metaphysics is uncontroversial among scholars. But his theory of the priority of actuality has not been properly understood, and his theory of non-correlative actuality has not received the full treatment it deserves. When properly understood and fully elucidated, their true significance to his metaphysical theory can then be brought to the fore. Aristotle develops his theory of the priority of actuality by arguing that actuality is prior to potentiality in account (logos), in time (chronos), in substance (ousia), and in a fourth, more authoritative kind of way (i.e. in a way more important or more metaphysically significant than the other three). This is the argument of Metaphysics Θ8. In Λ6, there is a long discussion of the priority of actuality, but no explicit mentioning by name of the kind of priority being discussed. I argue below in chapter 5 that the way actuality is prior to potentiality in Λ6 is the same relation as the more authoritative priority of Θ8. Chapter 4 is an extended discussion of priority in the more authoritative way, chapters 2–3 treat of priority in substance, while chapter 1 is a brief overview of priorities in account and time. 2 One of the primary concerns of chapter 5 is coming to understand what Aristotle meant when he wrote in Λ6 that the substance of the prime mover must be actuality, and that this moving substance must itself be actually (1071b19–22). This is the passage that is traditionally understood as introducing the concept of “pure actuality.” But on my interpretation it is a mistake to think of Aristotle as resorting to a new notion of actuality for his positive theory of the separate, non-sensible substances in Book Λ; rather, he is continuing to use his concept of non-correlative actuality that was first introduced in Book H as a way to further understand substantial form (the primary substance of Z), and which was later applied to eternal sensible substances in Θ8. In Λ6, Aristotle develops an account of the substantial being of the primary, non-sensible separate substances that had already been utilized for other eternal substances in Θ8. More generally, I show how material in Θ8 helps us to understand the argument of Λ6; chapter 4, which is on the more authoritative kind of priority, helps to prepare the way for the material of Λ6–7, and chapters 5–6 are on non-correlative actuality and the priority of actuality as found in Λ. Non-correlative actuality is simply an instance of actuality (energeia) that is not the exercise or realization of any underlying potentiality (dunamis). It is already well established that Aristotle understands actuality in this way in the context of eternal beings. For example, in his treatment of the priority of eternal things in Θ8, Jonathan Beere writes: [I]f something is eternally a certain way, then its being that way is not the exercise of any capacity … the sun’s being what it is and doing what it does is not the exercise of something’s capacity to be a sun or to do what the sun does … 3 In general, for any eternal thing, its being what it is, is simply a self-standing energeia, rather than the exercise of an underlying capacity.1 Charlotte Witt writes, similarly: Aristotle thinks that it is possible to have activities without any correlate powers or potentialities. He does not think that in principle every activity must be paired with an inactive power or ability. Eternal, imperishable beings exist actually and not potentially (Metaphysics ix.8.1050b6–8). Being actively or actually is not intrinsically a relational way of being dependent on the existence of a dunamis. Every dunamis, in contrast, is paired with, directed toward, an activity or actuality.2 In fact I myself allow for the concept of non-correlative potentiality as well, but it applies only to matter and not to any dunamis that is to be construed as a power or capacity. Aristotle first characterizes matter as non-correlative potentiality in Book H, but it is not given much application in the Metaphysics since matter and potentiality
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