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Aristotle: Movement and the Structure of Being Aristotle: Movement and the Structure of Being Author: Mark Sentesy Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/2926 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2012 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy ARISTOTLE: MOVEMENT AND THE STRUCTURE OF BEING a dissertation by MARK SENTESY submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2012 © copyright by MARK SENTESY 2012 Aristotle: Movement and the Structure of Being Mark Sentesy Abstract: This project sets out to answer the following question: what does movement contribute to or change about being according to Aristotle? The first part works through the argument for the existence of movement in the Physics. This argument includes distinctive innovations in the structure of being, notably the simultaneous unity and manyness of being: while material and form are one thing, they are two in being. This makes it possible for Aristotle to argue that movement is not intrinsically related to what is not: what comes to be does not emerge from non‐being, it comes from something that is in a different sense. The second part turns to the Metaphysics to show that and how the lineage of potency and activity the inquiry into movement. A central problem is that activity or actuality, energeia, does not at first seem to be intrinsically related to a completeness or end, telos. With the unity of different senses of being at stake, Aristotle establishes that it is by showing that activity or actuality is movement most of all, and that movement has and is a complete end. Thus, it is movement that leads Aristotle to conclude that substance and form are energeia, and that unity of being is possible. Aristotle: Movement and the Structure of Being Mark Sentesy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................. V PART ONE ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 I. Method ..................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter Two: Synopsis of This Work ................................................................................. 8 I. Part One .................................................................................................................... 8 II. Part Two ................................................................................................................... 9 III. Part Three ............................................................................................................... 11 Chapter Three: The Compatibility of Dunamis and Energeia ......................................... 14 I. Potency and Being‐at‐work Are Both Different and the Same ....................... 15 II. The Opposition Hypothesis................................................................................. 17 III. The Actualization Hypothesis ............................................................................. 18 IV. The Privation Hypothesis .................................................................................... 20 V. The Relation Hypothesis ...................................................................................... 28 VI. The ‘Ways of Being’ or Modal Hypothesis........................................................ 29 VII. Refutation of the Hypothesis of Incompatibility .............................................. 34 VIII. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 37 PART TWO ..................................................................................................................................... 39 Chapter One: Inquiry In and Through Movement ......................................................... 39 I. Preliminary Remarks ............................................................................................ 39 II. Two Interpretive Difficulties ............................................................................... 42 III. The Method of Inquiry ......................................................................................... 47 IV. Hermeneutical Advantages of This Approach ................................................. 50 Chapter Two: Ways of Conceiving of Movement that are Absent from Aristotle ..... 53 I. The Homogeneity of Motion ............................................................................... 53 II. Space and Time ..................................................................................................... 54 III. Impulse ................................................................................................................... 56 IV. Relation ................................................................................................................... 59 V. Sameness and difference ...................................................................................... 60 VI. Negation and non‐being ...................................................................................... 61 Chapter Three: Preliminary Remarks on the Problem of the Being of Movement .... 63 I. The Ambiguity of the Distinction Between Physics and Metaphysics .......... 65 II. The Stakes of Aristotle’s Investigation of Movement ...................................... 67 III. Why Movement is not a First Principle of Physics .......................................... 70 Chapter Four: The Elements of the Description of Movement ..................................... 74 I. The Framework of the Question of Movement ................................................ 75 II. The Method of Proof ............................................................................................. 76 III. The Argument Against Parmenides: Movement and the Determinacy of Being ....................................................................................................................... 78 IV. The Descriptive Argument for the Composite Character of Movement and Being ....................................................................................................................... 82 V. Composite Being and the Underlying Thing .................................................... 90 VI. The Relationship Between Movement and Being in the Descriptive Argument ............................................................................................................. 101 Chapter Five: The Culmination of the Argument for the Existence of Movement .. 105 I. The Role of Physics II ......................................................................................... 105 II. The Preamble to the Definition of Movement: Categorical Logos ............... 106 III. Overview of the Passages Defining Movement ............................................. 111 IV. Movement involving several beings (201a9‐201a27) ..................................... 116 V. The ‘As’ Clause: The relationship between potency and the underlying thing ............................................................................................................................... 120 VI. The Proof: Movement occurs only when there is entelekheia ........................ 126 VII. General remarks on the words of the definition ............................................ 137 ii PART THREE ................................................................................................................................ 141 Chapter One: From the Question of Being to Potency and Being‐at‐work ............... 141 I. Outline of Part Three .......................................................................................... 141 II. Diverse Senses of Being ...................................................................................... 142 III. Problems of Categorical Being in Metaphysics Book VII .............................. 144 IV. The Problem of Composition ............................................................................ 147 V. Composition and the Inquiry into Potency and Being‐at‐work ................... 148 VI. Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................... 152 Chapter Two: Is There a Distinction between Energeia and Kinēsis? .......................... 155 I. Scholarly Debate about the Passage ................................................................. 157 II. The Manuscript ................................................................................................... 159 III. The Possibility of Other Authors ...................................................................... 162 IV. The Uniqueness of the Passage ......................................................................... 165 Chapter Three: Completeness .......................................................................................... 169 I. The Question of Incompleteness in the Passage ............................................. 170 II. Being‐at‐work and Incompleteness .................................................................. 171 III. Movement and Incompleteness .......................................................................
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