Act and potency in Aristotle: different ways of being

Aristotle is faced with a great philosophical problem left by Heraclitus and Parmenides, that is, the problem of the movement (change) of being, of things, of the being: the being moves, changes or remains immobile, always identical to itself ? According to Heráclito, change happens constantly in things, because everything flows. Parmenides, on the other hand, defends monism and the immobility of being, so that it is considered as immutable, indivisible and immovable.

With the purpose of overcoming the theories and problems about the movement and immobility of being, Aristotle formulates his perspective – to a certain extent, presented as a synthesis of Heraclitean and Parmenidean thoughts – linked to his understanding of the sensible reality: the concrete existence of the being must be guaranteed, but without denying the movement found in nature.

In this way, the distinction with regard to being is realized: being is what exists in act and also what exists in potency – that is, what can become in act. The being can therefore have certain characteristics at one time and other different characteristics at a different time. Furthermore, it can be said in several ways: one can say being through categories, through act and potency, through truth and falsehood, and also through the four causes.

In order to explain the movement that occurs in nature, the Stagirite makes use of the notions of act and potency – addressed in depth in Book IX of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Both notions make up our object in this work, in which they are briefly taken, compared and opposed by us.

Act and potency are pointed out by the philosopher as divergent and different ways of being. When we say that something is in act, we say that the thing concretely exists, it exists in act, we say that it has real existence. When speaking of being as potency, it refers to something that has the capacity to realize its existence, something that has the possibility of existing, although not necessarily. These two modes of being prevail over all beings. The being is taken by the philosopher as an act and/or potency. It is through this conception that one can explain the change of things: the thought that things cease to be when they change is excluded by Aristotle, since, when undergoing changes, the movement the thing passes from a mode of being – potency – to another way of being – act.

With regard to act and potency, being can exist in three ways:

1) can exist as an act, but not as a potency;

2) it can exist as an act and as a potency;

3) can exist as potency, although not in act.

These ways of existing have several implications, such as:

1) by existing in act, but not in potency, being necessarily exists, so that it cannot be different from what it is;

2) by existing in act and in potency, the being necessarily exists, however it can become something else in relation to what it actually is;

3) by existing as potency, but not in act, the being exists as possibility and, thus, does not exist in a necessary way.

It should be noted that, according to Aristotle, what exists in act does not have two contraries concomitantly, while what exists in potency can contain them at the same time. At this point, we can note that Aristotle establishes the ontological thesis of non-contradiction, which had already been pointed out by Parmenides, although he had not systematized it. Looking a little deeper into the issue of potency involving its opposite, it is understood that what has the potency of existing also has the potency of not existing, as Aristotle states: “Therefore, it may happen that a substance is in potency to be and that, however, it does not exist, and, also, that a substance is in potentiality not to be and that, nevertheless, it exists” (Met., IX(3), 1047 to 20-22).

Existence in act is considered determined by the Stagirite and existence in potency is taken as indeterminate, since the passage from potency to act may or may not occur. From potency, the thing goes towards the act, because this is the end aimed at by the thing that is in potency. Thus, the being can only actualize itself with the condition that it has the potential capacity for such an act, whether external or internal.

There is also another point of differentiation and opposition between the notions of act and potency: the act is conceived as a determining active principle, and the potency is conceived as a capacity for realization, as pointed out by the Stagirite: “I call, for example, a builder who has the ability to build, seer who has the ability to see, and visible what can be seen.

The same goes for everything else. So that the notion of act necessarily precedes the concept of potency and the knowledge of the act precedes the knowledge of potency” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, IX(8), 1049 b 20). For the philosopher, the movement, the alteration of things occurs in a teleological way, namely, aiming at an end. The act is considered the end to be attained by potency. This, in turn, exists aiming at its end, the act, being the purpose and the being that aims to achieve it opposite and different.

Bibliography:

ARISTOTLE. Metaphysics. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2002.

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