Ways of Being: Potentiality and Actuality in Aristotle's Metaphysics 9781501711503

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE. Aristotle's Defense of Dunamis
CHAPTER TWO. Power and Potentiality
CHAPTER THREE.Rational and Nonrational Powers
CHAPTER FOUR .The Priority of Actuality
CHAPTER FIVE. Ontological Hierarchy, Normativity, and Gender
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Index

Citation preview

WAYS OF B E I N G

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WAYS OF BEING POTENTIALITY AND ACTUALITY IN ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS

CHARLOTTE WITT

C O R N E L L U N I V E R S I T Y ITHACA & LONDON

P R E S S

Copyright © 2003 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2003 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America Liibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Witt, Charlotte, 1951Ways of being : potentiality and actuality in Aristotle's Metaphysics /Charlotte Witt. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-4032-7 (alk. paper) 1. Aristotle. Metaphysics. 2. Metaphysics. 3. Ontology. I. Title. B434.W59 2003 110—dc21 2002011975 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Jonathan Okrent Witt

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION CHAPTER

ix 1

ONE

Aristotle's Defense of Dunamis

17

CHAPTER TWO

Power and Potentiality CHAPTER

38

THREE

Rational and Nonrational Powers CHAPTER

59

FOUR

The Priority of Actuality

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CHAPTER FIVE

Ontological Hierarchy, Normativity, and Gender Notes Bibliography Index

97 119 147 153

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

am very grateful for the questions and comments that I have re-

Iceived on material in this book from audience members at the

University of Uppsala, Tufts University, University of Illinois, University of British Columbia, University of Helsinki, Goteborg University, Georgetown University, and the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. I wrote much of the final version of this book while a visiting fellow at the Institute for Classical Studies during 1999-2000. I am very grateful to the University of London, the Institute for Classical Studies, and its director, Geoffrey B. Waywell, for providing me with near perfect conditions for research and writing. While in England, I received helpful comments from audiences at Edinburgh University, the Northern Ancient Philosophy Association, and the B Club at Cambridge University. I want to thank Lilli Alanen for inviting me to teach a graduate seminar in May 2001 at the University of Uppsala, where I was able to present and to discuss the materials in this book with a wonderful group of students. During that visit Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuut-

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A ckn owledgm en ts tila and Hallvard J. Fossheim gave me useful written comments and helpful conversation, which I would like to acknowledge here. At different stages of this project I have benefited from written comments and conversation with Stephen Menn. Stephen Makin commented on an earlier draft of the introduction and generously allowed me to see his commentary on Metaphysics ix for the Oxford Clarendon Series, and an unpublished paper. I have long been inspired by Aryeh Kosman's classic papers on actuality as activity and by his friendly support of this project over the years. I'm fortunate to live with several philosophers. I would like to thank Mark Okrent for reading every word as usual, and Anna for her cheery presence and theological speculations. This book is dedicated to Jonathan, who grew up alongside it. Earlier versions of the following chapters have appeared elsewhere: chapter 1: "Powers and Possibilities: Aristotle's Defense of Potentiality" in Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, edited by William Wians and John Cleary (Latham: University Press of America, 1995); chapter 4: "The Priority of Actuality in Aristotle" in The Identity and Unity of Aristotelian Substances, edited by T. Scaltsas, D. Charles, and M.L. Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); chapter 5: "Form and Normativity in Aristotle: A Feminist Perspective" in Re-reading the Canon: Feminist Essays on Aristotle, edited by Cynthia Freeland (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). Finally, I would like to thank the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire for supporting the final stages of this project.

WAYS OF B E I N G

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Introduction

R

ecent writing on the central books of Aristotle's Metaphysics has tended to emphasize the importance of book vn and to pay relatively little attention to book ix, which contains the only extended explanation of the distinction between potentiality and actuality in Aristotle's works.1 Given the centrality of the distinction to Aristotle's thought, this scholarly neglect is puzzling. Two related assumptions explain the neglect. The first is the idea that book ix does not really hang together as a piece of philosophical writing. And the second is that book ix is a postscript to Aristotle's investigation of substance in book vn. But, as I argue in this book, neither assumption is correct. Book ix contains a coherent, and important, philosophical argument. And it is fundamentally independent of the inquiry into substance in book vn in both the philosophical issues it addresses and in its conclusions. Indeed, I think that the real argument of book ix is obscured when it is read in the long shadows cast upon it by the inquiry into substance in book vn. One strategy of interpreting the central books of Aristotle's Metaphysics (books vn-ix) is to read them as an extended treatise on sub-

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Ways of Being stance, understanding substances as Aristotle's ontologically basic beings, which provide the subject matter of the lofty science of being qua being. From this perspective, if book ix has an ontological purpose at all, it must be either to resolve some outstanding problem that arises for substances, like the unity of form and matter in composite or perceptual substances, or to extend the investigation of substance in a new direction—for example, to begin the inquiry into immaterial substance.2 In this interpretation, book vn introduces the distinction between potentiality and actuality as a new vocabulary with which to tell us more about substance. The opening lines of book vn, however, begin a different story, as Aristotle clearly distinguishes his current inquiry from the investigation of substance, or categorical being: We have discussed that which is primarily and to which all the other categories of being are referred—substance.3 For it is according to the definition of substance that the others are said to be— quantity, quality and the like,- for all will be found to contain the definition of substance, as we said in the first part of our work.4 And since being is in one way divided into what, quality and quantity, and is in another way distinguished according to potentiality and actuality, i.e. according to function,5 let us distinguish potentiality and actuality. (Metaphysics ix.!045b27-35)6 Here Aristotle distinguishes between the investigation into categorical being, in which substance is central, and his current topic of inquiry.7 The text's opening lines situate his project for us in two ways. First, potentiality and actuality are one of the divisions of being (or "that which is"), and so book ix is part of Aristotle's investigation of being. It ought to have an ontological purpose. Second, the distinction between potential and actual being differs from the meaning of being indicated by substance and the other categories. This suggests that book ix has an ontological purpose other than the one guiding the investigation of substance, which centers on book vii.8 In this book I argue that book ix has an ontological task different

Introduction from the one guiding the investigation of substance, and that the picture of reality which emerges is also importantly different. Roughly, the difference in purpose is between an analysis of being into its kinds or categories, and an analysis of being into ways of being. The development of the idea that there are ways of being as well as kinds of being allows Aristotle to construct a developmental, hierarchical, and intrinsically normative conception of being. If I am right, then it is a mistake to equate Aristotle's metaphysics or ontology exclusively, or perhaps even primarily, with his answer to the question: What is substance?9 The significance of my interpretation for our understanding of Aristotle's metaphysics is obvious. First, the standard view understands Aristotle's metaphysics to be a metaphysics of substance, an interpretation that is shared widely: by both scholars and students, by Aristotelians and by his critics. My interpretation of book ix opposes that view as overly simplistic and not adequate to what we find in the text. Second, my interpretation of potentiality and actuality as ways of being, as marking an ontological distinction for Aristotle, both reveals and emphasizes the centrality of hierarchy and norms to his metaphysics. And, I argue, it is within the context of Aristotle's normative and hierarchical framework that we can best understand his interweaving of gender (male and female) and metaphysics. In contrast, Aristotle's categorical understanding of being is not implicated by the gendered aspect of his metaphysics. My claim that Aristotle distinguishes between the investigation of substance and his inquiry into the distinction between potentiality and actuality raises the question of how these two divisions of being are related to one another. One might think that it is just a matter of perspective and alternative vocabularies. What can be said in the language of the categories can be translated into the language of potentiality and actuality, and vice versa. In this view book ix provides an alternative vocabulary for describing substances, but no further ontological distinctions. Alternatively, one might argue that Aristotle's ultimate understanding of substance is as activity, and hence book ix (rather than book vn) contains Aristotle's final word on substance.10 In my view, Aristotle introduces a new ontological distinction in book ix, between two ways of being something, which

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is both important to his understanding of being and not translatable into the language of substance and categorical being. Hence, book ix is neither an alternative vocabulary for describing substance, nor is it Aristotle's final word on substance. It is important to be careful here. It is correct that Aristotle does not introduce any new kinds, or categories, of beings in book ix. The categorical understanding of being, centered on the category of substance, is the subject matter of book vn. Potentialities and actualities are not new kinds of things, like substances and qualities. Aristotle is not adding new kinds of entities to his ontological inventory. But it is a mistake to conclude from this that he is not introducing a new ontological distinction. Aristotle's distinction between ways of being X is both independent of the division of being into the categories and crucial to his understanding of being. Because the ontological distinction described in Metaphysics ix does not introduce new categories of beings, however, it is—at least in principle—compatible with the inquiry into substance in Metaphysics vn. 1. Outline of the Argument My thesis that Aristotle's distinction between potentiality and actuality in Metaphysics IX drives a philosophical argument distinct from the one guiding the investigation of substance is supported by several strands of interpretation. These strands amount to an explanation of what I mean by calling potentiality and actuality "ways of being77 and an explanation of how Aristotle's picture of reality reflects the idea that there are different ways of being something, as well as different kinds of being. Strand one of my interpretation is the claim that Metaphysics ix contains two arguments, which are central to Aristotle's understanding of being, but which are neither part of his investigation of substance in Metaphysics vn, nor able to be formulated using the conceptual framework of that inquiry. First, Aristotle makes an existential argument; he argues for the existence of dunamis, which means both causal power and potentiality. That causal powers and potentialities exist is a basic tenet of Aristotle's understanding of natural causation, human practical activity, change, and being.

Introduction Since he argues for their existence in book ix, which opens with a reference to book vn, we can safely conclude that Aristotle did not find the existence of dunamis secured by the inquiry into substance. One reason for this is that Aristotle's notion of a causal power employs the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually in order to explain how it is that inactive powers exist. So, Aristotle's defense of dunamis depends in part on the distinction drawn in book ix between being potentially (the being of an inactive power) and being actually (the being of a power at work). Aristotle's second argument establishes the priority of energeia, activity or actuality, in relation to dunamis. The priority of activity or actuality, and the threefold dependency of dunamis on activity or actuality, is the linchpin of Aristotle's hierarchical organization of being, which is crowned by the unmoved mover, a being of pure activity. Aristotle's hierarchy of being in Metaphysics ix is not primarily a hierarchy of kinds of beings,- it is a hierarchy of ways of being.11 That is, although Aristotle's claim that actuality is prior to dunamis mentions different kinds of beings (e.g., eternal and perishable substances), his priority argument turns on the way of being that each exemplifies. Hence, there is nothing in Aristotle's investigation of substance in Metaphysics VII that provides him with the conceptual resources to construct the argument for the hierarchy of being that emerges at the end of Metaphysics ix. It is the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually (or actively) that provides Aristotle's vocabulary of hierarchy in Metaphysics ix. Aristotle's hierarchical vision of reality has a normative or evaluative dimension as well; actuality or activity is better than, as well as prior to, dunamis. Since Aristotle's value hierarchy rests on the hierarchy of ways of being erected upon the priority of actuality, it cannot be properly understood independently of the distinction between potential and actual being. In contrast, Aristotle's investigation of substance does not ground an intrinsically normative vision of being, which requires a distinction between different ways of being rather than a distinction among different kinds of being.12 But, it might be objected, doesn't Aristotle argue for the threefold priority of substance in relation to the other categories at the beginning of book vu (at 1028a31-b2), a doctrine he refers to at the beginning of book ix (at 1045b27-32)?13 And doesn't the idea that sub-

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stance is primary in relation to the other categories itself express a hierarchical view of being? Moreover, doesn't Aristotle make an anti-Platonic argument in Nicomachean Ethics to the effect that the good is said in as many ways as being is?14 He illustrates what he means by reference to the categories: 'Tor it [good] is spoken of in what-it-is [substance], as god and nous-, in quality, as the virtues,in quantity, as the measured amount; in relation, as the useful; in time, as the right moment; in place, as the [right] situation; and so on" (EN 1096a23-27). So the objection might be that the categorical understanding of being itself has the conceptual resources to express both a hierarchical and a normative picture of reality. In Metaphysics vn, the status of substance as the ontologically basic kind of being, the subject, of which entities in the other categories, and universals, are predicated, does place substances first among other kinds of beings. But Aristotle wants to go further than this in several respects. First, he wants to order beings within the same categories. The distinction between being potentially and being actually allows Aristotle to hierarchically differentiate—for example, between God and man, both of whom are substances.15 Second, Aristotle wants to be able to order hierarchically beings within the same category and the same species. Thus, the idea that there are ways of being as well as kinds of beings is reflected in Aristotle's hierarchical distinction between men and women or between men and boys, each of whom are substances of the same species. Third, the idea that there are ways of being a substance, degrees of completion or realization, provides a framework for the normative and evaluative side of Aristotle's understanding of being that is not provided by the claim that substance is prior, as subject, to the other categories of being. Aristotle does not argue in Metaphysics vn that substances are better than entities in the other categories of being because they are ontologically basic, the basic subjects. And it is hard to see how he could make that argument since the predication relationship does not carry with it any normative punch. In contrast, because what exists potentially exists for the sake of existing actually, the distinction between being potentially X and being actually X supplies a conceptual framework for Aristotle's understanding of being as intrinsically normative.

Introduction The idea that good is said in as many ways as the categories does not supply the grounds for imputing intrinsic normativity to being. In the Nicomachean Ethics text Aristotle is interested in arguing against a univocal, Platonic idea of the good, and he argues that good means something different in the different categories. For example, what it means to say that God is good is different from what it means to say that a time, like the right opportunity, is good. Aristotle uses the framework of the categories to criticize the Platonic conception that there is a single idea of the good. But it does not follow from the idea that what it means for something to be good varies depending on what it is that is good, that any being is intrinsically good or intrinsically better than any other being. Since Aristotle clearly does think that some beings are intrinsically better than others, he must be drawing on conceptual resources other than those available within the categorical understanding of being. A second strand of my interpretation is the claim that in Metaphysics ix Aristotle draws a distinction between two meanings of dunamis. He distinguishes between causal powers and potentiality as a way of being. A causal power is a dispositional property of a substance to change (or be changed by) another substance. In contrast, potentiality is a way of being, and it cannot be given a dispositional analysis. What a substance is potentially is neither a disposition it has to change another substance nor a disposition it has to be changed by another substance. Moreover, Aristotle's distinction between being potentially X and being actually X applies to causal powers themselves, which exist potentially, when they are inactive, and which exist actually, when they are active. Hence, Aristotle's argument against Megarian actualism, and in defense of inactive causal powers, requires the ontological distinction between being potentially and being actually explained in Metaphysics ix. Although Aristotle's core example of the relationship between potentiality and actuality is that of a capacity and its exercise, an ability and an activity, like sight and seeing, he introduces the distinction between potentiality and actuality using two sorts of examples. Potentiality is to actuality as an ability is to its active exercise, and as an incomplete substance is to a complete substance (Metaphysics ix 1048a37-b6). Aristotle uses the example of an ability in relation

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to its exercise to convey the idea of different ways of being X or realizing X, and then he expects us to apply that idea to the relationship between incomplete and complete substance. The ability and exercise example of potential and actual being is Aristotle's model for understanding the identity of incomplete substances,- an incomplete substance (a child) is potentially what a complete substance (a man) is actually. Aristotle's theory of substance is faced with what I call the paradox of identity, which arises once we see that immature substances cannot perform either their typical or their essential functions. If a human baby (or child) cannot reproduce (a typical animal function) or reason16 (an essential human function), then what is it? 17 The resolution of the paradox of identity requires Aristotle to articulate conditions on being X potentially so that he can avoid both the pitfall of actualism (X is what X actually is) and the vacuity of an overly broad notion of potentiality. As we will see, Aristotle proposes conditions for what counts as being X potentially for artifacts and natural beings that are intended to rule out a very weak notion of being X potentially, one which would allow that virtually anything is potentially X because virtually anything could become X (given enough time and the right circumstances). And, as we will also see, what counts as being X actually is a mature, fully functioning exemplar—ripe, sturdy grain or an active, adult male animal. My thesis is that these strands of Aristotle's explanation of the distinction between potential and actual being, taken together, constitute an ontological purpose which is different from the purpose guiding his investigation of substance and the other categories of being. To put the point another way, the picture of reality and being which we get after understanding Aristotle's distinction between potential and actual being has essential features which it would not have if we remained within the parameters of the question: What is substance? If I am right, then any understanding of Aristotle's approach to the meaning of being, or his ontology, which equates it with his investigation of substance is mistaken. My point is not simply that the investigation of substance is incomplete, and that Metaphysics ix clears up a few points about substance. Rather, my point is that the distinction between potential and actual being al-

Introduction lows Aristotle the conceptual vocabulary to express certain aspects of his view of reality, which cannot be expressed by means of the vocabulary of substance, and the categories. What the distinction between potential and actual being allows Aristotle to express is the full hierarchical and normative aspects of his vision of reality. It is a rich and complex view that rejects actualism—the idea that all that exists is actual—in favor of the idea that there are different ways of being.

2. The Existence of Dunamis In ordinary Greek dunamis means "strength" or "power" and also "ability" or "faculty." The term occurs with this range of meaning in both philosophical and nonphilosophical contexts. We often speak of a person's abilities, like the ability to play the viola or to speak French. These abilities, we think, exist even when we are not using them, when we are asleep or engaged in other activities. One way to think about abilities like these is as dispositional properties, which are exercised in certain circumstances but not in others.18 We can contrast the dispositional properties of a substance with its categorical properties, like height or weight. Since substances, like animals or plants, have both dispositional and categorical properties, it seems uncontroversial that powers and abilities exist. In Metaphysics ix, Aristotle tells us that some philosophers disputed the existence of dunamis and held, for example, that a person can play the viola or build a house only when she is actually or actively engaged in those activities. Actualists do not think that inactive powers or abilities exist. In chapter 11 consider the actualist position and Aristotle's complex argument against it. As it turns out, Aristotle does not, as one might expect, argue that the actualist is refuted by common sense or ordinary opinion. This is perhaps not so surprising once we see that Aristotle's rejection of actualism relies on a more technical notion of dunamis than is found in ordinary usage. In particular, I argue that Aristotle exploits the intuitive connection between what a substance can do and what is possible for it to do, and uses the modal connection to defeat the actualist. The

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causal powers or capacities of a substance are systematically connected by Aristotle with what is possible for it to do or to become. Later in Metaphysics ix (in chapter 8) Aristotle draws on the same modal connection between dunamis and possibility to argue for the ontological priority of eternal substances in relation to perishable substances. Aristotle's rejection of the Megarian position that only what is actual exists introduces the conceptual connections that he draws upon in his later argument. Hence, Aristotle's dispute with the Megarians can be seen as introducing themes and concepts which are central to his argument in Metaphysics ix as a whole. Power (or potentiality) and activity (or actuality) are important explanatory terms in Aristotle's understanding of change, nature, and the biological world, including soul and its functions, as well as the human spheres of ethics, politics, and the crafts,- thus, the importance of Aristotle's argument for dunamis is obvious. I want to underscore, however, that the idea of inactive powers or abilities, which can later become active or actual, requires an ontology that expresses ways of being as well as kinds of being. In short, it requires a distinction between being potentially and being actually or actively, which is the very distinction that Aristotle proposes to explain in Metaphysics ix. Aristotle distinguishes two basic senses of dunamis in Metaphysics ix. He differentiates between powers (including abilities), on the one hand, and a "new" or ontological meaning of the term. The modal dimension of Aristotelian dunamis might suggest that potentiality or the "new" sense is possibility.19 In chapter 2,1 take up this suggestion and argue against the idea that potentiality is equivalent to possibility for Aristotle. What something is potentially is not simply what is possible for it to do or to be. In Metaphysics ix Aristotle defines potentiality in art and in nature using conditions more restrictive than those governing natural possibility. Being X potentially does not mean being a possible X. The "new" sense of dunamis, or being X potentially, is best understood as a way of being X. Potentiality differs from power in several ways. First, Aristotelian causal powers satisfy the different object requirement, but being potentially X does not satisfy that requirement. Briefly, the different object requirement holds than an

Introduction active (or passive) power must act on (or be acted on by) an object other than itself. But the relationship between the inactive power (sight) and the active power (seeing) is not governed by the different object requirement. Second, what it is for something to exist potentially is for it to exist for the sake of existing actually or actively. The ability to see exists for the sake of seeing. Potentiality is a way of being, and not simply a causal power even though causal powers, when inert, exist potentially in relation to their way of being when active. In claiming that Aristotle introduces a new sense of dunamis in book ix, I am rejecting what I call the Unitarian interpretation of dunamis. In the Unitarian view dunamis primarily refers to the causal powers of substances throughout book ix. Potentiality, in this view, is not another meaning of dunamis, which Aristotle explains in book ix, but rather a way of understanding the active and passive causal powers of substances. And what way is this? According to Michael Frede, the different kinds of causal powers can be understood as each "conferring a certain degree of reality on its bearer/720 Unitarians like Frede read book ix as exploring the ontological consequences for substances of their possession of a range of causal powers. In contrast, I read book ix as introducing the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually as the necessary ontological underpinnings of causal powers themselves. An inactive causal power exists potentially, and an active one exists actually. Aristotle's distinction between causal powers and potentiality might seem to be incomplete and inadequate. In particular, it might seem to overlook an important difference among causal powers. Aren't abilities, like the ability to speak French, or to build a house, importantly different from the causal power that a fire has to heat another object? In chapter 3 I present Aristotle's perspective on this question, which turns on the distinction he draws between rational and nonrational powers. I argue that Aristotle attempts to make rational and nonrational powers alike with regard to the conditions that necessitate their activity by providing a dispositional analysis for both kinds of powers. The difference between rational and nonrational powers is important, however, for Aristotle's argument for the priority of actuality.

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The importance lies in two areas. First, the contrast between rational and nonrational powers provides examples of different ways in which actuality might be prior to dunamis. In the case of a nonrational power, like fire, the actuality is causally and temporally prior to the existence of the power; a fire, which is actually hot, heats the water. In the case of a rational power, like house building, the form or actuality is teleologically prior to the exercise of the dunamis. The form or actuality of what is to be built exists as an idea in the builder's mind, where it functions as the goal of the process. Exploring the different dependency relationships between powers and actuality in nature (nonrational powers) and in art (rational powers) is an important preparatory stage for Aristotle's later discussion of the different ways that actuality is prior to potentiality. Since Aristotle wants to make a general argument for the priority of actuality, he has to pay attention both to different kinds of priority relations, and to the different ways that actuality is prior in relation to different kinds of dunamis. The distinction between rational and nonrational powers also prepares the way for Aristotle's discussion of nature in chapter 8. Nature is a dunamis of a special kind. It is the internal origin of a special kind of change—the realization or completion of natural substances. Nature is not an Aristotelian power (agent, passive, rational or nonrational) because it does not satisfy the different object requirement. Because of this difference between causal powers and nature, Ross thought that nature was potentiality, Aristotle's new meaning of dunamis.21 As I explain in chapter 2, however, nature, the inner causal power of development for plants and animals, is not what Aristotle means by potentiality. Rather, nature is a special kind of causal power that explains why from being potentially X, an immature entity becomes actually X. Nature explains why a boy becomes a man.

3. The Priority of Actuality Aristotle coined two terms—energeia (standardly translated as "activity") and entelecheia (standardly translated as "actuality")—

Introduction which he uses to refer to the way of being contrasted with potentiality. The word energeia suggests the idea of the work or function of an entity as well as activity, whereas the word entelecheia suggests the idea of completion or perfection.22 Aristotle uses both words in different texts that describe the same distinction between potential and actual being23 In book ix he also uses both words, although energeia is far more frequent. In two texts in book ix, he gives two different explanations of how the word energeia came to be applied to actualities (perfected or completed entities) as well as to activities (1047a30-b2; 1050al7-23).24 The predominant use of energeia in book ix might seem to require the translation "activity" rather than "actuality."25 However, the fact that Aristotle explicitly tells us that energeia has come to refer to actualities (entelecheia) strongly suggests that either translation can be appropriate depending on context. Indeed, as we will see in chapter 2, the examples that Aristotle uses to introduce the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually in book ix contrast being X potentially both with being actively X, and with being a completed (or actual) X. Potentiality and actuality are relational terms in Aristotle. However, they are not equally dependent on one another. What is potentially is for the sake of an actuality, but actualities do not exist for the sake of potentialities. Moreover, not all actualities are the realizations of potentialities. Eternal substances, Aristotle tells us in book ix, have no dunamis, except for change in location. They are eternally active and never lapse into a state of mere ability or power or possibility. And, even among perishable substances, like animals and plants, actuality is prior to potentiality in time, in definition, and in being. I argue in chapter 4 that priority in being means ontological priority,- what exists potentially is ontologically dependent on what exists actually, but what exists actually is not ontologically dependent on what exists potentially. Aristotle uses the priority in being of actuality to express a hierarchical conception of being from bottom to top. Matter is ontologically (or existentially) dependent on form, incomplete substance on complete substance, perishable substance on eternal substance. Through his argument that dunamis exists, Aristotle rejects an

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ontology of actualism. Through his argument that actuality is prior to dunamis, Aristotle replaces the ontology of actualism with a hierarchical ontology of both being and value. The threefold priority of actuality grounds a corresponding priority in value for Aristotle. Since actuality is prior in being to dunamis, it is also better. Since dunamis is a dependent, relational way of being, and actuality is not, dunamis is worse than actuality. Aristotle's argument for the priority of actuality not only justifies a hierarchy of being, but it also justifies a parallel hierarchy of value, which we find reiterated elsewhere in his writings. Recently feminist interpreters of Aristotle (myself included) have pointed out that sexual difference ("male" and "female") is sometimes associated with Aristotle's metaphysics of substance,- form is somehow male, matter somehow female.26 These associations are puzzling. First, it is simply not clear how to construct a coherent, intelligible interpretation of Aristotle's hylomorphic analysis of substance, on the one hand, and his association between matter and the female and form and the male, on the other hand. Does Aristotle think that nature and reality are intrinsically gendered? Or, alternatively, did he develop his theory of substance in order to prop up and to justify the sexist gender norms of his culture? I argue here that Aristotle's unsettling mix of metaphysics and gender cannot be adequately explained within the framework of substance and the categorical understanding of being. By an adequate explanation I mean a minimally coherent and intelligible interpretation. I suggest that it is the conceptual resources offered by the ontological distinction between being X potentially and being X actually that provides Aristotle with the conceptual resources to differentiate both ontologically and normatively between male and female exemplars of the human species (and male and female animals generally). Further, I argue that Aristotelian reality or nature is intrinsically hierarchical and normative, but not intrinsically gendered. Rather than devising his ontology as a justification for the sexual status quo, Aristotle is best understood as attaching the sexist gender ideology of his culture to an ontology which is inherently hierarchical and normative, and which allows for degrees of realization among kinds of substances, among different species, and among different members of

Introduction the same species. Aristotle's ontological and value hierarchy is intrinsically gendered only to the degree that characteristics like dependence and independence, or ability and activity, are metaphorically associated with women and men respectively—by Aristotle and his culture, and by our own. I discuss the blending of value, norms, hierarchy, and gender in Aristotle's understanding of reality in chapter 5.

4. The Order of the Interpretation and the Text The order of my interpretation does not follow the exact order of the chapters of book ix as we have them. My decision to begin with an interpretation of Aristotle's criticisms of Megarian actualism, which is found in the third chapter of book ix, is deliberate. In my view this debate is the central text of book ix because the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually is Aristotle's response to Megarian actualism. Aristotle in book ix soundly rejects the idea that what something is, is simply a matter of what it actually is. Among other things, this allows him to explain the existence of inactive powers; they are potentially. But it also allows him to claim that incomplete, immature exemplars are potentially what they will eventually be actually. Moreover, the discussion of Megarian actualism also brings to our attention the second major theme of book ix, which is the priority of actuality in relation to potentiality. That is, while Aristotle rejects Megarian actualism, his understanding of the relationship between being X potentially and being X actually is a kind of Aristotelian actualism. Aristotle not only wants to argue for the existence of dunamis in book ix; he also wants to argue for the complex and complete dependence of being X potentially on being X actually. So the Megarians, and hence chapter 3 of book ix, turn out to be pivotal figures both for the part of their view Aristotle rejects, and for the aspect of their view he embraces. A third motivation for beginning with the Megarians is that this point of entry casts the argument of book ix in a new light. It allows us to understand the philosophical problem that motivates Aris-

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totle's distinction between potentiality and actuality as originating in the difficult challenge of philosophical actualism. To the basic question: Why did Aristotle distinguish between being X potentially and being X actually? Book ix itself provides the answer. In making this claim, I am not rejecting the idea that the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually is also used by Aristotle to address philosophical issues other than those that cluster around the claims of Megarian actualism. For example, it is clear from Metaphysics vui, chapter 6, that Aristotle thinks that this distinction explains how form is related to matter in the composite substance. What I do reject is the idea that the philosophical argument of book ix is primarily shaped by the problem of the unity of form and matter in sensible substances, or, indeed, by any of the many issues that Aristotle addresses in other texts using the distinction between potentiality and actuality. Rather, my interpretation locates both the basic philosophical problem and the core of Aristotle's argument concerning the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually within the text of book ix.

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Aristotle's Defense of Dunamis

n his own lexicon of philosophical terms, Aristotle gives as the Ifirst meaning of dunamis: a source of movement or change, which is in another thing, or in the same thing as other (Metaphysics v.l2.1019a!5-19). The first, or basic, meaning of dunamis is an agent power, a causal power to change another entity, like the ability to build and the power to heat. Aristotle explains both the interactions among substances in nature and the productive and practical activities of human beings by referring to the dunameis (powers) of substances. We find Aristotle using dunamis in this sense in a wide variety of explanatory contexts, from biology to ethics to natural philosophy.1 Aristotle's basic notion of dunamis as the origin of change in another object will become more complex as he draws further distinctions in Metaphysics ix—between agent and passive causal powers, and between rational and nonrational powers. Intuitively, the existence of causal powers is obvious and uncontroversial. We often talk about the powers and abilities of various kinds of beings—humans, animals, different kinds of matter. What could be less controversial than the idea that objects and materials

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have abilities and powers, which they exercise at certain times but not at others? What could be more obvious than the idea that objects have the potential to do things other than what they are doing at present or to be other than what they are at present? Who could doubt that human beings have a wide range of innate faculties, like perception, and acquired abilities, like playing the viola, which we exercise only intermittently? No matter how uncontroversial the existence of powers and abilities might appear to us, some philosophers question their existence. According to Aristotle, "There are some who say, as the Megaric school does, that a thing can act only when it is acting" (1046b29-30). If a thing can act only when it is acting, then there are no abilities and powers that the thing has when it is not actually using them. It is interesting and important to note Aristotle's exact wording. The Megarians are cited as examples of those who say that what a thing can do is what it is actively doing, which implies that others hold the view as well. Actualism (which I will sometimes call "Megarian actualism") is not a crank position unworthy of serious notice,- it is a view worthy of refutation by argument. Aristotle presents several arguments against actualism and for the existence of dunamis. It is important to see that what is at issue between Aristotle and the actualist is not the existence of dunamis, but the existence of inactive dunamis. The disagreement between Aristotle and the actualist turns on whether the idea of a dunamis, which can exist in two ways, as inactive and as active, is philosophically acceptable. Hence, Aristotle's distinction between being X potentially and being X actually, which he draws in Metaphysics ix, is central to his full response to the Megarians. The Megarians are to Aristotle's argument in Metaphysics ix what Parmenides is to Aristotle's argument in Physics i—essential adversaries.2 Aristotle's refutation of Megarian actualism is an important strand in my argument for the claim that Metaphysics ix has an ontological focus independent from the investigation of substance. Aristotle rejects Megarian actualism by making a series of three arguments for the existence of inactive powers. But why does Aristotle think he needs to argue for the obvious? Aristotle must think either

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis that there is significant merit to the Megarian position, or that his notion of dunamis has features which are not part of the ordinary, accepted meaning of the term. In fact, both alternatives are true. As we shall see in later chapters, Aristotle does have Megarian tendencies, which are revealed in his insistence on the priority of actuality, in his approach to defining powers in terms of their activation conditions, and in the way he specifies the conditions under which X is potentially. And his own notion of dunamis has philosophically controversial features. One such feature, which I have already mentioned, is that Aristotle conceives of powers as existing in two ways, as inactive and as active, in opposition to the Megarians, who endorse only active powers. Aristotle's full understanding of dunamis, in the sense of causal power, depends on the distinction between ways of being X that he draws in Metaphysics ix, namely between being X potentially and being X actually. Moreover, Aristotle's argument against the Megarians reveals a second philosophically controversial feature of his concept of dunamis, which is not explicit in ordinary usage. In his argument against actualism Aristotle makes use of a connection between the powers a substance has, and what is naturally possible for it.3 There is a modal dimension to Aristotle's concept of dunamis.4 Moreover, the connection between dunamis and possibility is important for Aristotle's philosophical argument in Metaphysics ix as a whole,- it is not simply an ad hoc device with which to defeat the Megarians. As I explain in chapter 4, the connection between power and possibility plays a key role in Aristotle's argument for the ontological dependence of perishable beings on eternal beings.5 The modal implications of dunamis are a recurrent theme in the argument of Metaphysics ix. In his lexicon discussion of dunamis Aristotle distinguishes causal powers from possibilities. But we find that in Metaphysics ix powers and possibilities are linked in Aristotle's defense of dunamis.6 Aristotle's argument raises the question of what the relationship is between the powers and abilities a substance has, and what is possible and impossible for it.7 In this chapter, I argue that Aristotle can reach his most damaging conclusion against his oppo-

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Ways of Being nents (actualists like the Megarians) only if a dunamis (a power or ability) is understood by both parties to the dispute to have modal implications. Aristotle's most general argument against the Megarians provides strong support for the claim that, in Aristotle's view, what it is possible for a substance to do in the future is anchored in its present powers.8 In section 1 I introduce the Megarian position. In section 2 I discuss Aristotle's three arguments against the Megarians: the Techne Argument, the Perception Argument, and the Immobility Argument. My interpretation of Aristotle's Immobility Argument includes the claim that a biconditional relationship exists between powers and possibilities.9 In section 3 I consider the most important objection to my interpretation, which is that what is possible for a substance far outstrips its present capacities or abilities. In my response to this objection I discuss what concept of possibility Aristotle is using and the difficult question of how best to understand Aristotle's temporal language in this argument. That Aristotle's notion of dunamis has a modal aspect might suggest the interpretation that by potentiality Aristotle might simply mean what is possible for X, or the possible X. In chapter 2, I argue against this interpretation; being X potentially is a way of being X, and not a possible X or what is possible for X. Hence, although Aristotle connects the notion of dunamis with what is possible for a substance, potentiality does not simply mean possibility for Aristotle.

1. What the Megarians Thought: Aristotle's Story Aristotle provides three arguments against the Megarians. The first two arguments focus on agent powers and passive powers in turn.10 The Techne Argument defends the existence of rational powers like house building, even when such powers are inactive. The Perception Argument defends the existence of an important class of passive powers—the power of being perceptible. Such powers exist even when they are inactive. The third argument, the Immobility Argument, is crucial for Aristotle's defeat of the Megarians for two

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis reasons. First, it is not limited to a particular class of powers. It reaches beyond agent and passive powers to include all powers for change, including nature, the inner origin of change of a unified substance.11 Second, unlike the first two arguments, it accuses the Megarians not simply of an implausible theory of dunamis, but of a theory with an absurd consequence, which is the erasure of all motion and change. According to Aristotle's description of the Megarian position, they thought that the only powers an object has are those that are manifest or active. "There are some who say, as the Megaric school does, that a thing can act only when it is acting, and when it is not acting it cannot act" (1046b29-30).12 A person can build a house only when she is actively building it; when she has ceased working, she can no longer build. A color can be seen only when it is actually being seen; when no longer being seen the color is no longer visible. Powers exist only while, and as long as, they are active. Although we will need to reconsider this point again, Aristotle's initial statement of the Megarian position holds that there exists no dunamis that is not active or actual, which is compatible with the idea that what an entity actually is doing, it is capable of doing. That is, powers exist, but not unless, and when, they are active. Imagine a world in which the only realities are those that are manifest at a given moment—no latent abilities, no alternative possibilities, nothing that was not fully, and actually, expressed. This is certainly not the world as we experience it; our world is rich with alternative possibilities and burdened with potential we never lived up to. Megarian reality is not the commonsense world, but rather a flattened comic book version of it, where everything real is apparent and enacted in the present. Even without argument we would likely reject the Megarians7 world, simply because it goes against the grain of our experience. So, the very fact that Aristotle bothers to argue against the Megarians and their impoverished description of reality strikes the reader as puzzling. Further, Aristotle does not merely try to convince us that the Megarian view is false, but that it is absurd—not implausible on the face of it, but rather a view that leads to absurd consequences. We might conclude, then, that the Megarians did not hold their view because it coheres with our ordinary ex-

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perience of the world, but for other reasons. And so their position would not be damaged by its surface implausibility, but rather because of serious difficulties that follow from their thesis. Perhaps the Megarians are misdescribed by Aristotle. Maybe their view concerned not the existence of inactive powers and potentialities, but their explanatory value.13 Maybe what is at issue between the Megarians and Aristotle concerns whether genuine explanations are furthered by reference to powers and potentialities; whether in fact all genuine causation, and hence all genuine explanations, must refer only to actually existing entities and principles. In this case, the Megarians do not reject our ordinary language appeals to powers, capacities, and potentialities, but rather, they reject the value of scientific explanations couched in those terms. Unfortunately, this is all conjecture. Aristotle provides us with neither the Megarians' arguments nor enough additional details concerning their positions on related subjects (e.g., how they understood the phenomenon of change or their theory of explanation) to hazard a full reconstruction of their position. And we have no reliable, independent source of information to draw on.14 To help us understand the appeal of the Megarian view, given its intuitive implausibility, we might consider that the concept of dunamis, the idea that substances have non-manifested powers and potentialities, is itself full of philosophical tangles, primarily because it leads one into the difficult territory of modal thought and the equally difficult terrain of ontological complexity— namely, the idea that there are ways of being in addition to categorical kinds of being. Recall that the Megarians think that a power exists only when it is active or actual, but Aristotle thinks that powers have another way of being; powers are potentially when they are inactive. Although he does not draw the distinction between being potentially and being actually in this argument, Aristotle's defense of dunamis implicitly employs the idea that a single power or ability can exist both potentially and actually. There are also epistemological difficulties. How could we tell whether a baby has the dunamis to reason and hasn't exercised it yet, or simply lacks that dunamis I15 It may be that the Megarians saw the elimination of dunamis from their philosophical vocabulary as a way of avoiding serious ontological and epistemological dif-

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis faculties. If this were the case, then Aristotle's argument strategy is appropriate—namely, to outline the conceptual absurdities that accompany their position. I haven't yet mentioned Aristotle's strongest motive for taking the Megarian position seriously, and for wanting to refute it. Aristotle does not find the Megarian position ludicrous, because it resembles his own in certain respects.16 Both Aristotle and the Megarians assign ontological priority to actuality in relation to dunamis. Yet, Aristotle also wants to maintain, against the Megarians, that powers exist even when they are not active or actual.17 So, the Megarians are extremely important dialectical opponents for Aristotle, because he needs to explain what is wrong with their view without compromising his own position that actuality is prior to dunamis.

2. Aristotle's Arguments against the Megarians The first part of chapter 3 (1046b29-alO) contains two arguments with roughly the same structure and target. Aristotle points to the fact that, in the Megarian view, no independent account can be given of the gain and loss, or generation and destruction, of agent and passive powers. The Techne Argument focuses on agent powers, arts like house building, and argues that the Megarian posits the possession and loss of the capacity for house building without providing an explanation for this change. The Perception Argument addresses the passive power of being perceptible, and argues that the Megarian account of perceptual qualities equates their being perceptible with their being actually perceived. But this is a kind of Protagorean relativism that ought to be rejected. The second part of chapter 3 (1047alO-29) argues that the Megarian position eliminates all movement and change (the Immobility Argument). The Immobility Argument concludes very broadly with the charge that the Megarians deny the distinction between dunamis and actuality altogether. Tensions between the two stretches of argument are evident. For example, the Techne Argument assumes the existence of motion and change, while the Im-

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mobility Argument denies that motion and change exist, given the Megarian account of dunamis. Further, the opening arguments assume that the Megarians maintain a distinction between dunamis and actuality, while the second stretch of text explicitly denies this. We will return to these issues after taking a closer look at Aristotle's arguments. The Techne Argument

In his first criticism of the Megarians Aristotle asks us to consider an art like house building that is acquired at some point in a person's life. Once a person has learned how to build, we might say that she has acquired the ability or power or dunamis to build. The ability to build houses is an art that is not exercised continuously. For the Megarian this means that the ability to build houses is lost each time the person ceases to build, and it is acquired again whenever she begins to build; the person can build only, and for as long as, she is building. But how did the person acquire the art of building in an instant, at the very moment she began to hammer? And how did she lose the art in the very moment she sat down at the end of the day? It is true, as Aristotle points out, that we do lose our abilities, but there is normally a specific cause like an accident or memory loss. In pairing powers and activities, the ability to build and the activity of building, the Megarians must hold that powers are gained and lost in a moment, and the Megarians cannot explain either the gain or the loss. The first point, that abilities are lost and gained instantaneously, is contradicted by our experience. As Aristotle points out, we learn how to build; arts are acquired over time (1047b32-33). I have suggested that the Megarian is clearly not concerned with validating our ordinary experience, however, and so this piece of Aristotle's criticism is not decisive. Aristotle has a second, stronger point to make, however—namely, that the Megarian account gives us no reason or cause for the gain or loss of an ability; in fact, the Megarian could never provide an independent explanation of how we gain and lose abilities like the art of house building. Abilities or arts "piggyback" on their exercise, and the Megarian can explain why the exercise began, but nothing additional is either available or

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis necessary. Abilities "pop" in and out of existence, entirely and in principle inexplicably, a situation that Aristotle, echoing Parmenides, terms "impossible" (1046b37). Notice that Aristotle is not criticizing the Megarians for postulating discontinuous abilities. He is not simply pointing out that we normally think of the ability to build as persisting through its inactive phases. To do so would beg the question. Rather, he is granting the Megarians their discontinuous powers and arguing that the Megarians cannot in principle provide a reason or cause that explains why this ability appears (or disappears) in this person at this moment. Where did it come from? Changes that are in principle inexplicable ought to be rejected; even if we do not know what in particular causes a given change, we know that something does. But the Megarian can point to no independent causal factor in the case of powers. A Megarian dunamis comes into existence when it becomes active, and ceases to exist when it becomes inactive, but without the possibility of an independent causal explanation. This is a serious flaw in the Megarian concept of dunamis. The Perception Argument

The Perception Argument extends Aristotle's case from the rational agent powers of living substances to the nonrational passive powers of perceptibility—the power an object has to be perceived. In the Megarian view an entity can be perceived only when it is being perceived; when it is not being perceived, then it cannot be perceived. "And similarly with regard to souless things; nothing will be either cold or hot or sweet or perceptible at all if people are not perceiving it" (1047a4-5). A perceptible object is something that can be perceived—it has the passive dunamis to be perceived. But, for the Megarians, it is a perceptible object, something that can be seen, heard, felt, and so on, only when, and so long as, it is actually being perceived. What is wrong with this view? We know from another text that Aristotle thinks it wrong to say (as the Megarians do) that a thing is not perceptible if it is not being perceived, but Aristotle's position there employs the very distinction between potentiality and actuality that is at issue here.18 So, it

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would not do as an argument against the Megarians. Aristotle's stated criticism is terse and puzzling: "The upholders of this view will have to maintain the doctrine of Protagoras" (1047a6-7). As Aristotle understands it, the doctrine of Protagoras is that things are the way they seem to be to an individual. If a thing is perceived by me as cold and smooth, then it is cold and smooth for me. Because appearances differ and clash among people, Aristotle sometimes accuses Protagoras of running afoul of the principle of noncontradiction. "Again, from the same opinion proceeds the doctrine of Protagoras. . . . For on the one hand, if all opinions and appearances are true, all statements must be at the same time true and false. For many men hold beliefs in which they conflict with one another, and all think those mistaken who have not the same opinions as themselves; so that the same thing must be and not be" (Metaphysics v.5.1009a6-12). What relevance does this line of criticism have for the Megarians, who have made no obvious claims about the connection between the way something appears and the way it is? The connection is not hard to find. In the Megarian account, the existence of perceptual qualities does depend on their being perceived by someone. If we think of a perceptual quality like "being hot" as an object's passive power to feel a certain way, then in the Megarian view the power would exist only when, and as long as, it is being actualized by a perceiver. When the object is being touched, the passive power of feeling hot exists, but it does not exist when the object is not being touched. We can see how the Protagorean difficulties (from Aristotle's perspective) follow.19 A given perceptual dunamis could exist for one perceiver and not exist for another since one could be actually perceiving it, and the other not.20 The same object would be perceptible and nonperceptible. Thus far Aristotle has argued against the Megarian position on two grounds. The Megarians hold that agent powers come into existence and pass out of existence continually, but are unable in principle to provide a causal account of how that happens. Second, certain kinds of passive powers, the ability to be perceived, in the Megarian account, turn out to exist only while the object is being perceived. This Protagorean result leads, in Aristotle's view, directly

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis to the generation of contradictions. We might wonder why Aristotle chose these kinds of powers in his opening arguments against actualism. The Techne and Perception Arguments might seem to refute actualism only for a restricted range of cases. Moreover, Aristotle's choice of examples might seem arbitrary. In fact Aristotle's choice is artful and deliberate. Arts like housebuilding exemplify both agent and rational powers; in contrast being perceptible is a passive, nonrational power. The range of Aristotle's argument is broadly inclusive in relation to the different types of powers he discusses in book ix. I discuss Aristotle's distinction between agent and passive powers further in chapter 2 and his distinction between rational and nonrational powers in chapter 3. At this point in the text there is a subtle shift in conceptual ground. First, Aristotle appears to change his description of the Megarian position. We had been considering a view that held that a dunamis exists only when and as long as it is active. Now Aristotle accuses the Megarians of holding that dunamis and actuality are the same: "But these views make dunamis and actuality the same, so that it is no small thing they are seeking to annihilate" (1047al8-20). The Megarians are now accused of collapsing the distinction between dunamis and actuality, a distinction that Aristotle's earlier criticisms of their position assumed. We have seen that Aristotle faults the Megarians for being unable to account for the generation of a capacity that springs into existence only when it is actualized. Now he seems to criticize them for eliminating the distinction between dunamis and actuality altogether. I call this position the Identity Thesis. The Immobility Argument

Aristotle reaches the conclusion that the Megarians identify dunamis and actuality by arguing that their position cannot accommodate either movement or becoming. This conclusion is puzzling given the earlier arguments. The Techne Argument was set in terms of motion and change occurring; a house builder moves in order to create a new being, a house. It was not suggested that house building, hammering, drilling, and so on, do not occur in the

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Ways of Being Megarian story. On the contrary, the argument assumed that Megarian reality contained movements, creations, perceptions, and change in general. The problem was that the Megarians could provide no independent explanation of the intermittent existence of the powers and abilities that underlay those changes. Now we are told that "movement and becoming" are done away with by the Megarian account of dunamis (1047al4-15). What is Aristotle's argument? Aristotle argues as follows: (1) If something lacks a dunamis then it is adunatos in that respect. (2) Further, "he who says of that which is adunatos of happening it is or will be will say what is untrue,- for that is what adunatos meant." (1047al3-14) Hence, (3) that which stands will always stand, and that which sits will always sit; if it is sitting it will not get up; for that which cannot get up will be adunatos of getting up. (1047al5-17) If we generalize this line of reasoning, Aristotle claims, then all movement and becoming will be impossible. Whatever a substance is actually doing at present is what it will do in the future. As we slice the present moment finer and finer, all motion and change grinds to a halt. And, given that there is motion and change, this consequence gives us good reason to reject the Megarian view of dun amis. I have left the key term adunatos untranslated because it can be understood to mean either "incapable" or "impossible," and our understanding and evaluation of Aristotle's argument will differ depending on how we translate the term. We need to decide the meaning of the term from looking at what Aristotle's argument requires rather than taking our cue from the immediate context because we can find evidence there to support both translations.21 In the first premise Aristotle is simply making explicit the con-

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis nection between lacking a particular ability and being incapable of the corresponding activity. Here, adunatos means simply "incapable." Both Aristotle and the Megarians would accept this premise although they differ as to when it obtains. For the Megarians, a standing person lacks the ability to sit, and, hence, is incapable of sitting; for Aristotle, the standing person also has the inactive power to sit, and is therefore able to sit. However, if we take adunatos to mean simply "incapable" in the second premise, then it is difficult to see why Aristotle thinks that motion and becoming will vanish for the Megarian. The Megarian does not think that a present inability is fixed for the future. Indeed, according to the previous argument, as we have seen, capacities and incapacities flit in and out of existence continuously for the Megarian. To say that a person is incapable (adunatos) of standing at a given moment does not have any implications for the future. The Megarian could simply reject the second premise. Perhaps the person will stand up ten minutes later, and so be able to stand at that time. But in this case the Megarian position is perfectly compatible with the existence of motion and becoming. The translation of adunatos as "impossible" in the second premise helps us to move from the premises to Aristotle's conclusion. In particular, it helps us to see why the second premise is plausible for Aristotle to assert. If it is impossible that something occurs, then it is false to assert that it is happening or will occur. Further, if lacking the capacity to stand implies that it is impossible that you stand, then by similar argument we can see that all motion and becoming will indeed be frozen. Aristotle signals the change in meaning of adunatos in the second premise with the phrase "for that is what adunatos meant." Aristotle is pointing to the fact that the word can mean either "incapable" or "impossible," and he is drawing out the consequences of the latter meaning for the Megarian account of dunamis. If the person is not simply incapable of standing (because he is, in fact, sitting) but it is also impossible that he stand, then the Megarian position leads to universal stasis. I consider an alternative interpretation of the second premise in section 4.22 In favor of my proposed interpretation of the Immobility Argu-

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ment is the fact that Aristotle uses adunatos in both senses in the surrounding texts, and that he seems to signal a shift in meaning or emphasis in the second premise. The use of the imperfect tense in the phrase "for that is what adunatos meant" (at 1047al3) indicates that Aristotle thinks he is stating a generally accepted truth, and the two meanings of adunatos (incapable and impossible) have that status in ordinary Greek.23 Most important, the shift in meaning makes the argument work; it shows that the Megarians' view of dunamis eliminates all motion and change. Against my proposed reading is the criticism that if his argument turns on a change of meaning of adunatos between premise one and two, then Aristotle is guilty of the fallacy of ambiguity. In that case, rather than strengthen Aristotle's argument, my interpretation makes it fallacious. But this misses what Aristotle is doing in this argument. Rather than exploiting an ambiguity, Aristotle is pointing out that dunatos and adunatos have modal connotations in Greek, and he is using those connotations in this argument. In effect, he is endorsing them.24 But why make a connection between lacking an ability, and it being impossible that you ever engage in the corresponding activity? What is the connection that Aristotle endorses between powers and possibilities?25 3. Powers and Possibilities Aristotle's modal assumption concerning dunamis can be expressed as follows: If X is incapable of F, then F is impossible for X. For example, if Susie is unable to ice-skate, then it is impossible that she ice-skate. And, if Aristotle accepts this principle, then he is also committed to the view that if it is possible for X to F, then X has the capacity to F. If it is possible that Susie ice-skate, then she is able to ice-skate. In this view, what it is possible for a substance to do corresponds to a dunamis of that substance. In the case of iceskating it is a learned ability, but the principle is perfectly general and would cover natural powers as well. Two related objections to the principle come to mind. Both objections turn on the idea that the capacities of a substance overly limit

Aristotle's Defense of Dunamis

what is possible for it. True, the objection might go, it is very unlikely that someone play the viola who cannot do so, but is it impossible? Just as we can imagine a monkey writing War and Peace by chance if left alone in a room with a typewriter, so too we can imagine me playing a viola solo if locked in a room with a viola.26 Call this the accidental violist objection. Second, couldn't I learn how to play the viola? If so, it is not impossible that I play the viola at some time even though I am presently incapable of doing so. Call this the future violist objection. What is the difference between a violist playing a solo, and what I do when, by pure chance, I manage to hit those same notes? The violist is playing from a learned ability,- she possesses the dunamis of viola playing. If Aristotle wanted to explain the viola playing, he would do so by mentioning the dunamis or art which is the formal cause and the origin of the playing. My accidental viola playing, in contrast, is an example of the category of causation called "luck." In events due to luck, there is an outcome which could have been the result of a goal-directed process even though, in fact, it was not. The two viola playings differ in that one is a goal-directed process and the other is not. Hence, according to Aristotle's theory of causation, the violist and I are simply not engaged in the same activity. But if we ought to distinguish between accidental viola playing and playing from an established dunamis, then why does Aristotle say later in book ix that we develop skills and abilities by practicing (1047b31-35)? How can we develop the dunamis by practice, if we cannot play the viola? What are we doing when we practice, if not playing the viola? In this case, the contrast is not between a goal-directed activity and an outcome that is simply "lucky"—that is, not goal-directed. Rather, there are two goal-directed activities—learning to play the viola by practicing, and playing the viola after one has developed that ability. There are two distinct abilities involved as well: the ability to learn to play the flute and the ability to play the flute.27 And Aristotle distinguishes both of these goal-directed abilities from the lucky viola playing of the accidental violist. The notion of developing a power or acquiring a new skill suggests a second difficulty for Aristotle's modal assumption. Even if I cannot play the viola right now, I could learn to play next year. So it

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would seem that even though I am (now) incapable of playing, it is possible that I will play (in the future). Aristotle's view of dunamis must be able to accommodate the acquisition of new abilities. If it cannot, then the Techne Argument, which assumes that we can and do acquire craft powers over time, is undercut. And the Immobility Argument becomes extremely implausible, since it restricts what is possible for a substance to do or to be to its present capacities. Aristotle has a "nested" conception of dunamis, and nesting involves, among other things, the ability to acquire or to develop capacities. Hence, what is possible for me to do depends not only on my current abilities and powers, but also on those that I will develop naturally or can acquire through learning and practice. We could express this point by saying that what is possible for me is rooted in my present powers and abilities, including my present capacity to develop or to acquire new powers and abilities. A human baby, for example, is not able to reason, but she is able to develop her rational powers. It is possible for her to reason, given her present powers— but that possibility is rooted in her present ability to develop the capacity for reason. And, it is possible that I will play the viola in the future if I have the present ability to learn to play. The discussion of "nesting" has brought out the fact that in this text Aristotelian possibility is both naturalized and temporalized. It is in relation to these features of Aristotelian possibility that his modal assumption concerning dunamis makes sense. I discuss this in the next section. What role does the principle "if X is incapable of F, then F is impossible for X" play in Aristotle's argument against the Megarians? Consider the dunamis a person might have to stand and the dunamis the same person might also have to sit. Suppose that the person is actually sitting and not standing. For Aristotle this is compatible with the person's being able to stand; even though a person is sitting, he is able to stand. Hence it is not impossible that he stand at another time. In the Megarian account, however, if the person is not standing then he does not have the dunamis for standing. But if he is incapable of standing, then it is impossible for that person to stand (given Aristotle's principle connecting incapacity with impossibility). And, if it is impossible that the person stand, then it is false to say that he stands or that he will stand. Aristotle's argu-

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis merit assumes a connection between a substance's being capable or incapable of doing something (dunatos and adunatos in one of its senses) and an occurrence's being possible or impossible for a substance (dunatos and adunatos in the sense Aristotle distinguishes in Metaphysics v, chapter 12). Dunamis doesn't mean possibility, but it has modal implications. I have claimed that the Immobility Argument turns on the principle that if it is possible for X to F, then X can F. Possibility and power are connected in the other direction as well, when Aristotle stipulates when an entity is capable of doing something as follows: "A thing is capable of doing something if there is nothing impossible in its having the actuality of that of which it is said to have the capacity. I mean for instance, if a thing is capable of sitting and it is open to it to sit, there will be nothing impossible in its actually sitting" (1047a24-28).28 Aristotle's criterion for when a substance is capable of doing something says that if X is capable of F, then it is possible that X do F. If a person is capable of sitting, then it is possible that she sit. If a person is capable of playing the viola, then it is possible that she play the viola. Taken with the earlier principle, we can see that Aristotle holds a relationship of mutual implication between capacity and possibility. If I am capable of playing the viola, then it is possible that I play the viola, and if it is possible that I play the viola, then I am capable of doing so. The connection Aristotle draws between what a substance can do or suffer, its active and passive powers, and what is possible for it raises a number of important questions. First, what concept of possibility could Aristotle have in mind? Clearly it is not logical possibility, since what is logically possible (self-consistent) for a substance is neither conditioned by, nor limited to, its powers. But, if there is a biconditional relationship between the capacities of substances and their possibilities, then what is possible for them is conditioned by their present state and in particular their present powers. Hence what is possible for them is not simply what is logically possible for them. What concept of possibility is Aristotle using in his argument against Megarian actualism? Second, we might wonder why Aristotle uses temporal language in connection with possibility (and impossibility) in this text. Al-

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though it is not my intention to explore Aristotelian modality and time systematically, as others have done,29 the issue demands our attention because Metaphysics ix contains some of the central texts that some scholars think establish a connection between Aristotelian modality and time.30 For example, in one interpretation, the second premise of the Immobility Argument makes an explicit connection between impossibility and time in the following: "He who says of that which is impossible of happening that it is or will be will say what is untrue; for that is what impossible meant" (1047al3-14). Even if we do not take this sentence as giving a definition of impossibility in terms of what is false to say about the present and future, the temporal references are curious. How might we understand the role of the temporal references in the second premise of the Immobility Argument?31

4. Powers, Natural Possibility, and Time Commentators largely agree that Aristotle does not provide definitions of possibility and impossibility. They also agree that Aristotle supplies the following rule for determining whether something is possible (the principle of possibility):32 I say that the possible is that which is not necessary but which, if we suppose it the case, has no impossible consequences. (Prior Analytics I.13.32al8-20)

The principle of possibility is compatible with the notion of logical possibility, since it could be used as a test for logical possibility. However, many scholars have questioned whether Aristotelian possibility is logical possibility. For example, Sorabji argues that Aristotle does not distinguish logical possibility from causal or natural possibility.33 Why have scholars tended to reject the interpretation of Aristotelian possibility as logical possibility? The answer is obvious once we look at the way Aristotle uses the principle of possibility in the Immobility Argument in book ix. There, Aristotle uses a version of the principle of possibility to determine when a substance has a capacity. "And a thing is capable of

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis doing something if there is nothing impossible in its having the actuality of that of which it is said to have the capacity" (1047a24-25; cf. 1047b9-ll). There is little doubt that Aristotle here has adapted the principle of possibility to serve as a rule for determining whether a substance has a power. The adaptation of the principle of possibility into a test for when a substance has a dunamis underscores the fact that Aristotle systematically connects what a substance can do, its powers, with what is possible for it. Aristotle's notion of possibility in the Immobility Argument is one of natural possibility rather than logical possibility. Aristotle does not argue against the Megarians that the identification of dunamis with actuality (the Identity Thesis) has a logically impossible consequence. Nothing logically inconsistent follows from supposing that powers and actualities are the same. Instead, Aristotle argues that the Identity Thesis has consequences which are impossible given the causal order of nature or are naturally impossible. Given that there is change and motion, and given that the Identity Thesis has the consequence that all change and motion will cease, we ought to reject it. We ought to accept the existence of inactive dunamis and reject Megarian actualism. The idea of natural or causal possibility/impossibility connects Aristotelian modality with the causal powers of substances. Yet, many commentators, including Hintikka, have emphasized a different aspect of Aristotelian modality, namely the connection between possibility/impossibility and time. The second premise of the Immobility Argument is cited as providing evidence that Aristotle had a temporal or statistical model for the modalities: "He who says of that which is adunatos of happening that it is or will be will say what is untrue; for that is what adunatos meant/7 The claim is that "impossible" means what never happens, and that, in general, Aristotle's modal notions should be understood temporally (and statistically). In contrast, I claimed earlier that with the phrase "for that is what adunatos meant" Aristotle is pointing out that adunatos can mean either "incapable" or "impossible." And, I understand Aristotle as saying further that of what is impossible, it is false to say that it is or will be. In my view, with the phrase "for that is what adunatos meant" Aristotle is connecting capacity/incapacity with possibility/impossibility, and in the alternative interpretation he is

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connecting possibility/impossibility with happening at some time/happening at no time. How can we decide between these two interpretations of the second premise? I suggest that we look at the context of Aristotle's argument and at what it is that he needs to establish. The conclusion is that all motion and change would cease if the Megarian Identity Thesis were true. The Megarian Identity Thesis collapses dunamis and actuality. What Aristotle needs to show is that getting rid of inactive dunamis will result in an end of all change and motion. The key step in this argument is the connection of capacity/incapacity with possibility/impossibility, and not the temporal analysis of what possibility/impossibility means. Once the connection between incapacity and impossibility is drawn, then it makes sense for Aristotle to explain its consequences with references to the present and future, for causal powers operate in those temporal modes; they are present and future oriented. Further, given Aristotle's exact words, my interpretation is more plausible. Aristotle's use of the imperfect tense in the phrase "for that is what adunatos meant" suggests a generally accepted linguistic truth rather than a highly controversial proposal concerning the meaning of "impossible." That adunatos means both "incapable" and "impossible" is a generally accepted truth, whereas the alternative interpretation—that is, the temporal analysis of impossible—is both innovative and peculiar. Indeed, in the very next chapter, Aristotle explicitly asserts the distinction between the false and the impossible, a distinction which disappears if impossible just means false at all times (1047M3-14). My argument is narrow. I am not making the broad claim that Aristotle did not offer a temporal analysis of possibility and impossibility in other texts. Rather, I am claiming that the best interpretation of the second premise of the Immobility Argument does not provide support for a temporal interpretation of Aristotelian modalities. The basic idea is simple. What Aristotle's Immobility Argument has to establish is a connection between incapacity and impossibility. He does this by pointing out that the same word (adunatos) means both "incapable" and "impossible." Without this connection, Aristotle's argument does not work against the Megari-

Aristotle's Defense o/Dunamis ans. But, the argument does not need, in addition, to assert any particular understanding of the meaning of "impossible."34

5. Conclusion In light of the intimate connection between a substance's powers or capacities and what is naturally possible for it to do, or to become, it is reasonable to ask whether there is any difference between what a substance is potentially and its natural possibilities. Indeed, some scholars think that by potentiality Aristotle simply means what is possible for X or the possible X.35 In this interpretation, the ontological purpose of Metaphysics ix is to differentiate between mere possibility and actual existence. In chapter 2, I argue against this interpretation on the grounds that Aristotle explicitly lays down conditions on being X potentially that are more restrictive than the conditions governing being a possible X. Hence, the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually is not the distinction between X being merely possible and X actually existing. But, if being X potentially does not mean the possible X, then what is the ontological meaning of dunamisl In chapter 2, I explain Aristotle's distinction between the powers or capacities of substances and being X potentially, which is the ontological meaning of dunamis. In the view that I develop, Aristotle distinguishes between the powers and capacities of substances, and potentiality. The distinction between being X potentially and being X actually refers to a difference between two ways of being something. In contrast, powers are the causal dispositions of substances, which can themselves exist in two ways—inactively (potentially) or actively (actually). Indeed, as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, since the contrast between being X potentially and being X actually is part of Aristotle's anti-Megarian explanation of the powers and capacities of substances, power and potentiality must be independent notions.

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y defeating Megarian actualism, Aristotle has justified our references to inactive powers and abilities in ordinary nontheoretical explanations and their theoretical use in his own explanations of natural processes, human actions, and human productive activities. In chapter 1, we saw that Aristotle's technical notion of dunamis, especially in its modal associations, enriches (or makes explicit) the ordinary meaning of the term, and it is not yet clear what other differences there may be between ordinary and Aristotelian usage. Although Aristotelian powers, which exist both as inactive and as active, point in the direction of his distinction between being X potentially and being X actually, it is not yet clear what Aristotle's notion of potentiality is, or even that Aristotle distinguishes an ontological notion of potentiality different from an ability or causal power of a substance. In this chapter, I argue that Aristotle distinguishes between two basic meanings of dunamis in Metaphysics ix.1 I mark this distinction by translating dunamis as "causal power" ("power" for short) and as "potentiality." Powers are capacities of substances to change

Power and Potentiality

another substance or to be changed by another substance.2 Hence, as we saw in chapter 1, powers are central to Aristotle's explanation of how change happens, both in nature and in the sphere of human practical activity. Potentiality, in contrast, is important to Aristotle's understanding of being. It is a term in Aristotle's ontology. The distinction between being X potentially and being X actually allows Aristotle's ontology to differentiate ways of being something, in addition to the perhaps more familiar categorical distinction among kinds of beings. My claim is not that with the distinction between potentiality and actuality, Aristotle introduces two new kinds of beings, amplifying the number of the canonical list of categories from ten to twelve. Rather, with this distinction, Aristotle introduces a new meaning of being—a noncategorical meaning of being—which applies to entities in the categories. Substances, like individual animals, can exist both potentially (when immature) and actually (when fully mature); qualities of substances, like the knowledge of grammar, can exist both potentially (when inactive) and actually (when active). As we will see, Aristotle illustrates the relationship between being X potentially and being X actually with two kinds of examples: the relationship between an inactive capacity and its active exercise, and the relationship between an incomplete substance and a complete (or perfected) substance. Aristotle's first example addresses the problem of inactive dunamis, the existence of which was challenged by the Megarians, who thought that a person can see only when she is seeing. When a capacity is inactive, it is potentially, and when it is active, it is actually.3 The example of incomplete to complete substance responds to the problem of the identity of immature, natural substances that lack their essential or typical features. A baby, who can neither reason nor reproduce, is a human being potentially, and a man is a human being actually. Aristotle thinks that the two kinds of examples are analogically alike; as the activity of seeing is to the power of sight so, too, is a mature, fully functioning man in relation to a baby. There is strong textual evidence that Aristotle intends to distinguish between powers and another sense of dunamis in Metaphysics ix, although it is much less clear what that "new" sense of dunamis

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is. One reason for the difficulty is that Aristotle introduces the "new" meaning of dunamis in a list of examples in Metaphysics ix, chapter 6 (1048a37-b6), which have inspired many interpretations. Some scholars think that Aristotle wants to introduce talk of the possible X, in contrast to the actual X.4 Others think that Aristotle wants to introduce a special kind of causal power that governs the internal development of substances.5 In addition, there is a question of interpretation concerning whether all of Aristotle's examples introduce the "new" meaning.6 In the view I develop here all five examples are intended to illustrate the relationship between being X actually and being X potentially. They are all examples of different ways of being: as an active dunamis is in relation to an inactive dunamis, so is a complete (or perfected) substance in relation to an incomplete (or imperfect) substance. What unites these examples, which Aristotle describes as one by analogy, is not the kind of items mentioned but rather the fact that each is specified relationally; it is in relation to itself as active that an inactive power is potentially. What is actually is in a fuller degree of realization, or completion, than what is potentially. In my view, there are two basic conceptual differences between power and potentiality. First, Aristotelian powers, both agent and passive powers, obey the different object requirement. Agent powers initiate changes that occur in objects other than themselves; passive powers suffer changes that originate in objects other than themselves. Second, Aristotle gives a dispositional analysis of capacities or powers. Indeed, Aristotle proposes to define a power in terms of a specification of the conditions that necessarily activate it.7 In contrast, being X potentially is a relational way of being that is both teleologically directed toward, and ontologically dependent on, being X actually.8 The relationship of teleological dependence between being X potentially and being X actually need not satisfy the different object requirement, and it is not captured in a dispositional analysis. I combine the textual evidence that Aristotle intends to introduce a new meaning of dunamis in Metaphysics ix, chapter 6, with the two conceptual differences between power and potentiality to make the case that Aristotle introduces a new, ontological meaning of dunamis in Metaphysics ix.

Power and Potentiality 1. Agent and Passive Powers The primary, or basic, meaning of dunamis, Aristotle tells us in the first chapter of Metaphysics ix, is "the origin of change in another thing or in the thing itself as other" (1046alO-l 1). A dunamis, in this sense, is a power to change another thing. As examples, Aristotle mentions the art of building and the power of heating. These powers are origins of changes, of building and of heating, respectively, that are located in an object that is separate from the building materials or the cold body. The act of building a house or heating a body has its beginning in a power or ability of the builder or heating agent. The primary meaning of dunamis centers on the idea of an agent or an active power.9 In the case of a builder, the power or ability to build originates in his knowledge of the art of building. A heating agent, in contrast, is able to heat by virtue of being hot. In one case, the power that originates the change is like the product (heat), and in the other case it is different (the art of building is not a building). It is interesting that Aristotle explains both human agency and natural causal interactions by means of the notions of agent and passive powers. Although Aristotle distinguishes rational from nonrational powers later in Metaphysics ix, the distinction between rational agents and causal powers is not fundamental to his thought. Rather, the class of agent powers includes both rational powers and powers that do not involve reason, a distinction Aristotle develops in Metaphysics ix, chapters 2 and 5. In chapter 3 I explain how rational and nonrational powers differ, and why that difference does not affect Aristotle's approach to defining powers in terms of the conditions that necessitate their activity. Corresponding to the idea of an agent power is a passive power, the power an object has to be changed in some respect. Each agent power or agent requires a corresponding receptivity to change in the object. "For the one is in the thing acted on; it is because it contains a certain motive principle, and because even the matter is a motive principle, that the thing acted on is acted on. .. . For that which is oily can be burnt and that which yields in a particular way can be crushed" (1046a20-25).10 Some of these examples might give the impression that all agent powers originate in the form of a substance, while all

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Ways of Being passive powers originate in its matter. For example, the agent power of the doctor's art originates in her soul or form, and the passive power of an olive to be crushed is clearly a material feature. The correlation between agent power and form, and passive power and matter, does not hold in all cases. For example, the agent power of heat is material, and the ability to learn music is a passive power that originates in the form or soul of the student. Therefore, agent and passive powers cannot be systematically correlated with form and matter. Aristotle's discussion of agent and passive powers strongly suggests that they can be given a dispositional analysis. To say that oil has the passive power of being flammable is to say that under certain conditions (which can be given a general or lawlike specification) oil will burn. Similarly, to say that fire has the agent power of heating is to say that under certain conditions (which can be given a general or lawlike specification) fire will heat another object. Absent the appropriate set of conditions, however, neither power will be activated or expressed. Hence, its agent and passive powers are dispositions that a substance has to act upon another substance or to be acted upon by another substance. I discuss Aristotle's dispositional analysis of powers further in chapter 3, and I explain later in this chapter that Aristotle's notion of being X potentially should not be given a dispositional analysis. This is a clear and crucial conceptual difference between the two meanings of dunamis which Aristotle distinguishes in Metaphysics ix. Aristotle insists on the separate location of agent and passive powers: insofar as an agent changes something, it changes another object, and not itself. The agent power and the passive power are in two different objects,- they satisfy the different object requirement. If an object changes itself, as, for example, a doctor might cure herself, then Aristotle's different object requirement holds that we must divide the doctor into agent and patient. Aristotle adds: "And so, insofar as a thing is an organic unity (sumpephuken), it cannot be acted upon by itself; for it is one and not two different things" [1046a28-29]. The different object requirement limits the domain of agent and passive powers so that they cannot explain changes which are internal to a natural substance, if that substance undergoes the change as a unified whole.11 So, for example, we cannot use agent

Power and Potentiality and passive powers to explain the process of development a human being undergoes from infancy through childhood to adulthood since that happens to the human organism as a whole. And, since every plant and animal is a natural unity which undergoes development, not all the changes that natural substances cause and undergo can be explained within the framework of agent and passive powers.12 In Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, Aristotle tells us that he is particularly interested a kind of dunamis he calls "nature." Nature is an internal principle of change within a unified organism, which Aristotle explicitly distinguishes from agent and passive powers by invoking the different object requirement (1049b5-10). Even within the realm of change, therefore, Aristotle's understanding of dunamis is not restricted to agent and passive powers. Is nature, an internal principle of change and development, the new meaning of dunamis t Both the fact that Aristotle defines nature, and the fact that nature is a principle of motion and change, make it unlikely that nature is what Aristotle means by the new sense of dunamis.13 Indeed, Aristotle prefaces the description of agent and passive powers with a disclaimer. Even though dunamis most centrally refers to agent powers, these powers are not most useful for his present purposes [1045b35-1046a]. And, Aristotle adds that dunamis and energeia have application "beyond what is said about motion" [1046al-2]. But the idea of a power to change another thing, and the idea of a power to be changed by another thing, governed by the different object requirement, seem suited precisely to the arena of motion and change. And even dunamis understood as nature, as the internal origin of change of a unified organism, is still a principle of motion or development. Hence, Aristotle's prefatory remarks invite speculation on several fronts. First, what are Aristotle's present purposes? What is the purpose of Metaphysics ix? Second, what application could dunamis and energeia have outside or beyond the realm of motion?

2. Potentiality, Actuality, and Being In the first few lines of Metaphysics ix, Aristotle explicitly distinguishes his present concern, the distinction between potentiality

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and actuality, from the inquiry into substance pursued elsewhere, presumably in Metaphysics vn (1045b28-35). In making this distinction, Aristotle refers to his division of being in Metaphysics v, chapter 7. In this text, he distinguishes: (1) being according to the categories, (2) accidental being, (3) being as true and false, and (4) being as potentiality and actuality (1017a35-b9). The project of book ix is to investigate a different meaning of being from being according to the categories. In book v Aristotle illustrates the last division of being with two types of examples. The first example contrasts two ways that we attribute a power or ability to a substance. We say that a person knows both when she is actively knowing and when she is merely able to do so. In the former case she is actually knowing, and in the latter case she knows potentially. The second set of examples contrasts two ways in which we attribute substantial identity. We identify as grain both ripe or complete exemplars and unripe, immature plants. When it is fully ripe, it is grain in actuality,- when it is unripe, it is grain in potentiality.14 We will see that Aristotle uses examples of both these types to illustrate the distinction between actuality and potentiality in Metaphysics ix, chapter 6. According to the text at Metaphysics v, chapter 7, the investigation of the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually is part of Aristotle's inquiry into being. Hence, the general purpose of Metaphysics ix is to provide part of Aristotle's answer to the question: What is being?15 We would expect that the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually will play an important role in Aristotle's understanding of being. Moreover, since being X potentially and being X actually constitute a division of being that is separate from that of the division including substance and the other categories, it is plausible to think that the purpose of this distinction is different from the division of being into substance and the other categories. My view is that being X potentially and being X actually distinguish two ways of being rather than adding two new kinds of entities to Aristotle's ontological inventory. And, it is a central claim of this book that Aristotle draws this distinction primarily in order to further the basic ontological argument of Metaphysics ix (see Introduction for an overview of Aristotle's argu-

Power and Potentiality ment). Keeping these preliminary points in mind, let us return to Metaphysics ix, and to the examples that Aristotle provides there.

3. Aristotle's Examples of Potentiality and Actuality At the beginning of Metaphysics ix, chapter 6, Aristotle reminds us of his earlier promise to explain the use of dunamis which extends beyond the sphere of motion in his explanation of energeia, to which he now turns: Since we have treated of the kind of dunamis which is related to movement, let us discuss energeia—what and what kind of thing energeia is. For in the course of our analysis it will also become clear with regard to the potential that we not only ascribe power to that whose nature it is to move something else, or to be moved by something else, either without qualification or in some particular way, but also use the word in another sense, which is the reason of the inquiry in the course of which we have discussed these previous senses also. (1048a25-30, my italics) In these prefatory comments, Aristotle tells us two things. First, he intends to distinguish between dunamis as power and another meaning of the term. Second, the discussion of powers should be relevant to understanding the other sense of dunamis. In other words, Aristotle has discussed dunamis in the sense of causal power as part of his inquiry into a second sense of the term. Causal powers are crucial for Aristotle's new meaning of dunamis for two reasons. First, the existence of inactive powers provides one piece of the ontological puzzle that Aristotle addresses in Metaphysics ix. The puzzle, which is introduced in Aristotle's argument against the Megarians, is to explain the existence or being of inactive powers. Second, the relationship between a power when it is active and when it is inactive provides a key example of the distinction between being X actually and being X potentially. It is fair to say that the discussion of dunamis as power, and the fact that both agent and

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passive powers exist in two ways, sets the stage for Aristotle's discussion of being X potentially. Third, Aristotle's distinctions among different kinds of powers prepares us for his complex argument for the priority of actuality. Aristotle has said that his present discussion of energeia, or actuality, will help us to understand the "new" sense of dunamis. And he continues: "Actuality is the existence of the thing not in the way we express by potentiality" (1048a30-32). It might seem that Aristotle is talking in a circle, first promising to clarify the new sense of dunamis by his explanation of actuality, and then explaining that being X actually is a different way of being from being X potentially. Aristotle does not commit the sin of circular definition, however, because he does not think that either term can be defined. Rather, he tells us that being X actually must be understood in contrast to being X potentially, and by example. The examples are analogically alike, in Aristotle's cryptic phrase "as this is in that, or in relation to that so, too, is this in that or in relation to that" (1048b6-8). As G. E. R. Lloyd points out, the root meaning of to analogon is proportion, and so what Aristotle claims to be alike in the examples is the relationship between each pair, and not the items mentioned themselves.16 This is a crucial point since differences among the items mentioned might lead us to the mistaken conclusion that only some of Aristotle's examples introduce the "new" or ontological sense of dunamis. At 1048a37-b5 Aristotle illustrates the relationship between being X actually and being X potentially with five examples. While scholars generally agree that Aristotle's examples include that of the exercise of a capacity to the inactive capacity (e.g., someone actually seeing to someone who can see but has her eyes shut), and that of a completed substance to its matter, the interpretations of these examples differ widely.171 distinguish two kinds of examples: the relationship between the exercise of a capacity to an inactive capacity, and the relationship between a complete (or perfected) substance and an incomplete substance. In my reading, therefore, these examples correspond to the two kinds of examples given in Metaphysics v, chapter 7, where Aristotle distinguishes potentiality and actuality as one division of being.

Power and Potentiality Here are Aristotle's examples: It is as (a) what is building to what is capable of building and (b) the waking to the sleeping, and (c) what is seeing to what has its eyes shut but has sight and (d) that which has been shaped out of the matter to the matter and (e) that which has been wrought up to the not thoroughly wrought.18 Let actuality be set down as one side of this and let the potential be the other. (1048a37-1048b6)19 Examples (a) to (c) contrast the exercise of an ability or power with the inactive power. Aristotle's language throughout is concrete. He contrasts the thing that is building with the thing that is capable of building, for example, but the distinction is between two ways of manifesting the building power or dunamis. A single entity with a single dunamis could exemplify both ways of being at different times. Examples (d) and (e) are different. Example (d) is the relationship between a material object and some matter from which it has been shaped. For example, we might think of an artifact like a bed in relation to the matter which constitutes it (wood) or, alternatively, the matter from which it was made. Example (e) is slightly different again, since it describes the relationship between an incomplete and a completed product. As an example, think of an artifact that is being crafted or an animal that is developing. My interpretation of Aristotle's examples makes two basic claims. First, Aristotle's five examples of being X potentially ought not to be interpreted as either agent or passive powers when considered in relation to their corresponding actualities. Let me be clear. Although the house-building ability is an agent power, Aristotle is here using it to exemplify two ways of being something. When active, the house-building power is actually,- when inactive it is potentially. Aristotle's distinction between being X potentially (as exemplified by an inactive dunamis) and being X actually (as exemplified by an active dunamis) is a crucial ingredient of his response to Megarian actualism, which denies the existence of inactive dunamis. Moreover, since Aristotle applies the distinction between

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being X potentially and being X actually to powers like house building, and since he applies it to examples other than powers, being X potentially cannot be identical to being a power. Second, all five examples are analogically alike and all five exemplify the ontological distinction, and relationship, between being X potentially and being X actually. The basis for the analogical similarity lies not in the items mentioned, which are diverse, but in the relationship between each pair, which is like that of a power or capacity to its exercise—that is, that of degree of realization or way of being. Later, in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, Aristotle specifies that there is a teleological relationship between the two ways of being. What exists potentially is for the sake of being actually, and he mentions examples of each kind (Metaphysics ix.8.1050a5-17). The teleological dependency of what is X potentially on what is X actually is part of Aristotle's argument for the priority of actuality, which I discuss in detail in chapter 4. Let us now go back to Aristotle's examples of being X actually in relation to being X potentially, and consider examples (a) to (c). The causal interaction between agent and passive power is governed by the different object requirement; each power is located in a different object. But the items that Aristotle identifies as potentialities in examples (a) to (c) do not satisfy that requirement. A capacity, like sight, is not a different object from its exercise, seeing. The activity of seeing is simply an expression or realization of the ability to see. Capacities and their exercise do not satisfy the different object requirement because a capacity is not related to its exercise as a causal agent is related to the different object it acts upon. Moreover, the relationship between the ability to see and seeing, the realization of the ability, is not adequately described as the activation of a disposition to see, because what is potentially (in this case, the ability to see) exists for the sake of the activity (in this case, seeing), and a dispositional analysis cannot express a teleological, or "for the sake of," relationship. Does Aristotle think of being potentially X as a disposition to become X plus a teleological directedness toward becoming X? Could we view being potentially X as a special, teleologically enhanced kind of disposition? After all, Aristotle gives a straightforward dis-

Power and Potentiality

positional analysis of powers such as housebuilding; on this view being potentially X is a disposition to X, plus a teleological directedness toward X. But this compresses two distinct questions: First, what is the relationship between an inactive power and itself in activity? (For Aristotle, this is the teleological, dependency relationship between being X potentially and being X actually.) Second, under what causal conditions is a power activated? (For Aristotle, this is given in a dispositional analysis.) Furthermore, the items that exemplify being X actually in examples (a) to (c) are not motions or changes caused by the correlated potentiality. Recall that Aristotle sets out to exemplify dunamis and energeia as they apply beyond the sphere of motion. The relationship between being X potentially and being X actually is not that between causal agent and motion—for example, the causal relationship between the agent power of house building and the motion it initiates in the house-building materials (the bricks and stones). It is rather the relationship between a dormant power and its being active, which are different realizations of one thing—for example, the house-building power. The capacity to build a house can be used to exemplify two relationships. On the one hand, it is an agent power, which in the right circumstances and in the presence of the appropriate passive power(s) (the materials) will initiate the motion of house building. On the other hand, we can use it as Aristotle does here, to exemplify two ways of being X. When inactive, the housebuilding dunamis is potentially; when active, the house-building dunamis is actually. The actualization of a capacity is not itself a motion or change in another object, even though the actualizations of some powers, like house building, will cause motions in the building materials, which have the correlative passive dunamis. The actualizations of other powers, like sight, result in an activity (seeing) and not a motion or a change in another object. But, because Aristotle is here interested in exemplifying the transition from an agent power being inactive to it being active, the further difference between powers that originate motions, and those that originate activities, is not directly relevant to the interpretation of his examples.20 In Metaphysics ix, chapter 6, Aristotle distinguishes motions like

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house building from activities like seeing, by means of a cluster of related features21 (1048bl8-36). For the sake of clarity, I will refer to the two types of motions Aristotle distinguishes in this text as incomplete and complete motions even though he sometimes calls incomplete motions just "motions" and sometimes calls complete motions "activities" (1048b28). Motions like losing weight, walking, and building are incomplete because while they are in process they have not attained their end ("without already being that at which the movement aims," 1048b21-23). Thinking and seeing, in contrast, are complete even while they are in process. One test to distinguish between complete and incomplete motions is the tense test: "At the same time we are seeing and have seen, are understanding and have understood, are thinking and have thought, while it is not true that at the same time we are learning and have learnt, or are being cured and have been cured" (1048b23-25). Both the power of sight and the power of house building, when inactive, exist potentially in relation to their actualizations. The actualization of the ability to see causes a complete motion, and the actualization of the ability to build causes an incomplete motion, which is completed only when the house is built. The difference between incomplete motions, like house building, and complete motions, like seeing, is not central to the distinction Aristotle draws between being X potentially and being X actually since he uses both as examples.22 It is an important distinction for Aristotle's general argument for the priority of actuality and, in particular, for his argument for the priority of eternal substances in relation to perishable substances.23 Hence, the distinction between incomplete motions and complete motions fits into the general argument of Metaphysics ix, even if it is not directly relevant to his illustrations of the difference between being X potentially and being X actually. What about examples (d) and (e), which Aristotle apparently groups together under the label "matter in relation to substance"? Example (d), what has been separated out of the matter to the matter, and example (e), that which has been wrought up to the not thoroughly wrought, have been interpreted in two basic ways. Some scholars understand them both as referring to the process of generation of either an artifact or an animal.24 The potentiality, the raw

Power and Potentiality

matter, is a different object from the actuality, the product or resultant object. The original matter from which the object is produced has the passive power, or potentiality, to be made into a product. In this interpretation, in these examples, dunamis as potentiality means dunamis as passive power.25 Alternatively, the potentiality could be viewed as the possible object in contrast to the actual or existent object. In this interpretation dunamis as potentiality is not the matter's passive power,- rather, it is the possible object, and actuality means the existent object. If the examples (d) and (e) are to be understood as illustrating the "new" meaning of dunamis, however, they ought to be analogically like Aristotle's first three examples. At minimum this means that they should not be interpreted as examples of motions like generations, and the items mentioned should not be different objects, but contrasting ways of being, like an exercise of a power is to the power when inactive. I think that Aristotle's examples illustrate the ontological relationship between an incomplete and a complete substance. These are different ways of being a substance. Using this interpretation, we can understand all five of Aristotle's examples to exemplify the ontological distinction, and relationship, between being X potentially and being X actually, which are different ways of being X. There is one strong initial consideration that favors my approach to examples (d) and (e). If these examples of dunamis and energeia were generations, it is hard to understand why Aristotle says that the sense of dunamis he is now interested in explaining goes beyond the sphere of motion. On the other hand, it might be objected that, whatever Aristotle might say about his current project, these examples simply do not fit with the earlier three. Indeed, the items mentioned are clearly different from the first three examples, and Aristotle acknowledges this point by describing them in different terms—that is, as substance in relation to matter (1048b8-9). How is it possible to understand these examples in a way that reveals their analogical similarity to the first three examples? In particular, how can we understand them as exemplifying different ways of being rather than as examples of the different beings that begin and end a process of generation? Even if we don't interpret them as

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intended by Aristotle to exemplify generation, they do seem to include mention of different objects. Isn't the matter from which an artifact, like a statue, is made different from the statue? Isn't an unworked or incomplete object different from a complete one? In order to address these questions, we must turn to Aristotle's discussion of potentiality in Metaphysics ix, chapter 7. Aristotle's question in this text is not: When does something have the dispositional properties to become X? Rather, the questions is: When is something X potentially?26 As we will see in chapter 3, Aristotle gives a dispositional analysis of the agent and passive powers of substances, but that analysis is different from the conditions on being X potentially, which he describes here. Aristotle gives two conditions for being X potentially, one for artifacts, like houses, and one for natural beings. Of artifacts, he says, "There is potentially a house, if nothing in the thing acted on—the matter—prevents it from becoming a house, and if there is nothing which must be added or taken away or changed" (1049a8-ll). The matter is potentially a house when it needs no alteration to be made into a house. This condition is met by the building materials from the beginning of the building process to the end, assuming that the materials are ready to be used. And, the matter that constitutes an artifact also meets this definition. During the process of building the house, the bricks and other materials are potentially a house. In relation to the completed, fully worked house, which is actually, the materials (which now constitute that house) are also a house potentially in the sense that they could be removed and made into another house. Of natural beings, Aristotle says, "All those things are said to be potentially something else which will be it of themselves, if nothing external hinders them" (1049al3-14). In contrast to the case of artifacts, the "raw materials" of animal reproduction, the male and female contributions to generation (sperma and katamenia), do not meet this requirement, since neither is capable of independent development. Sperma and katamenia are not potentially an animal. Once the fetus develops a heart, it might satisfy Aristotle's criterion, because it will become a human being, unless it is hindered from the outside. It could be argued, however, that even the fetus is not potentially human because it will not be human of itself, since

Power and Potentiality

its fate is dependent on another substance (the mother).27 Once a baby is born, however, we have a clear case of a potential human being, who will develop the human function by itself—barring external hindrances. But isn't a baby already actually a human being? In Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, Aristotle contrasts a man, who already has the form, with a boy, who does not (1050a4-7). Being human admits of degrees, and Aristotle's notion of being X potentially allows for different degrees of being something. The idea that being X potentially and being X actually allows for degrees of being X is important for understanding Aristotle's ranking of different kinds of substances, different species, and different members of the same species in other texts. I discuss these issues further in chapter 5. There is an important contrast between artifacts and natural beings. For artifacts, the matter that can be made into the artifact, or is in the process of being made, is the artifact potentially, and the matter retains that potentiality when the artifact exists. The materials from which an animal originates, in contrast, are not the animal potentially. The entity that will develop into the animal, by itself, barring external interference, is the animal potentially. Rather than making a contrast between the matter and the object constituted by the matter, Aristotle is contrasting two stages in the process of development of a natural being. And, the process of development does not end at birth, but rather when the animal is complete and can function in the appropriate ways. The animal that is actually is the mature, fully functioning creature, not the fetus and not the baby. The process of development, the path from being an animal potentially to being an animal actually, begins when the animal has an inner principle of development, but it continues after birth until the animal is a fully functioning, complete specimen. Because natural substances undergo a process of development or perfection originating in an internal principle, once the internal principle is operative, the substance is potentially. There are different ways of being a substance like a human being in the sense that the human function can be realized to different degrees. Just as an active power like house building can exist in different ways so, too, Aristotle wants us to see that there are different ways of being

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human, of realizing that function. But a boy and an adult male realize one and the same function, in different ways, or to different degrees of completion or perfection, and so a child and an adult are not different kinds of beings, even though one can reason and reproduce, and the other cannot. Let us now return to the interpretation of examples (d) and (e). Example (d) contrasts an object in relation to the matter from which it was made, or the matter which currently constitutes it—for example, a statue in relation to a piece of marble. The other contrasts an object that has been "worked" or completed with one that is unworked or incomplete—for example, a finished statue with an unfinished one. Aristotle's language in both examples suggests that he is thinking of an artifact, but we know that the contrast between being X actually and being X potentially applies to both artifacts and natural substances. Recall that Aristotle mentions ripe and unripe grain elsewhere to exemplify the distinction between actuality and potentiality. And, in Metaphysics ix, chapter 7, when Aristotle raises the general problem of how to distinguish when a thing is potentially, he explains what he means by using the example of a natural substance and not an artifact. He asks whether earth is potentially a man, or whether the earth must already be seed to count as potentially a man (1049al-3). While the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually applies to both artifacts and natural substances, it is interesting to note that the relationship illustrated in example (d) applies only to artifacts. Only in the case of artifacts does the originating matter, or the constituting matter, count as being potentially the object, according to the discussion of potentiality in Metaphysics ix, chapter 7. In the case of natural substances, what is the substance potentially is an incomplete or immature being, which is able to develop on its own into the mature exemplar. Example (e), which contrasts an incomplete with a complete object, best fits Aristotle's specification of potentiality for natural substances. My interpretation of Aristotle's examples, with which he intends to illustrate the relationship between actuality and the "new" or ontological sense of potentiality, has taken very seriously the idea that the examples are analogically alike. I have tried to show, in particu-

Power and Potentiality

lar, a way in which the last two examples can be read as analogically similar to the first three. And I have done this by suggesting that the relationship between incomplete and complete substance can be understood as different ways of realizing a function, ability or power. And, if being X potentially is a way of realizing a function or power of a substance, then being X potentially is not identical to a function or power of a substance. Therefore, we can conclude that Aristotle distinguishes between dunamis as power and dunamis as potentiality in Metaphysics ix. How does this interpretation of Aristotle's distinction between power and potentiality fit with my claim that Metaphysics ix has an ontological purpose different from the one guiding the investigation of substance? After all, if Aristotle's examples of being X potentially are the inactive powers, originating matter, and incomplete stages of substances, it seems reasonable to think that Metaphysics ix could be labeled "more about substance/7 Don't Aristotle's examples of potentiality and actuality seem to support the interpretation of Metaphysics ix in which it tells us more about substance? Aristotle's distinction between being X potentially and being X actually is exemplified by beings in the category of substance, like boy and man. But it is also illustrated by causal powers, like heat or house building, which are beings in the category of relation (pros ti).28 Hence, the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually is not simply another vocabulary for describing entities in the category of substance. It is a cross-categorical ontological distinction. Moreover, in Metaphysics ix Aristotle is primarily interested in introducing his distinction between two ways of being something, as a preliminary to working out the priority relationships that exist between them. The second major thesis of book ix is the priority of actuality. And, as we will see in chapter 4, Aristotle's argument in book ix turns on the primacy of a way of being, being X actually, or actively, and not on the primacy of a kind of being—that is, substance. So, we ought not be led by Aristotle's examples of the two ways of being he needs to distinguish in order to make his argument for the priority of actuality to conclude that book ix is simply tells us more about substance.

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The problem of the unity of form and matter in the composite substance is often mentioned by scholars as the residual problem concerning substance which is addressed in book ix. In book vin, chapter 6, Aristotle famously claims that their unity is not a problem, if we understand that the form is actuality and the matter potentiality (Metaphysics vni.6.1045bl8-21). How does this use of the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually square with my interpretation of Aristotle's examples (d) and (e), and with my claim that Aristotle is not primarily addressing residual problems concerning substance in Metaphysics ix? My view is the following. Aristotle did not develop the contrast between being X potentially and being X actually in Metaphysics ix in order to solve the problem of the unity of form and matter in composite substances. One major indication of this is that the problem of unity is not discussed, or even mentioned, in Metaphysics ix.29 This omission is very strange, if resolving the problem of unity were either the purpose, or a major purpose, of the book. But, supposing that I am right and book ix has another agenda, how should we understand Aristotle's statement that the unity of the proximate matter and the form in a composite substance is unproblematic once we understand that the matter is potentially and the form is actually? Even though Aristotle does not directly address the problem of unity in Metaphysics IX, and even though his argument in that book has another focus, it makes sense for him to refer in general to the distinction drawn in book ix because what he says about being X potentially in relation to being X actually does provide his answer to the problem of unity. And what light does the distinction between being potentially X and being actually X in Metaphysics ix shed on the unity of the proximate matter and the form of composite substances? First, as we learn in chapter 7, not all composite substances are the same with regard to the conditions on being potentially X. Artifacts have different potentiality conditions from natural substances. In the case of artifacts, for example, the materials are potentially the house, once they need no alteration to be made into a house. They are potentially a house through the building process and even when they constitute a house (because they could be made into another house). For an artifact, the relationship between proxi-

Power and Potentiality

mate matter and substance is captured by example (d)—as matter to thing constituted out of the matter. For natural substances, however, what is potentially the substance is the incomplete, developing substance, which counts as matter in relation to the complete, or mature, substance. Here, being potentially X marks a stage of being relatively incomplete in relation to being actually, or completely, X. Hence, for natural substances, there is no analogue to the preexisting matter that is the potential house and that persists as potentially the house even after the house exists. Rather, there is simply a sequence of stages of being relatively incomplete (or unformed) in relation to a complete natural substance. Once we see this, we see that there is no problem of unity for natural substances parallel to that of artifacts. But the purpose of Aristotle's discussion of under what conditions X is potentially is to elaborate his distinction between potentiality and actuality; its purpose is not to provide a solution to the problem of unity. 4. Conclusion: The Role of Actuality In all five of Aristotle's examples, being X potentially and being X actually are specified relationally. What it is to be X potentially can be understood only in relation to what it is to be X actually. It is in relation to a finished sculpture that a block of marble is the statue potentially. It is in relation to an actual human being that being a baby (or perhaps a fetus with a heart) is human potentially. Aristotle's illustrations of being X potentially direct our attention toward actuality, in a way which suggests that actuality is the more important partner in the relationship. And, this suggestion is correct, as we will see in chapter 4, where I discuss Aristotle's explanation of the threefold priority of actuality. But why is this so? Why aren't being X potentially and being X actually equal partners in Aristotle's understanding of being? One way to begin to address this question is to underscore the teleological relationship between being X potentially and being X actually. Earlier I said that Aristotelian powers could be given a dispositional analysis,- a set of conditions could be specified which, in a

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lawlike or regular way, necessitated their activity. But I also insisted that the relationship between being X potentially and being X actually could not be given a dispositional analysis, and this is because the relationship between them is teleological. And the "for the sake of" relationship cannot be captured in a dispositional analysis. If a fire has the disposition to heat, that disposition will be active if it meets an object with the corresponding passive power in the appropriate circumstances. Aristotle thinks, in addition, that inactive powers exist for the sake of their activity, a teleological relationship that is independent of his account of the activation conditions of powers understood dispositionally. Indeed, I argue in chapter 4 that Aristotle thinks that there is a relationship of ontological dependence between what exists potentially and what exists actually. Before turning to Aristotle's argument for the priority of actuality, however, it is useful to consider another issue. Aristotle's first two examples of the distinction (and relationship) between being X potentially and being X actually are of a natural animal power (sight) and an acquired human skill (house building). Aren't there important, perhaps ontological, distinctions to be made among the powers of substances? Aren't human skills (like house building) importantly different from the natural capacities of animals (like sight), precisely with regard to the issue of teleology? In order to clarify that all Aristotelian powers, including those that are the origins of human actions and productive activity, are the dispositions of substances and are defined by their activation conditions, it is helpful to consider Aristotle's discussion of the difference between rational and nonrational powers. The distinction between rational and nonrational powers is also useful because it suggests different ways in which actuality might be prior to potentiality. And, as we will see in chapter 4, Aristotle's argument that actuality is prior to potentiality is complex in part because he distinguishes different senses of priority, and in part because these different senses of priority apply to rational powers, to nonrational powers and to nature in different ways. Yet, Aristotle wants to make a general argument for the priority of actuality. So it is important for him to introduce the distinctions among powers that are relevant to this general argument.

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Rational and Nonrational Powers

A

ristotle's explanation of agent and passive powers, the origins of change, mention both heat and the art of building as examples (1046a27). An agent power, like heat, acts upon another object, which has the corresponding passive power, to make it hot. The art of building is an agent power in the soul of the builder, which is the origin of the house-building process. Unlike many philosophers, Aristotle does not draw a fundamental—or ontological—distinction between causal powers operating in nature like heat, and the causal powers, or abilities, that originate purposive human actions, like the art of building, or practical reason. Aristotle mentions examples of both types in his initial discussion of agent powers (1046a26-27). In Metaphysics ix, chapters 2 and 5, however, Aristotle does differentiate between rational and nonrational powers.1 The art of building is an example of a rational power, and heat is an example of a nonrational power. In chapter 5 Aristotle also distinguishes several ways that powers are acquired; some powers, like perception, are innate,others, like playing the viola, develop through practice or through learning (1047b31-35). In this chapter, I explain Aristotle's distinc-

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tion between rational and nonrational powers and his brief discussion of the origin of powers. I also raise two broader questions of interpretation concerning Aristotle's fairly elaborate categorization of powers in chapters 2 and 5 of Metaphysics ix. First, what significance does this division among powers have for Aristotle's distinction between dunamis as power and dunamis as potentiality? Second, what relevance does Aristotle's discussion of the various kinds of powers and their origins have for his argument for the priority of actuality in relation to dunamis I These questions address the issue of the philosophical unity of Metaphysics ix, and therefore are important for the central interpretive thesis of this book. My thesis is that Metaphysics ix contains an internally coherent set of ontological distinctions and a cohesive line of argument employing those distinctions. This chapter explains how Aristotle's apparently random investigation of different kinds of agent powers is not a digression from the ontological argument of Metaphysics ix, but, rather, is directly connected to that argument. In chapter 2 I argued that a basic difference between an Aristotelian power and being X potentially is that a power is a disposition of a substance to change another substance, or to be changed by another substance, in conditions which can be given a general (or lawlike) specification. A power is a causal disposition of a substance. In contrast, being X potentially is teleologically related to being X actually, and this relationship is not captured by a dispositional analysis. Teleological directedness toward X is more than just a disposition to X in certain circumstances. But, where do rational powers, the origins of human purposive activity, fit in this schema? It might seem problematic to give them a straightforward dispositional analysis, since that would eliminate any ontological distinction between natural causation and human action. Pursuing this line of thought, it might seem that rational powers are like potentialities because they initiate intentional, goal-directed activities or actions. One might even think that Aristotle's distinction between being X potentially and being X actually was drawn primarily in relation to rational activities like thinking and choosing. In this chapter, I argue the reverse. The basic direction of Aris-

Rational and Nonrational Powers

totle's argument in Metaphysics ix is to assimilate rational powers to nonrational powers by formulating a dispositional analysis of them in chapter 5. There he makes clear that both nonrational powers and rational powers are to be defined in terms of their activation conditions. So, Aristotle does not think that a rational power, simply because its activation conditions include an extra feature, the agent's choice or desire, should be understood in terms fundamentally different from those used to explain nonrational powers.2 Rational powers are agent powers, and like all agent powers they can exist both potentially (when inactive) and actually (when active). Even though rational powers do not differ fundamentally—ontologically—from nonrational powers, the distinction between rational and nonrational powers has a role to play in the central argument of Metaphysics ix. As I explained in the Introduction, Aristotle's ontological argument in Metaphysics ix has two, related strands. The first strand establishes the existence of inactive dunamis, and the second strand argues for the priority of actuality in relation to dunamis. Aristotle completes his response to Megarian actualism, and its rejection of the existence of inactive dunamis, by spelling out his approach to the definition of dunamis, as power. Both rational and nonrational powers should be defined in terms of their activation conditions. It is worth noting that Aristotle reveals his actualist tendencies here in his proposal to define powers in terms of their activation conditions. The Megarian might be wrong to hold that a dunamis exists only when active, but Aristotle's proposed definition of powers verges upon the Megarian position, as it reveals the priority in definition, if not in being, of activity in relation to an inactive power. Priority in definition is one of the three kinds of priority that Aristotle claims for actuality in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8. Hence, what Aristotle says about the definition of rational and nonrational powers contributes to his argument for the priority of actuality. Aristotle's distinction between rational and nonrational powers is also useful and important in another way for his argument that actuality is prior to dunamis. In particular, this discussion lays the conceptual groundwork for the complexity of Aristotle's priority argument in chapter 8. It does so in two ways. First, it introduces the

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idea that there are different kinds of priority. Rational powers, the origins of human purposive actions, are dependent on form or actuality in two ways. The form of the completed house both preexists the building process, and hence is temporally prior to it, and it exists as the end of the process, and hence is teleologically prior to it. In contrast, a nonrational power is only temporally prior to the product. This difference introduces the possibility that energeia or actuality might be prior to dunamis in different ways in relation to different kinds of powers. And we find Aristotle arguing for just such a complex priority of actuality in relation to dunamis in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8. Second, in his brief description of the different origins of powers, Aristotle introduces a complexity facing his claim that all powers exist temporally prior to their exercise. Priority in time is the only kind of priority Aristotle allots to dunamis in relation to actuality. It is arguable, however, that activity precedes the existence of the power both for those abilities that arise in us through practice and for those that come through learning. The power or ability to play the viola originates through practice, by actually playing the viola. But this seems to be a counterexample to the general claim that agent powers are temporally prior to their exercise. Aristotle discusses this difficulty facing his priority argument in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8. In section 1,1 explain Aristotle's dispositional analysis of both rational and nonrational powers. In doing so, I reject the view of those scholars who think that Aristotle was concerned to characterize voluntary action in Metaphysics ix, chapter 5.3 Aristotle does not intend that the addition of choice and desire to the activation conditions of rational powers will make their exercise free or not necessary—once the conditions are met. Rather, Aristotle's definition of both rational and nonrational powers in terms of their activation conditions confirms my claim in chapter 2 that all Aristotelian powers are causal dispositions of substances, by explicitly including those which involve reason. In section 2,1 argue that one important difference between powers like house building or medicine and powers like heat is the way in

Rational and Nonrational Powers

which they are related to actuality. In the case of rational powers, which are the causal powers underlying the productive arts, the form preexists in the artist's mind, and the form also provides the logos, or account, which guides the active power as a telos, or end. This interpretation explains two features of rational powers. First, the form of the product is different from the form of the artisan; house builders do not build house builders. The form of the house preexists as the goal of the active power. Heat also preexists the object which it will heat, but in a different way. Nonrational, active powers like heat merely reproduce themselves in objects,- there is no preexisting form different in kind from the form of the agent, which exists as the end of the process. Second, rational powers can produce contrary outcomes. The artisan has both the form and its privation in mind in planning each step of a creation. Or to put the point another way, the presence of the form in the artists7 mind and the steps to its realization are shadowed by its contrary, the privation. The knowledge of her art allows a potter to make a series of decisions to realize a spherical form in the clay or to make other decisions which result in the sphere not being realized in the clay.4 The heat of the sun, in contrast, is a power with only one outcome; it heats the clay and replicates itself in the clay. These differences are significant with regard to Aristotle's ontological argument in Metaphysics ix because they suggest two ways that form, or actuality, might be prior to dunamis. In the case of heat, the form is temporally and causally prior,- it is actual in the heating agent. In the case of the art of pottery, the form preexists both as the causal origin and as the end or goal of the process. As we will see in the next chapter, nature, the inner origin of change in a natural substance, is more like house building than like heat because of nature's complex teleological relationship to actuality. I conclude this chapter with an inventory of the different kinds of powers Aristotle distinguishes in Metaphysics ix, and I review the way in which these powers exemplify Aristotle's ontological distinction between being X potentially and being X actually.

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1. Aristotle's Description of Rational Powers As we saw in chapter 2, Aristotle's basic notion of a causal power is that of an agent power, which is activated when it encounters a correlative passive power (in the appropriate circumstances). These powers, together, achieve a single outcome: "the wholesome produces only health, and the calorific only heat, the frigorific only cold" (1046bl8-20). In Metaphysics ix, chapter 5, Aristotle gives the conditions under which an active power acts. "When the agent and the patient meet in a way appropriate to the power in question, the one must act and the other be acted upon" (1048a6-7). Indeed, Aristotle proposes to define a power in terms of its realization or activation conditions: "... that which is capable is capable of something and at some time and in some way (with all the other qualifications which must be present in the definition)" (1047b35-1048a2). In order to act, an agent power like heat must encounter something with the passive power to be heated, in the appropriate circumstances. And the agent power of heat can be defined by means of a specification of these activation conditions. Not all agent powers follow this pattern precisely. Agent powers that operate with a logos follow a slightly different pattern. But which powers operate with a logos! What does the word "logos" mean in this context? In Metaphysics ix, chapter 2, Aristotle distinguishes powers that inhere in things with souls from powers that inhere in things without souls. But, he does not develop a systematic distinction between powers on that basis.5 Aristotle does find a significant categorical distinction among the agent powers of the ensouled. Ensouled beings have both rational (meta logon] and nonrational (alogon) agent powers. The rational powers of ensouled beings include most importantly all the arts or productive understandings since "they are originative sources of change in another thing or in the artist himself considered as other" (1046b2-4). The art of house building is an example of a rational power that is the origin of change in another thing (the building materials), and the art of medicine is an example of a rational power that can originate a change in the doctor, in the case where she heals herself. Aristotle lists two differences between rational and nonrational

Rational and Nonrational Powers

agent powers. The first difference concerns the effect that is brought about. A nonrational power or agent is capable of only one effect; for example, a heating agent heats. An art, in contrast, can produce either one of a pair of contrary effects; a doctor can cure and a doctor can kill. Someone who knows what health is, and can bring it about, also knows what disease is, and can bring that about as well. Moreover, a rational power does not bring about an effect which is the same as itself in the way that a nonrational power does. A physician cures a patient. She brings about the state of health in the patient rather than teaching him medicine. Similarly, a house builder does not make the art of house building or an object with that art; he builds a house. In contrast, nonrational powers convey the property they embody directly to the object. Heat makes the object hot. Hence, with regard to their effects, rational powers differ in two ways from nonrational powers. Their effects are different from themselves, and they are capable of two contrary effects. There is a kind of distance between a rational power and what it brings about. Because it does not simply duplicate itself in another object, a rational power can bring about the full range of different effects that fall between the contraries that specify the range in question (e.g., health and illness for the doctor). Rational powers are not as limited in what they can cause as nonrational powers are. However, since the rational power of medicine could be the origin of a range of states in the patient, from health to its opposite, it is clear that the form (or the art of medicine) cannot be the sole origin of the change. If the art of medicine can produce either health or sickness (or some state in between the two), but cannot produce both at once, then some other factor must determine which of these will eventuate. Hence, Aristotle adds in chapter 5 that either desire or choice (orexis, prohairesis) is the deciding principle. This is the third difference between rational and nonrational powers. Nonrational powers do not require any additional principle,- "when the agent and the patient meet in the way appropriate to the potency in question, the one must act and the other be acted on" (1048a6-7). Choice is a central concept in Aristotle's ethical theory; choice knits together the rational process of means-end deliberation to our actions. He defines choice as "a deliberative desire for things that

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Ways of Being are within our power" (Nicomachean Ethics 1113all). Prohairesis means "preference"; it is a choosing-before that incorporates desire into the process of reasoning. Is Aristotle in this text trying to make some human activities nondeterministic and voluntary? Is his distinction between rational powers and nonrational powers meant to carve out a nondeterministic realm for human ethical, or practical, action? Pretty clearly he is not, for rational powers turn out to be no less necessitated than active powers like heat, once choice or desire is added.6 "Therefore every agent, which has a rational power, when it desires that for which it has a power, and in the circumstances in which it has the power, must do this" (1048al3-15). Rather than making an exception for rational powers, Aristotle wants to make the activity of agent powers all equally necessitated in the appropriate circumstances, which raises a problem for those powers which can result in opposites. Choice and desire are causal principles Aristotle uses to make rational powers like all other agent powers—as necessitated by their realization conditions—rather than to make them different. Hence, it is a mistake to interpret the importance of Aristotle's distinction between rational and nonrational powers as primarily ethical, or as concerned with the issue of determinism in the sphere of human action. For Aristotle, both rational and nonrational powers can be given a dispositional analysis,- both are to be defined in terms of their activation conditions. And both are necessarily activated when these conditions are met. For a Megarian, an agent has a rational or nonrational power and is able to do X only when it is X-ing. Fire has the power to heat only when it is heating, and a house builder can build only when she is building. Aristotle's approach to defining powers in terms of the conditions under which the power is necessarily activated comes close to the Megarian view, in that the definitions of powers are given in terms of the conditions which activate them. However, having the power to heat isn't simply heating, as the Megarians would have it, and Aristotle's proposed definition of powers is in terms of the conditions that would activate them. Hence, Aristotle's proposed definition of powers is not fully Megarian, but it does establish the definitional priority of activity in relation to powers. Hence,

Rational and Nonrational Powers

Aristotle's discussion of the proper way to define both rational and nonrational powers contributes one piece to the ontological argument in Metaphysics ix: it contributes to his argument for the priority in definition of actuality in relation to dunamis.

2. Rational Powers and Form What does Aristotle mean by calling an agent power rational*7 What does the phrase "with a logos" mean? Some scholars argue that it should be understood to mean the power of reasoning, a part or function of the soul parallel to the power of growth or desire.8 Here the emphasis is on art as requiring reasoning; a doctor has to reason about the best means to achieve health in the patient. Others argue that "with a logos" means with a principle or rule.9 Here the emphasis is on art as a rule-governed activity; a doctor has to follow the rules or principles of medicine. Pretty clearly Aristotle does think of arts, like medicine and house building, as involving a reasoning process. And, since Aristotle sometimes says that the active power is the art of medicine, he might think of the doctor as following a medical rule or principle. However, I think that it is also useful in this context to interpret the phrase "with a logos" as referring to the form in the artist's soul that is the end or goal toward which the production proceeds. My emphasis is on the idea that, for Aristotle, the form of the product in the artist's mind plays an essential role in the processes of artistic production. The agent power is the knowledge of the art, which includes the form of the product. A rational power is therefore dependent on form in a way that a nonrational power is not. But, why think that logos refers to the form as well as to the faculty of reason or rule following? In Metaphysics ix Aristotle tells us that the logos is in the soul of the artist, and that it is the principle from which the production proceeds. In another text on the topic of artistic production, Aristotle says that the form is in the soul of the artist and is the origin of the action. "The active principle and the starting point for the process of becoming healthy is, if it happens by art, the form in the soul" (Metaphysics vn.7.1032b22-23). Moreover, he remarks that a single

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form can produce contraries, a comment the fits well with his claim that rational powers, or powers with a logos, can bring about contraries. "For even contraries have in a sense the same form; for the substance of a privation is the opposite substance, e.g. health is the substance of disease (for disease is the absence of health); and health is the logos in the soul or the knowledge of it" (Metaphysics vn.7.1032b2-6). Aristotle connects the art of house building in the soul to the agent power which builds a house. How exactly does this work? Artistic creation works with preexisting form and matter. The matter, the boards and bricks of a house, preexist the house. The form preexists in the house builder's mind as the goal of the production. So the art of house building in the soul provides the form of the product; the agent power includes the form as goal. But it must also include the steps, or at least some of the steps, toward the realization of the form. Hence, the dunamis, the agent power of house building, is dependent on knowledge of the art of house building. And in any individual production the house builder must have a form in mind as the goal of the process. One important point in Aristotle's distinction between agent powers like heat and agent powers like house building is the differing role of form. All artistic productions proceed from an agent power that has a form as an essential component. The form of what is to be made preexists in the agent power that originates the process of creation. This is one way in which a dunamis, or power, is dependent on an actuality. But the form in question is also the end of the production,- it is the goal for the sake of which the artist makes plans and envisions the steps of production. This is a second way in which a rational power implies an actuality. In the case of an active power like heat, the only actuality which is prior to it is whatever caused it to become hot in the first place. The only kind of priority is temporal or causal. There is no analogue to either role of form in artistic production. There is no form that is an essential component of heat other than the heat itself. And there is no form which is the goal of the heating other than the heat itself. The agent power of heating is only causally or temporally dependent on an actuality, the heat which preceded it and made it hot.

Rational and Nomational Powers

In chapter 4 I discuss Aristotle's argument that actuality is prior to dunamis in time, in definition and in being. Aristotle's proposal to define powers in terms of their activation conditions provides a sense of what he means by the priority of activity in definition. Moreover, the distinction Aristotle draws between agent powers like human productive arts and agent powers like heat is necessary for Aristotle' priority argument because different kinds of priority are relevant in each case. Heat as an actuality is temporally and causally prior to what is able to heat. In contrast, rational powers like arts have a more complicated relationship to actuality. The form which is in the soul of the builder is an essential feature of the agent power,in this way the actuality or form is prior in time to the building process. But the form is also prior as an end or goal. In the next chapter, we will see that the priority in being of actuality is based on its role as an end or goal in both art and nature. Aristotle sees a parallel between the development of natural beings and the creation of artifacts, like houses, with respect to the role of form. After the aforementioned discussion of house building, in which he identifies the art of building with the form of the house, Aristotle draws a comparison with natural beings: "Things which are formed by nature are the same as these products of art. For the seed is productive in the same way as the things that work by art; for it has the form potentially, and that from which the seed comes has the same name as the offspring in a way" (Metaphysics vn.!034a33-34b). The answer to the question—Where in a natural being is the form that corresponds to the form in the artist's mind?—is apparently in the seed. This statement reflects Aristotle's view that the form of an offspring comes from the male parent and his tendency to align form with the male principle.10 I pursue the interpretation of Aristotelian form and matter as gendered notions further in chapter 5. It is also important to note that Aristotle says that the form exists in the seed only potentially, an idea which will become important for the interpretation of Aristotle's argument for the ontological priority of actuality in relation to dunamis. In artistic production, the form of the product actually exists as an idea in the artist's mind—for example, an idea of a shoe or of a house. The idea in the artist's mind is of a possible object, but it is of

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that object as complete. For this reason the form in the mind of the artist can function as the goal or end of the process of production. In nature it is different. In nature, the form of the natural being really exists in the seed, but only potentially. Unlike the case of rational powers, the form in nature is not just an idea in the mind, a mere possibility. It really exists. But it is incomplete, and in this sense, it exists potentially. The form must undergo development in order to exist actually. But if this is right, then two questions arise. First, how can the form which itself exists potentially, is incomplete, provide a definition or identity to the incomplete substance? And, second, since being potentially is a relational way of being, what is the actuality, in relation to which the seed is potentially? These are questions facing Aristotle's argument for the ontological priority of actuality in nature, which is the central concern of his argument in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8.11 In order to elaborate the puzzle of how being X actually is related to being X potentially in the case of natural development, it is useful to review why one might think that the form is only potentially present in the incomplete substance. Immature animals and plants cannot perform their typical and essential functions; for example, a human child cannot reproduce (a typical function) and it cannot reason (an essential function). But, as I argued in chapter 2, because a child is human even if it cannot actually do what a human being does, Aristotle understands it as an incomplete substance, as potentially human. My interpretation of incomplete substances in nature assumes that Aristotle has a functional notion of form. This notion of form fits artifacts well because artifacts are given their forms or functions by an external creator according to a form in his or her mind. But who gives natural beings their functions? And, if Aristotle does not think that natural beings are given functions by their creator, where do those functions come from? What sense does it make to talk of functions without talk of creators? It is useful to distinguish the question of where a function originates from the question of what a function is. In particular, we do not need to think about the functions of natural beings as parallel to artistic productions in terms of their origins. We might think that

Rational and Nonrational Powers

natural functions originate through the processes of evolution,- even though Aristotle did not think that, he could have. Since he thought that form came from the male parent, the Aristotelian answer to the question of where the function comes from is as simple and elegant as it is wrong; man reproduces man. The form comes from the male parent, and it is like the form of the male parent in the ideal case. Aristotle comments, "That from which the seed comes has in a sense the same name as the offspring. . . . We must not expect parent and offspring always to have exactly the same name as in the production of 'human being7 from 'human being'; for a 'woman' can also be produced by a 'man'" (1034bl-3). I discuss the less than normal cases of reproduction and related cases of incomplete development further in chapter 5. Since we can detach the question of the origin of the form/function from the question of what a functional notion of form is, the fact that Aristotle's answer to the origin question is wrong does not necessarily implicate the functional conception of form. What does it mean to say that Aristotle has a functional notion of form? What purpose is served by forms in nature? In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues from the idea that the ergon, or work, distinctive of human beings is reasoning, that the good life for us consists of rational activity. But we also have many functions that we share with other animals, like perception and motion, and with plants, like reproduction. Our forms, our souls, are the principles of these life functions. The forms of living beings are functional not because, like artifacts, they serve the purpose of another being, but because they serve the purpose of the living being itself, which is to continue living.12 The way in which functions like nutrition, perception, and motion serve the purposes of the living being itself is pretty clear. They contribute to the continued survival and flourishing of the living being. Even reproduction, which might seem to be an other-directed process, serves a function for each living being, by providing us with the only form of immortality available to perishable beings, which is immortality through the continuation of our kind (Generation of Animals i, chapter 1). Each of the individual life functions exists for the sake of the good

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of the whole individual animal and plant. In this way natural functions and artistic functions are alike. They are both functional in the sense of existing for the sake of some end or good. In both cases the functions are to be understood in teleological terms. The difference lies in the location of the end or good to be served. In artifacts, the goal of the function is external to the artifact; houses are shelters for animals and human beings. Artifacts have merely instrumental value. In natural beings, the end or good is internal to the natural being itself; perception is for the survival and flourishing of the animal that can perceive. Natural beings have intrinsic value.13 As we will see in chapter 4, Aristotelian powers in art and in nature share one further feature. In both cases the ability to perform the function exists for the sake of its exercise or activity. The ability or power to perceive exists for the sake of the animal, and, in a different way, for the sake of its exercise. In other words, life functions, which originate in form or soul, are teleological in two dimensions. Perception exists for the sake of the animal, and perception exists for the sake of perceiving. Similarly, a hammer exists for the human purpose of building, and it exists for the sake of hammering. 3. Aristotle's Inventory of Powers In Metaphysics ix Aristotle differentiates between two basic meanings of dunamis—causal power and potentiality. And in this chapter, we have seen that Aristotle's notion of causal power is itself complex. It is useful at this point to review different kinds of powers and the "new" or ontological meaning of dunamis—being X potentially—which I argued in chapter 2 that Aristotle introduces in Metaphysics ix. The basic meaning of dunamis is causal power, and all causal powers come in pairs; there is an agent or originating power to change another thing, and a passive receptivity or power to be changed. Agent and passive powers come in pairs. They can be contrasted with dunamis as nature, which is an inner origin of change in a unified natural entity. The different object requirement, which

Rational and Nonrational Powers

governs agent and passive origins of change, does not apply to the operations of nature. Among causal powers, Aristotle further discriminates between rational and nonrational powers. I have argued in this chapter that in some respects nature as an origin of change is like a rational power. This similarity can be developed if we now refer back to Aristotle's examples of the "new" sense of dunamis discussed in chapter 2. Recall that the examples are of two kinds: an inactive power in relation to itself as active and an incomplete entity in relation to a complete or perfect one. The latter kind of example could be either an unfinished artifact or an immature natural substance. Both artifacts, which originate in a rational power, and natural beings, which develop by an inner principle, exemplify one way of being X potentially, which is the way of being of incomplete entities. Aristotle also distinguishes among powers by reference to their origin. Some powers are innate in us, but others come from practice or through learning (1047b31-35). A power like the ability to play the viola comes through practice, but even powers which come through learning require "previous exercise." As we will see in chapter 4, this brief categorization of powers which originate in practice or learning will become important for Aristotle's explanation of the priority relations between actuality and potentiality. In particular, powers that originate through practice seem to be exceptions to the idea that powers are temporally prior to their exercise. Irrespective of how they arise in us, however, all Aristotelian powers, agent and passive, rational and irrational, have two ways of being, or two degrees of realization. When inactive, they are potentially; when active, they are actually. Artifacts, which are produced through the activity of a rational power, and animals, which develop through the activity of nature, also exemplify what Aristotle means by the distinction between being X potentially and being X actually. In relation to a completed statue, a block of marble is potentially, and in relation to a mature, fully functioning animal, an immature animal is potentially. What is complete and perfected is actually in relation to what is incomplete and imperfect. The transition from being potentially X to being actually X is brought about by either

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the activity of a rational power in the case of an artifact or by the power of nature in the case of an animal. We can connect Aristotle's two kinds of examples of being X potentially and being X actually in the following way. An incomplete natural being—for example, a baby—is potentially until it develops the full range of powers associated with being human. But even when it has that full range of powers, and it can think and reproduce, it still exists potentially in that it is not actively engaged in those activities. It is only when a natural substance is both complete with regard to its powers and actively using them that it exists actually to the highest degree. Being X potentially and being X actually admit of degrees. And a being that is continuously exercising its fully completed and perfect powers is actually to the fullest extent. Being X potentially and being X actually are ways of being something that are exemplified on the one hand by all the powers on Aristotle's inventory in Metaphysics ix, and on the other by the processes of artistic creation and natural development. Now Aristotle is going to argue that these two ways of being are not equal, and they are not equally interdependent. Rather, being actually is prior to being potentially in almost every sense of priority. Being is hierarchically structured through these priority relations, and at the top is a being or beings of pure activity.

TL i\ JTOLOY f] jtoaov, TO 6e KaTa 6i5Ya^tLY Kai evTeXexeiaY Kai KaTa TO epyoY, 6iopLaa)|i8Y Kai Jtepi 6uva^ecoc; Kai eYTe^exeiag, (Metaphysics ix.!045b27-35) 7. This text is not unique. Two additional texts support the claim that potentiality and actuality mark a division in Aristotle's understanding of being which is different from the division into substance and the categories: Metaphysics v.7.1017a7-1017b9; Metaphysics vi.2.1026a33-b2. 8. In Metaphysics ix, chapter 10, Aristotle introduces yet another meaning of being, being as truth, which I do not consider in this book. For a different approach to Metaphysics ix, which reads chapter 10 as its conclusion, see Martin Heidegger, Aristotle's Metaphysics 6 1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, translated by Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995). 9. I understand the primacy of the question "What is substance?" as a primacy within the investigation of the categorical meaning of being, and not as the primary question which guides Aristotle's understanding of being in all its meanings. For a discussion of the primacy of substance in Aristotle's investigation of categorical being, see my Substance and Essence in Aristotle, chapter 2. 10. The idea that Metaphysics ix contains Aristotle's final understanding of substance (as activity) is argued by Aryeh Kosman in "The Activity of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics" in Unity, Identity, and Ex-

Notes to Pages 4-8 planation in Aristotle's Metaphysics. For Kosman, the central books contain an extended argument, which ends with an understanding of substance as activity. While I agree with Kosman regarding the importance of Metaphysics ix for Aristotle's understanding of being, I am not convinced by several details of his interpretation. Most important, I do not think it is possible to interpret the form of a hylomorphic compound as activity, in contrast to its matter, which is a power or capacity. I discuss other aspects of Kosman's interpretation in chapter 2. 11. It is true that Aristotle argues for the ontological priority of eternal substances in relation to perishable substances in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, which appears to establish a hierarchy of kinds of beings. I argue in chapter 4, however, that Aristotle's argument really turns on the different ways of being that these substances exhibit. 12. In the Categories discussion of priority Aristotle says that the better and more honorable is thought to be prior by nature (Categories 14B 4-5). This is a brief and puzzling text. Aristotle illustrates this type of priority by saying that people consider those they love or honor more are prior; he also seems to think that this is a type of priority peripheral to more central types of priority. This type of priority is not central to, or even related to, the picture of categorical being mapped out in the Categories. In Aristotle on the Many Senses of Priority (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988): 106, John C. Cleary argues that this text uses a Platonic—and not an Aristotelian—notion of priority, which is not the account of priority most important for Aristotle's own philosophical positions. Cleary is certainly right that the text is not particularly useful as a guide to understanding priority in Aristotle's own philosophy. 13. The text is Metaphysics vn.l. 1028a31-b2; my interpretation of the text is in Substance and Essence in Aristotle, pp. 47-57. 14. I am grateful to Hallvard Fossheim for bringing this passage to my attention. 15. Aristotle also differentiates among natural species. Certain species, like the mule, are incomplete or imperfect in relation to others. See chapter 5 for a discussion of incomplete or deformed species. 16. In several texts Aristotle makes clear that children develop the ability to reason, which is not present at birth: "spirit, wish and also appetite are present in children right from birth, whereas reasoning (logismos) and understanding (nous) naturally develop as they grow older." Politics vn.l5.1334b22-25; History of Animals vm.588al8-b2. 17. Is rationality, or rational activity of the soul, an essential feature of a human being according to Aristotle? Although I think the evidence favors an affirmative answer, this is a complex question, and it might be

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Notes to Pages 9-10 useful to mention a few difficulties. First, the positive evidence: In Nicomachean Ethics, book i, chapter 7, Aristotle famously argues that the function, or ergon, of a human being is rational activity of the soul because this is the activity that distinguishes humans from other species of animal. And, again, in book x, Aristotle stresses contemplative activity as the characteristic activity of human beings. When we consider definition and essence in the biological writings, however, things become more complicated. At a formal level, Aristotle appears to describe three kinds of definitional content: soul-functions, animal parts, and dimensional features of animals. Although rational activity falls within this list of definitional features (it is a soul-function), Aristotle seems not to restrict the content of definitions to soul-functions, for neither animal parts nor dimensional features of animals are soulfunctions. One might argue that since Aristotle gives a functional specification of animal parts, they are subsumed under soul-functions. In any case, the evidence from the biology does not contradict the evidence from the ethics that specifies rational activity as an essential feature of human beings. It simply adds other possible categories of elements in biological definitions. For a discussion of the biological evidence, see Allan Gotthelf's "Notes Towards a Study of Substance and Essence in the Parts of Animals n-iv" in Aristotle on Nature and Living Things, edited by Allan Gotthelf (Pittsburgh: Mathesis, 1985). 18. For Aristotle causal powers are dispositions of substances to act or to be acted upon in certain circumstances. I argue in chapter 2 that Aristotle distinguishes between causal powers and potentialty. One point of difference is that he does not understand being potentially X as a causal disposition of a substance to act or to be acted upon. 19. Bonitz thought that the ontological or "new" use of dunamis was the possible, a view which has been taken up (in different ways) recently by William Charlton in "Aristotle on the Uses of Actuality" in Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989) and by Stephen Menn in "The Origins of Aristotle's Concept of Energeia" in Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994). For Menn dunamis in its ontological sense means "possibility," but possibility is always dependent upon actually existing causal powers in the world. "Possibilia are not causally separated from actual things: the actual powers of actual substances cause the possible existence of X, as the exercise of these powers cause its actual existence" (98). I don't think that Aristotle is introducing a new class of entities, possibilia, into his ontological inventory of beings with the new, ontological meaning of dunamis even if they are causally connected, as Menn suggests, to the agent powers of actual substances. I criticize this interpretation of what Aristotle means by potentiality in chapter 2.

Notes to Pages 11-13 20. Frede, "Aristotle's Notion of Potentiality in Metaphysics 9," 185. 21. " Potentiality, on the other hand, is a capacity in A of passing into a new state of itself/7 Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics vol. 1, p. cxxxiv. I criticize Ross's interpretation of potentiality in chapter 2. 22. Aristotle's examples of the distinction between potentiality and actuality draw on both meanings. He contrasts the ability to build with the exercise of that ability in activity. And he contrasts an imperfect, incomplete substance with a complete or perfect one. See chapter 2. 23. Aristotle twice uses entelecheia in his description of the ontological distinction between being potentially and being actually (in Metaphysics ix.L1045b32-35 and v.7.1017a35-b9) and once uses energeia (in Metaphysics vi.2.1026a33-b2). 24. Aristotle's two explanations of how the word "energeia" came to be applied to actualities are interestingly different. The explanation in the first text is presented in a way that strongly suggests that the thought process involved was not Aristotle's own (see Burnyeat's Notes on Eta and Theta, 69, which points out Aristotle's use of the third person plural at 1047a33), although he appears to endorse its conclusion. The second text appears to receive Aristotle's endorsement both with regard to rationale and with regard to conclusion. I. The name energeia, which is applied to entelecheia, has been extended to other things especially from motions. For motion seems to be especially energeia; for this reason, they do not assign motion to nonbeings, but (they do assign) other predicates, such as that non-beings are objects of thought or desire, but not that they are moved. This is because they do not exist in actuality (energeia} which they would have to do if they were moved. For of non-beings some are potentially. But they are non-beings because they do are not in actuality (entelecheia}. (ix.3.1047a30-b2) II. And so as teachers think they have achieved their end when they have exhibited their pupils at work, nature does likewise. For if this is not the case, we shall have Pauson's Hermes, since it will be unclear about the knowledge, as about the figure in the painting, whether it is within or without. For the work (ergon} is the end (telos} but the work is an energeia, whence also the name energeia is said according to the work, and directs attention to the actuality (entelecheia). (ix.8.1050al7-23)

In the first text Aristotle reports a position (perhaps that of Plato in the Sophist) which connects being in motion with being real. The text focuses on the connection between activity and motion, on the one

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Notes to Pages 14-16 hand, and the connection between motion and being, on the other. The primary use of energeia has been extended from motions to "other things/' and the "other things" in question are things that exist in actuality. Motion is thought to be an attribute of beings; people do not attribute it to nonbeings (like objects of thought). For this reason energeia can be used to name what is in actuality. In the second text, Aristotle is arguing that potentialities exist and come to be for the sake of the corresponding actualities. And this is so, even when the end is an activity rather than a product. When a music teacher wants to show that a student has a certain kind of knowledge, the student plays. Nature, as well, displays her teleological structure in the activities of natural beings. The idea that explains the extension of the name energeia from motions to actualities (entelecheia) in this text is the notion of a function. The function or work is the activity (energeia), and it is also the end (telos), which connects it to Aristotle's notion of actuality (entelecheia). Stephen Menn ("The Origins of Aristotle's Concept of Energeia: Energeia and Dunamis," Ancient Philosophy 14, no. 1) has pointed to the following text as explaining the origin of Aristotle's neologism: entelecheia: those things in which the telos (being something good) is present are called teleia, for they are teleia through possessing the telos (kata to echein to telos}. . . . But a telos is a last thing for-the-sake-of-which. (Metaphysics V.16.1021B23-30)

If a function or work is an activity, and it is an end, then those things which are active are in actuality; they have their ends, their functions, which they exhibit in activity. Aristotle tells us in these passages that the name energeia, which was used to refer to motions and activities, now also applies to actualities. He is not saying that all actualities are activities, but he is explaining why activities and actualities are named by the same word. This leaves the question of how to translate energeia open,- it is a question of interpretation and context. 25. In "Substance, Being and Energeia" (Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2, 121-150) L.A. Kosman emphasizes the idea of activity in his interpretation of the ontological meaning of energeia. 26. Feminist historians of philosophy have devoted attention recently to Aristotle's metaphysics. See my "Form, Normativity and Gender" and Marguerite Deslauriers's "Sex and Essence in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Biology," both in Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, edited by Cynthia Freeland (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). For additional examples of feminist work on the gender

Notes to Pages 17-19 implications of Aristotle's theories, see FreelancTs "Nourishing Speculation: A Feminist Reading of Aristotelian Science" in Engendering Origins, edited by Bat-Ami Bar On (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), and Elizabeth Spelman's "Aristotle and the Politicization of the Soul in Discovering Reality, edited by Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983). Gender in Aristotle's theory of reproduction is discussed in Nancy Tuana's "Aristotle and the Politics of Reproduction" in Engendering Origins and in Linda Lange's "Woman Is Not a Rational Animal: On Aristotle's Biology of Reproduction" in Discovering Reality. Chapter 1: Aristotle's Defense of Dunamis 1. See H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870) 206a32ff. 2. For an interesting interpretation of the Megarians that brings out the plausibility of their view, or how one version of what they might have held might seem quite plausible, see Stephen Makin's "Megarian Possibilities" Philosophical Studies 83 (1996): 253-276. I am not convinced that the position sketched by Makin is the one Aristotle attributes to them, although it could be. 3. Of course, the notions of possibility (dunatos) and impossibility (adunatos) are linguistically related to dunamis, which raises the possibility that Aristotle did not distinguish the two in the way that my interpretation suggests that he does. Since Aristotle does explicitly distinguish the two in Metaphysics v, however, this suggestion is implausible (1019B34-35). Aristotle connects possibility with dunamis in several other texts. Especially important are De Interpretatione, chapter 13 and De Caelo i, chapter 12. It is not my intention to provide a complete interpretation of capacity and possibility in every context of Aristotle's thought, but simply to see what connection is suggested by his argument in Metaphysics ix, chapter 3. 4. For a discussion of the relationship between dunamis and possibility, see Cynthia Freeland's "Aristotle on Possibilities and Capacities," Ancient Philosophy 6 (1986), and Simo Knuuttila's Modalities in Medieval Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1993), chapter 1. 5. The argument is at Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, 1050b19-29. See chapter 4, section 2 below for my interpretation of Aristotle's argument. 6. In Metaphysics v, chapter 12, the possible is defined independently from power or capacity (1019b34-35). For Aristotle's definition of the possible, see Prior Analytics 32al8-20. 7. Possibilities are often held to modify states of affairs rather than ob-

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Notes to Pages 20-22 jects. It is possible that an orange will fall off the tree and rot, even though it (the orange) is potentially ripe. In this text, however, Aristotle uses modal notions in relation to objects rather than to states of affairs. 8. For an interesting discussion of this connection, see Freeland's " Aristotle on Possibilities and Capacities/7 9. Aristotle continues his discussion of modality in the brief following chapter (1047b3-14). In this text, which is continuous with chapter 3, he differentiates between what is possible (or capable of being), and what is impossible (or incapable of being). I take the subject matter of this text to support the interpretation that Aristotle intended to draw out the modal dimension of dunamis in chapter 3. The second half of chapter 4 contains two modal principles whose exact interpretation is controversial. For a recent discussion, see "Two Modal Theses in the Second Half of Metaphysics Theta 4/; by Tad Brennan in Phronesis 39 (1994): 160-173. 10. A note on terminology. At 1046alO-14, Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of powers—an "origin of change" in another thing, and a "power of suffering" a change. One might call these active and passive powers. I use the terminology "agent power" for the first kind of power rather than "active power" in order to avoid the following confusion. Both agent and passive powers exist in two ways; each can exist as active and as inactive. I reserve the term "active power" to refer to either agent or passive powers when they are active, in contrast to their existence as inactive. 11. Burnyeat et al. discuss the broader scope of the Immobility Argument in Notes on Eta and Theta (Oxford Philosophy Sub-Faculty, 1984): 65. 12. Notes on Eta and Theta suggests six possible interpretations of the Megarian position. I agree that Aristotle begins chapter 3 with Notes interpretation 4 (if X is not (j)ing now, he lacks the ability to (j>), and that in the Immobility Argument Aristotle moves from interpretation 4 to interpretation 6 (if X is not ((ring now, it is not possible that he will ever c|>). 13. Arthur Madigan, S.J., has suggested that the Megarians might have been criticizing the explanatory value of dunamis, in "Commentary on Witt," Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy vol. XI (Lanham: University Press of America, 1995): 267-272. Since the position Madigan attributes to the Megarians is Aristotle's own view, it is hard to see why Aristotle would criticize it. 14. Scholars traditionally have tried to flesh out the position of the Megarians by looking at the "Master Argument" of Diodorus Cronus, on the assumption that Diodorus Cronus was a Megarian. David Sedley has argued convincingly, in "Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic Phi-

Notes to Pages 22-28 losophy," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 203 (1977): 74-120, that Diodorus Cronus was not a Megarian but belonged to a rival school, and that he could have influenced Aristotle only for the last decade of Aristotle's life. See Notes on Eta and Theta, 58. We are left with Aristotle's description and conjecture. 15. This epistemic motivation for the Megarian position was suggested by Martha Nussbaum. 16. In Modalities in Medieval Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1993): 27-28, Simo Knuuttila points to the way in which Aristotle's modal understanding of active and passive powers is similar to Megarian actualism. 17. The issue between Aristotle and the Megarians concerns whether the capacities and powers of substances exist independently of their exercise at a given time. It is necessary to add the temporal clause "at a given time" because, in my interpretation of the priority of actuality, Aristotle's own position is that the existence of a dunamis depends on the existence of the corresponding actuality,- the capacity of sight depends on the activity of seeing. Aristotle does not believe, however, as the Megarians apparently did, that a particular dunamis can exist only if and while it is being actualized. For the Megarians, a person's capacity for sight exists only while she is actually seeing; for Aristotle, a person's capacity for sight depends on the existence of the kind of activity toward which it is directed, but the person need not be looking at anything. 18. See Burnyeat et al., Notes on Eta and Theta, 65. 19. It is worth emphasizing that Protagoras has a perfectly consistent position available to him. Suppose that a color looks green to you and brown to me. Protagoras could hold that as long as these appearances last, then the color has the capacity to look green to you and brown to me. Without further argument, Aristotle's claim that Protagoras flouts the principle of noncontradiction can also be described as Aristotle's failure to maintain relativism consistently. 20. Aristotle's next criticism concerning the Megarian account of perception follows the pattern of the Techne Argument (1047a6-10). If the ability to see is a dunamis that exists only when a person is seeing (as the Megarians would have it), then when a person is not actually seeing, she can no longer see. She would be blind, Aristotle adds, many times a day. But blindness is caused by special factors like illness, and in the Megarian account there is no explanation for the "blindness" or incapacity to see that according to them afflicts everyone intermittantly every day. 21. Both Notes on Eta and Theta and Harry Ide in "Dunamis in Metaphysics 9," Apeiron 35 (1992) translate adunatos as "impossible" in the second premise.

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Notes to Pages 29-31 22. In section 4 I discuss an alternative interpretation of the second premise, which interprets this text as evidence that Aristotle's modal concepts should be given a temporal interpretation. 23. Notes on Eta and Theta (66) remarks upon Aristotle's use of the imperfect tense, which indicates that he is stating a generally accepted truth about the meaning of "adunatos." They find this puzzling because they think that the generally accepted truth is a temporal understanding of modality—a view which is controversial and not generally accepted. I criticize this interpretation in section 4. 24. In my proposed interpretation of the Immobility Argument, the second premise states a connection between powers and possibilities, which Aristotle wants to endorse. Clearly, the Megarians could reject this premise. If they did, then they would still have to face the Techne and Perception arguments, which do not rely on any modal implications of dunamis. 25. Simo Knuuttila argues that Aristotle, in certain contexts, understands "possibility as a potency" (Modalities in Medieval Philosophy, 19). 26. There is one additional problem with regard to the relationship between powers and possibilities that is central to Aristotle's argument against the Megarians. Substances seem to have possibilities that are entirely unconnected to any power or ability they might have. For example, it is possible that I will win the lottery. That is, it is naturally possible that I will win the lottery. But, surely I do not have a capacity, active or passive, to win the lottery. Winning the lottery is a matter of chance. Possibilities like my winning the lottery are not conditioned by any single capacity of mine (or any combination of my capacities) because they depend on external, entirely fortuitous, combinations of events. True, I may have a capacity to choose a ticket, or to play the lottery, but not to win it. And it seems, in general, that all sorts of natural possibilities exist for me that are not rooted in any of my capacities. But, if this is so, then the biconditional relationship between powers and possibilities fails, and with it the central assumption of Aristotle's Immobility Argument against the Megarians. What is the difference between the possibility that I, who am now sitting, stand, and the possibility that I, who am now sitting, win the lottery? They are both naturally possible events, but they differ categorically with regard to Aristotle's theory of causation. Winning the lottery is an example of an event caused by luck; it is an accident. An event caused by luck is one which, although it could be an example of teleological causation, really is not. Aristotle's canonical theory of the four causes simply does not apply to events like these. So, for Ar-

Notes to Pages 31-33 is to tie, these two events are of radically different kinds. Events like standing are explained by the theory of the four causes; events like winning the lottery are not. The point is not simply that Aristotle explains these two types of events differently,- it is that his canonical theory of explanation does not apply to one of them. For Aristotle, events like winning the lottery do not have a unified causal explanation, even though they are not uncaused. Winning the lottery is not to be explained by mentioning the final and formal cause (the intention to win), nor is it to be explained by mentioning the efficient and material cause (buying the lottery ticket). Rather, it is to be explained by the accidental conjunction of that series of events with another, entirely independent series of events. In contrast, my standing up is explained by the formal/final cause (my intention to stand up) and the efficient and material causes (the physical processes of standing up). Aristotle contrasts events that are caused by luck with those that are explained by the four causes. The four causes provide a causal explanation that is based on the active and passive powers of individual substances. Strictly speaking, then, the possibility of winning the lottery is not a possibility of mine for Aristotle in the way that the possibility of my standing is, because winning the lottery is not an event rooted in my capacities (or in the capacities of any single substance). Hence, the biconditional between the capacities and possibilities of substances is not threatened by examples like winning the lottery. To put the point another way, not all natural possibilities are the possibilities of substances, just as not everything that happens in nature falls under the theory of the four causes for Aristotle. 27. My interpretation is confirmed later in Metaphysics ix in a discussion of acquired abilities like house building and harp playing. Aristotle addresses the "sophistical argument" that one who does not know a science will nonetheless be doing the science as a learner. He responds that "he who is learning must, it would seem, know some part of the science" (1050al-2). When a person is practicing to learn how to play the flute, that person already "knows some part of the science" or has some ability to play. Learning a science, acquiring a skill or ability, Aristotle tells us here, already requires some knowledge of that science or some level of ability. I conclude that neither the accidental viola playing example nor the practice example undercuts Aristotle's modal assumption. 28. Here, as in my interpretation of the Immobility Argument, Aristotle is connecting talk of capacities with modal language using words that can be translated either as capacity/possibility or as incapacity/impos-

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Notes to Pages 34-37 sibility. I read the passage as providing a criterion for when a substance has a capacity, although it could be read as a test for possibility. That my reading is correct is shown by the fact that dunatos is correlated with eneigeia (1047a25), a term that Aristotle matches with capacity, not possibility, and by his examples, which are classic examples of capacities. 29. Two recent, important studies are Time and Necessity by Jaakko Hintikka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), and Passage and Possibility by Sarah Waterlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). I am indebted to both books for their clear discussions of baffling texts in Aristotle, even though I interpret 1047all-14 differently than they do. 30. In Passage and Possibility Waterlow lists De Caelo i 12 and Metaphysics ix.3.1047all-14 as showing that Aristotle accepts both inferences A, "if possibly P then at some time P," and B, "if always P then necessarily P" (2). In both of these texts the argument clearly concerns substances and their capacities. The same is true of all four texts listed in support of B and of three of the four texts listed in support of A. Although I do not consider these texts in any detail, the fact that what is at issue in them concerns the capacities of substances supports the interpretation I propose for the temporal references in Metaphysics ix. 31. Aristotle's use of temporal language provides additional support for the thesis that he is not using the notion of logical possibility/impossibility in the Immobility Argument. If he were, we would expect Aristotle to say something like "But he who says of that which is impossible that it happens . . . " without temporal reference to the present or future. Aristotle's references to time strengthen the impression, garnered from the biconditional relationship between capacity and possibility, that he is not using the notion of logical possibility/impossibility in his argument against the Megarians. 32. Even though Aristotle later (at 33a24-25) apparently refers to the principle of possibility as a definition (horismos) of possibility, Waterlow is surely right to suggest that Aristotle intends a criterion rather than a definition (Passage and Possibility, 16). 33. "Aristotle and Oxford Philosophy," American Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1969): 127-135. 34. In book ix, chapter 4, Aristotle discusses possibility and impossibility further, with the goal of distinguishing the impossible from the false (1047b 12-14). Chapter 4 opens with a reference back to the specification of the possible in chapter 3 (1047a24-26), but there is no further discussion of the relationship between powers and possibilities. 35. For references, see Introduction, note 16.

Notes to Pages 38-40 Chapter 2: Power and Potentiality 1. It is useful to distinguish two general approaches to the meaning of dunamis in Metaphysics IX. The unitary interpretation denies that Aristotle distinguishes two senses of dunamis in Metaphysics IX. For examples of the unitary approach, see "Aristotle's Notion of Potentiality in Metaphysics 6" by Michael Frede, in Unity, Identity, and Explanation, edited by T. Scaltsas, D. Charles, and M.L. Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), and Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity by M.L. Gill (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). The alternative, or dualist, approach, which I favor, holds that Aristotle distinguishes two senses of dunamis in Metaphysics IX. Among dualists there are disagreements concerning both what the two meanings of dunamis in Metaphysics IX are, and why Aristotle draws this distinction. 2. Nature, an internal principle of change in a substance, is an additional kind of dunamis, which Aristotle distinguishes from agent and passive powers in Metaphysics IX, chapter 8. I argue that the "new" sense of dunamis introduced in Metaphysics IX is not nature. 3. In my interpretation Aristotle introduces the distinction between potentiality and actuality by discussing powers and abilities because they are prime examples of entities which exist in two ways, as the dispute with the Megarians makes clear. Hence, I am in agreement with Michael Frede's position that the discussion of powers is not a puzzling digression from the main topic of Metaphysics IX as Ross and others have claimed. Unlike Frede, however, I think that Aristotle does distinguish two basic meanings of dunamis in Metaphysics IX. See Frede's "Aristotle's Notion of Potentiality in Metaphysics 6" and note 1. 4. H. Bonitz thought that in its ontological or new use dunamis means the possible, a view which has been taken more recently by Stephen Menn in "The Origins of Aristotle's Concept of Energeia: Energeia and Dunamis", in Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994), and by William Charlton in "Aristotle on the Uses of Actuality," in Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy V (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989). 5. In his introduction to the Metaphysics, W.D. Ross says that Aristotle distinguishes two senses of dunamis in Metaphysics IX: power and potentiality. "Power is a capacity in A of producing a change in B, or in one part of A in producing change in another part. . . . Potentiality, on the other hand, is a capacity in A of passing into a new state of itself" (cxxiv). Ross thus distinguishes between agent and passive powers, and poten-

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Notes to Pages 40-43 tiality, which is a power for self-change. The latter notion resembles what Aristotle calls "nature" in Metaphysics EX. I argue in this chapte that potentiality, the new meaning of duanmis, does not mean "nature." 6. On this point my interpretation differs from those dualist interpretations of dunamis in Metaphysics IX that argue that only some of Aristotle's examples are intended to illustrate the "new" or ontological use of dunamis. See, for example, Stephen Menn in "The Origins of Aristotle's Concept of Energeia: Energeia and Dunamis"; L. A. Kosman in "Substance, Being and Energeia," in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984); and Daniel Graham's Aristotle's Two Systems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). 7. Aristotle proposes to define powers in terms of their activation conditions in Metaphysics IX, chapter 5 (1047b35-1048a2). I discuss this text in chapter 3. 8. My characterization of potentiality has two parts. In this chapter, I emphasize the relational character of being X potentially. Something is X potentially only in relation to something that is X actually. In chapter 4, I discuss the teleological directedness of the relationship. Aristotle thinks that what exists potentially exists for the sake of being actually. 9. I use the terminology agent and passive powers, instead of active and passive powers, in order to avoid confusing this distinction with the other important contrast Aristotle draws between inactive and active powers. Both agent and passive powers can be either inactive or active. 10. There are also powers that resist change and destruction,- water is nonflammable, and diamonds cannot be crushed. In order for an agent power to be successful, it must encounter a corresponding passive power. Finally, agent and passive powers can have a normative dimension,- there are powers to act or to be acted upon well (and presumably badly). Soft and supple leather can be made into comfortable shoes, but stiff leather resists the shoemaker's art. 11. It is interesting to note that Aristotle makes just such a division into two parts in his analysis of the self-motion of living things, including animals. In Physics vm, Aristotle describes the self-motion of animals in dualistic terms; the soul moves the body directly, and itself, as lodged in the body, only indirectly (259bl-16). The soul is the agent power and the body is the passive power. 12. The kind of development I have been describing occurs only with living, natural substances, and not with artifacts. This difference is reflected in Aristotle's differing criteria for being X potentially in the case of living substances and in the case of artifacts. A living natural substance is potentially X (e.g., potentially human) when it has an

Notes to Pages 43-46 inner principle of development toward being X. An artifact is potentially X when its matter can be made into X, or when it constitutes X. 13. Ross thinks that potentiality is the capacity for self-change, or development, that Aristotle calls "nature" in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8. He thinks that Aristotle intends to contrast dunamis as agent or passive power with dunamis as nature, and that the latter is what Aristotle means by potentiality. There are two difficulties with this view. First, it is hard to see how an internal principle of self-motion is a use of dunamis that is not part of the realm of motion. Second, Aristotle defines "nature" in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, but he says in chapter 6 that the meaning of dunamis that extends beyond the sphere of motion cannot be defined but only exemplified (1048a35-36). For these reasons we must reject Ross's interpretation of Aristotle's notion of potentiality in Metaphysics ix. 14. Examples of the second kind raise a general question about potentiality, which is how to determine when one thing is another potentially. Is corn seed in a bag potentially corn? Aristotle addresses this general question in Metaphysics ix, chapter 7, and we consider his account of potentiality in section 3. 15. A famous text in Metaphysics vn equates the question "What is being?" with the question "What is substance?" (1028b2-7). But it is very likely that what Aristotle claims here is that substance is prior to other categories of being, as he does indeed argue (1028alO ff). This leaves open, or allows us to pose, the question of how Aristotle understands the relationship between being as substance and being as potentiality and actuality. 16. Aristotelian Explorations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 138. 17. Aristotle's examples in Metaphysics ix, chapter 6, have received considerable scholarly attention and are interpreted in widely differing ways. It is fair to say that one's interpretation of potentiality and actuality in Metaphysics ix is to a large extent determined by, and reflected in, how one understands these examples. As a preliminary point of orientation, it is important to differentiate two approaches to Aristotle's examples. Does Aristotle intend all of his examples to illustrate the "new" sense of dunamis, or do some of the examples illustrate dunamis as power and some of them dunamis as potentiality? Since Aristotle says that he intends to explain a new use of dunamis that is not related to motion, it is clearly preferable to interpret all the examples as exemplifying the ontological use of dunamis, if it is possible to do so. Further, we should recall that Aristotle gave a definition of agent powers earlier in Metaphysics ix, chapter 1, and defines "na-

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Notes to Pages 47-50 ture" in chapter 8, which makes it very implausible that he would now claim that either agent powers or Ross's nature can be understood only by analogy and by means of exemplification, and not by means of definition. These factors favor my approach, which is to interpret all the examples as illustrations of the ontological use of dunamis and energeia. For the alternative view, see L.A. Kosman, who claims in "Substance, Being and Energeia" that examples (d) and (e) are active powers, and only examples) (a) to (c) illustrate potentiality. In contrast, in 'The Origins of Aristotle's Concept of Energeia: Energeia and Dunamis/1 Stephen Menn argues precisely the opposite position, namely that only examples (d) and (e) introduce Aristotle's new, ontological meaning of the term. 18. I have translated anergastos as "not thoroughly wrought," but Ross translates it as "unwrought." This translation makes a difference, since Ross's would most naturally support an interpretation of the potentiality as the raw, entirely unformed matter, and the actuality as the product. My translation most naturally supports an interpretation of what is X potentially as relatively unformed in relation to what is X actually. According to Liddell & Scott (9th ed.) anergazomai means "to knead" or "to work up," and anergastos means "not thoroughly wrought" or "imperfect." Mary Louise Gill has argued, and I agree with her, that Aristotle's discussion of potentiality in the following chapter is relevant here, and in the later discussion, what is potentially is not entirely "unwrought" preexistent matter. See Aristotle on Substance, 214-216. 19. For convenience of reference I have used letters to divide the text. 20. If one makes the distinction between motions and activities crucial to Aristotle's distinction between potentiality and actuality, then it is very difficult to interpret his examples, which include both motions like building and activities like seeing. 21. In "Activity and Change in Aristotle," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13 (1995), Robert Heinaman argues that Aristotle's distinction is metaphysical and not linguistic. I accept Heinaman's argument that the "tense test" is neither necessary nor sufficient for distinguishing activities from changes. It is, however, one way that Aristotle describes the distinction. 22. For an argument that the distinction between motions and activities is central to Aristotle's argument in Metaphysics ix, see L.A. Kosman, "Substance, Being and Energeia." 23. The placement of the text that draws the distinction between incomplete motions, like house building, and complete motions or ac-

Notes to Pages 50-56 tivities, like seeing, is questionable. The text from 1048b 18-35 does not appear in two principal manuscripts. Hence we need not interpret Aristotle's list of examples of potentiality and actuality in light of the distinction even though the two texts are contiguous. The distinction is, however, genuinely Aristotelian and important to his argument in Metaphysics ix. In particular, the distinction between incomplete and complete motions is relevant to his argument for the ontological priority of actuality in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8. 24. For example, both Menn and Graham understand these examples to refer to the process of generation, although they differ with regard to the particular problem that Aristotle is addressing. Menn thinks that Aristotle needs the idea of an actual substance that has come to be from a potential substance in order to defeat Parmenides. See "The Origins of Aristotle's Concept of Energeia: Energeia and Dunamis," Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994): 73-114. Graham thinks that Aristotle needs the idea of matter-substance as potentiality to actuality to accommodate the fact that generation is a gradual process and not an allor-nothing transition. See Aristotle's Two Systems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997): chapter 7. 25. According to Gill, the matter must have the right dispositional properties or passive powers in order to be X potentially (Aristotle on Substance, 130). 26. I agree with Burnyeat et al. in Notes on Eta and Theta of Aristotle's Metaphysics that Metaphysics ix, chapter 7, is about "when is something potentially a man?" and not "when does something have the power or capacity to be(come) a man?" (131) 27. In Aristotle on Substance Gill argues, based on Aristotle's description of the process of animal reproduction in the Generation of Animals, that once the embryo has a human heart, it has the requisite inner principle of development to count as the human potentially (130). It is not crucial to my interpretation at what point a fetus begins to be a human potentially. What is crucial is that being a human potentially begins after conception and lasts beyond birth. 28. Aristotle's discussion of causal powers as belonging in the category of relation is at Metaphysics v.l5.1021a!5-19. I owe this reference to Hallvard Fossheim. 29. I mean this literally. There is no discussion of unity in Metaphysics ix. So any interpretation of Metaphysics vm, chapter 6, in terms of Metaphysics ix must be indirect at best. It is fair to say that this realization was what originally inspired me to try to figure out what Metaphysics ix really was about.

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Notes to Pages 59-66 Chapter 3: Rational and Nonrational Powers 1. Aristotle distinguishes between agent powers with a logos, or an account, and those which lack a logos. I translate "(HETCX Xoyov" as "rational" and "aXcryov" as "nonrational" rather than "irrational," which has misleading connotations in English. 2. What I argue is that Aristotle wants to define both rational and nonrational powers in terms of the conditions that necessarily activate them. For rational powers Aristotle adds the condition that the agent must choose or desire the outcome, which raises the question of whether Aristotle thinks of choice and desire as efficient causes or as non-causal origins of actions. Nothing Aristotle says in Metaphysics ix decides this question, and it is not germane to his central argument. For a discussion of how to understand choice and desire, see Richard Sorabji in Necessity, Cause and Blame (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980): 52; David Charles in Aristotle's Philosophy of Action (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Unversity Press 1984): 57n8; and William Charlton's article "Aristotelian Powers," in Phronesis 32, no. 3(1987). 3. For a criticism of this approach, see Cynthia Freeland's "Moral Virtues and Human Powers," Review of Metaphysics 36, no. 1 (Sep tember 1982), and "Aristotle on Possibilities and Capacities" in Ancient Philosophy 6 (1986). 4. Like R. A. H. King, I think that Metaphysics ix, chapter 2, is primarily about arts and crafts and not all rational activity. I have a different understanding than King has of the way in which the technical reading fits into Aristotle's ontological project in Metaphysics ix, however. See King's "Making Things Better: The Art of Changing Things (Aristotle, Metaphysics 0 2)," Phronesis 42, no. 1 (1998): 63-83. 5. We might wonder about this. In De Anima i, chapter 1, Aristotle differentiates living from nonliving in terms of the presence of soul, which is the origin of movement and perceiving. So the presence of soul does determine some of a living being's typical powers. However, the presence of soul does not determine a unique class of powers. Heat, for example, is an agent power that cuts across the distinction between animate and inanimate. If heat and other agent powers operate in both realms, then there is no important categorical line to be drawn between the active powers of living and nonliving substances (Metaphysics ix.5.1048a4-5). 6. The question of determinism in Aristotle is extremely difficult, in part because of the complexity of his theory of causation, and in part because of questions concerning the range of operation of his causes.

Notes to Pages 67-72 When I say that Aristotle's definition of powers does not differentiate between rational and nonrational powers with regard to determinism, I should not be understood as attributing universal causal determinism to Aristotle. 7. It is important to remark here that not all rational powers of the soul fit Aristotle's criteria for being agent powers. Rational powers that are productive—Aristotle refers to them as the productive sciences and the arts (1046b2n3)—satisfy the different object requirement because they are exercised on the raw material of the world. The agent power of the artisan is in a different location from the passive power of her materials. Certain powers or abilities of the rational soul do not fit this model; not all rational activity is productive, and not all of it gives rise to an incomplete motion. In particular, theorizing or contemplating is an activity or complete motion which does not act upon or change a separately existing object. For a discussion of Aristotle's distinction between complete and incomplete motions, see chapter 2. 8. See Notes on Aristotle's Metaphysics Eta and Theta, M. F. Burnyeat et al., 54. 9. See W.D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924). 10. In Generation of Animals Aristotle uses the word sperma, or seed, for both the male and the female principles of generation. Note that Aristotle here says the seed has the form of the offspring potentially, and not that the seed is potentially the offspring. We know from Aristotle's discussion of the question of when X is Y potentially, that for natural beings X is Y potentially when it has the internal principle that will cause it to develop into Y on its own. Neither the male principle nor the female principle of animal generation is the offspring potentially. 11. The priority in being of actuality is Aristotle's central focus in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8. This can be seen from the amount of attention he gives to it in the chapter (from 1050a4 to the end), and from the fact that it is the only kind of priority of actuality for which he argues. 12. I discuss the functional notion of form later in chapter 5, in my criticism of Okin's instrumentalist understanding of Aristotelian functionalism. 13. This difference is critical for a correct understanding of Aristotle's functional notion of form. In particular, it is important to distinguish natural functions from social functions, a distinction that is blurred in Susan Moller Okin's discussion of Aristotle in Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 1979). For further discussion of this point, see chapter 5.

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Notes to Pages 77-82 Chapter 4: The Priority of Actuality 1. In Generation of Animals the male parent is the active principle of the generation, and the female parent is the passive principle, a division of labor that fits Aristotle's distinction between active and passive powers. 2. My definition of priority in being is a paraphrase from Metaphysics v.H.1019al-14. There Aristotle labels it priority "KCITO, (j)i)oiv Kai ouaiav." Aristotle's discussion of the existence of mathematical objects in Metaphysics xn.2. 1077a36-b4 also connects the idea of priority in being with ontological independence. In this text Aristotle contrasts priority in definition with priority in being. An attribute, for example, may be prior in definition to a compound entity (white may be prior in definition to white man) but not prior in being because it cannot exist separately from the compound. In Physics vm.7.260bl7-19, however, Aristotle calls ontological priority "priority in nature" and contrasts it with priority in being. It is fair to say that there is some instability in Aristotle's use of the phrase "priority in being." My proposed interpretation is based both on the clearest and most explicit explanation of the term given in the Metaphysics, and on internal evidence in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, that Aristotle uses the phrase to label ontological priority. 3. I am aware of only one other passage that explicitly discusses priority relations that conceivably could be used to interpret what Aristotle means by "priority in being" in our text. It occurs in Categories, chapter 12, 14blO-13: "For of things that reciprocate as to implication of existence, that which is in some way the cause of the other's existence might reasonably be called prior by nature." If we use this text to explain priority in being of actuality, Aristotle would be claiming that potentialities and actualities mutually imply the existence of each other, and that actualities cause the existence of potentialities. We ought not use this text because it conflates priority in being and priority in time without providing an independent meaning for priority in being. Aristotle's explanation of the priority in time of actualities in relation to potentialities points precisely to the fact that a generation of a human being requires an existing mature human being, an actuality. The mutual implication of existence is also a part of priority in time, since an existing mature human being is preceded in time by a child. And so on. It is also worth noting that Aristotle's example in the Categories of this kind of priority is peculiar (he claims that facts are prior in nature to the true sentences they "cause"), and has no plausible relationship to the examples discussed in our text.

Notes to Pages 82-85 4. T. H. Irwin gives a clear statement of the explanatory priority interpretation as follows: "He [Aristotle] claims that actuality is prior in substance to potentiality because potentiality is for the sake of actuality; we have sight for the sake of seeing and not the other way round, and similarly 'the matter is potential because it might reach the form 7 (1050al5), not the other way round. The traits and activities that explain teleologically the structure and composition of some body are the actuality for which the body has the potentiality, and they are the form for which the body is the matter." See Irwin's Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988): 237. Other commentators, including Aquinas and Ross, also favor interpreting priority in being as explanatory priority in Text A. For a discussion, see Christos Y. Panayides, "Aristotle on the Priority of Actuality in Substance," Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 330-331. 5. Aristotle's precise vocabulary is worth noting. He contrasts a jrai^ (boy) with an dvr]p (a mature male human) being rather than with av9pojtog, a word frequently used to name the human species (1050a5-7). Does the use of dvr]p make it wrong to call a boy potentially human as I do on the grounds that the form the boy lacks is the mature male form rather than the human form? It does not because the logic of the point is clear. He treats the boy and the seed in a parallel fashion; each exists potentially and for the same reason—i. e. each lacks its form. It is extremely unlikely that the forms are different. And, even if Aristotle were saying that the boy lacks the form of the mature male, the main point of the example is still the same—namely, that immature entities lack the form they will later realize as their forms. This text does suggest the issue, which I discuss in chapter 5, of Aristotle's tendency to equate the human form with the male form. That slippage may be occurring in this text; by "male," Aristotle just means "human." 6. In some texts, Aristotle does posit a teleological relationship between eternal and perishable substances, but he does not hold that eternal substances have the forms of perishable substances. Rather, the natural substances are directed toward the eternal because they desire to be eternal—to have a nature other than they do have (De Anima 415a22). 7. In "Aristotle on the Priority of Actuality in Substance" Christos Panayides suggests that Aristotle's example ought to be interpreted as contrasting a boy with the man he will develop into. If this suggestion is correct, then it would be difficult to interpret this example as illustrating the priority in substance of actuality understood as ontological priority. While I think that this interpretation of the example is initially possible, I think that the temporal word "already" at 1050a6 in-

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Notes to Pages 85-91 dicates that we are to contrast a boy (who lacks the form) with a man (who already has the form). But the man who already has the form would at the very least already have to exist. 8. In a discussion of three paradoxes of becoming in Metaphysics vn, chapter 2, G.E.L. Owen interprets Aristotle as holding that in the statement "a seed becomes a tree" the phrase "a tree" does not refer to a particular individual, but to the form or nature. See "Particular and General" in Logic, Science and Dialectic (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986). 9. For a more complete discussion of this issue, see my paper "The Priority of Actuality in Aristotle" in Unity, Identity, and Explanation, edited by T. Scaltsas, D. Charles, and M.L. Gill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). 10. Aristotle does think that the boy is temporally prior to the man in one sense of temporal priority. But temporal priority is not priority in being. The text of chapter 8 requires the two priorities to have distinct meanings. 11. I expand on this point in section 3. 12. In two texts in the biology Aristotle contrasts the order of genesis and the order of being. In nature, what is prior in development is posterior in being, and what is prior in being is posterior in development (Generation of Animals n.6.742al8-22; Parts of Animals n.l.646a25-blO). Where Aristotle elaborates on what he means by priority in being (in the second text cited), he explains it in terms of priority in time and definition. If he differentiates between priority in substance or being, and both priority in time and in definition in Metaphysics ix, chapter 8, however, then we need to understand priority in being in a different way. Since Aristotle defines priority in being in a different way in other texts, it is open to us to use them to interpret what he means here. See endnote 2 for texts where priority in being means existential or ontological priority. 13. In particular, this issue bears on the question of whether Aristotle believed that all beings were knit together into a hierarchy of instrumental relations, as Susan Moller Okin has argued in her feminist criticism of Aristotelian hylomorphism. 14. It is important to underscore the scope of my claim, which is that Aristotle does not claim in this argument that perishable beings exist for the sake of eternal beings and hence are ontologically dependent on them. Elsewhere, of course, Aristotle describes the motive force of the unmoved mover as like an object of desire, which is a slightly different kind of teleological relationship to the one he describes in Text A. 15. In Notes on Eta and Theta, Burnyeat et al. comment on the lack of

Notes to Pages 92-100 argument to support Aristotle's attribution of priority in substance to eternal beings in relation to perishable beings (145). They consider the argument that the sun is required for the genesis of finite beings, but they point out that this does not secure the desired conclusion. The sun as the cause of the genesis of perishable beings is prior in time and causation to them, but that is not the same kind of priority as priority in substance or being. 16. Except, of course, for the temporal priority of dunamis in the case of generated or created beings. Chapter 5: Ontological Hierarchy, Normativity, and Gender 1. I do not differentiate in what follows between gender and sex. Although this distinction is useful in some contexts, it is not useful in interpreting Aristotle. The texts in question blur together associations which we might consider to be sexual (e.g., biological or organic differences) with associations we might consider to be cultural (e.g., activity and passivity). I sometimes use the phrase "sexual difference" to refer to the associations with gender or sex that we find in Aristotle's texts. 2. For references, see Introduction endnote 26. 3. Although I think that the metaphorical maleness interpretation of Aristotle is worthy of consideration, I do not pursue it here because I am much more interested in clear and unambiguous gender language in the text which, despite its strange presence, has never received adequate scholarly attention. I would hope, therefore, to contribute to a long overdue debate about gender in Aristotle rather than to write the final word on the topic. 4. For a clear and useful discussion of the role of "the female" and women in Aristotle's theory of reproduction, and the consequent difficulties for his explanation of reproduction, see Gareth B. Matthews, "Gender and Essence in Aristotle/7 Australasian Journal of Philosophy (supplement to vol. 64; June 1986). 5. In "On Irigaray on Aristotle" (in Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle) Cynthia Freeland maintains a gendered interpretation of form and matter. And in the same volume Marguerite Deslauriers argues against a gendered interpretation. 6. A distinct issue of concern to feminist philosophers and historians of science is the secondary role that Aristotle assigns to women in his account of reproduction. See Nancy Tuana7s "Aristotle and the Politics of Reproduction/7 in Engendering Origins (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), for a feminist perspective on the role of women

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Notes to Pages 100-102 in reproduction. Recent discussions among Aristotle specialists have stressed another issue, which is the difficulty posed to Aristotle's view that all formal determination is via the male semen by the phenomenon of inherited characteristics. In "Metaphysics in Aristotle's Embryology" (Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 214, 1988) John Cooper argues that Aristotle can provide an adequate, internally consistent explanation of inherited characteristics that attributes all formal determination to the male. However, in "Biomedical Models of Reproduction in the Fifth Century BC and Aristotle's Generation of Animals" (Phronesis 41, 1995) Andrew Coles provides compelling grounds for questioning the internal coherence of Aristotle's demotion of the female role. Although I think that this is an important issue in evaluating Aristotle's attitude toward women, I do not explore it directly in this book. Here, I am interested in his account of reproduction primarily insofar as it contains explicit gender associations with matter and form, and not insofar as it reveals Aristotle's inability to assign to women their proper reproductive role. 7. Generation of Animals n.l.732a2-10; iv.l.765b9-15; Physics i.9.192a22-23. 8. Politics 1260a8-14. 9. The association of form with males and matter with females holds even if we pay attention to certain important details in this text. The first point is that Aristotle often uses "male" and "female" to refer to the reproductive organs of men and women (Generation of Animals 732al-3; 766a21-766b3; 768al-5). What is being called better in this text is, strictly speaking, the male sex organ and not the male person. Further, strictly speaking, the male (sex organ) is identified with the principle of movement that conveys the form to the matter and not with the form itself. However, even with these refinements in place, a set of gender associations with matter and form remain, since male sex organs are regularly found in men and female sex organs in women. 10. For a discussion of the way in which Luce Irigaray has treated the connection between women and matter in the Greek philosophical tradition, see Cynthia Freeland's "On Irigaray on Aristotle" in Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle. 11. For a full discussion of the evidence supporting the claim that male and female are not different species, see "Sex and Essence in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Biology" by Marguerite Deslauriers in Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle. 12. For an interesting and persuasive interpretation of how women are defective, see Deborah Modrak's "Aristotle: Women, Deliberation, and Nature" in Engendering Origins.

Notes to Pages 103-108 13. We can read the priority relations and normative rankings of independent beings in relation to dependent beings as having metaphorical gender connotations. Perhaps one thinks of independence as a male virtue, and its ranking as better than dependence as also reflecting the male point of view. This is an example of the kind of metaphorical gender association that I do not explore in my interpretation. 14. What a thing can do is a matter of degree. Defective individuals might not be able to perform the full range of functions or they might not be able to perform fully one or several functions. The functional notion of form is intrinsically normative, and it legitimates classing some individuals as defective, others as normal, and some as excellent. 15. See also Politics i.!253a; Generation of Animals i.!9.726b22-24, n.l.734b24-27; De Anima n.l.412bl8-22. 16. Animal kinds that cannot reproduce, like mules, are ateles (imperfect), and individual animals that cannot do so are peroma, a word which originally meant "castrated" though Aristotle uses it to refer to any missing or distorted limbs, whether congenital (the arms of seals) or the result of an accident (birth defects). 17. Whether and in what way this argument is fallacious has been the object of debate among scholars. I am not concerned with this question here. Rather, I want to use this text as evidence that Aristotle thought that the notion of a function warranted an inference to a normative conclusion. 18. My interpretation of the ergon argument is widely accepted by scholars. It is criticized in Alfonso Gomez-Lobo's "The Ergon Inference," Phronesis 34 (1989). 19. For an argument against the use of the principle of charity, see Penelope Deutscher's interpretation of Luce Irigaray's emphasis on the diagnostic significance of contradictions in an historical text in Yielding Gender (New York: Routledge, 1997). 20. I am not aware of any detailed study of the influence of Aristotle's thought on subsequent views of gender. Perhaps we would find Aristotle to be a very significant figure in the history of concepts of gender, but perhaps his influence was rather limited or intermittent. It would also be useful to trace in detail Aristotle's influence on the history of the biology of reproduction in the Western tradition. 21. Given my distinction between the intrinsic value-laden character of Aristotle's metaphysics and its extrinsic gender associations, one might attempt a reformist interpretation of Aristotle, and argue that his limited scientific methods and tools and his cultural context make the presence of gender bias in his writing virtually inevitable. And one might think further that the removal of gender bias does not change Aristotle's theory

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Notes to Pages 109-113 of substance except to rid it of the internal tensions created by his false beliefs about women and men. Indeed, since the principle of charity of interpretation mandates that we try to describe a theory that is not obviously contradictory, my interpretation might even seem to require that Aristotle's texts be reformed so as to exclude gender. Or one might take the opposite tack, reject my distinction, and argue for the centrality of gender in Aristotle's theory. I call this the gendered interpretation of Aristotle. Far from thinking of the gender associations of Aristotle's theory as external and discardable, this approach argues that they are intrinsic to his theory. Some advocates of the gendered interpretation take the presence of contradictions in Aristotle's theory of substance as symptoms of patriarchal thinking, and as inevitable in any theory which tries to universalize and thereby to deny sexual difference. Because this type of gendered interpretation rests on strong, and to my mind questionable, general claims about sexual difference, its origins and nature, rather than particular claims about Aristotle, I do not address it here. 22. Aristotle reflects this difference in his notorious comment from the Politics: For the slave does not have the faculty of deliberation, but the female has it but it is not authoritative, but the boy has it (the faculty of deliberation) but it is incomplete (ateles] (i.l3.1260a!2-15). 23. For a discussion of the complexities and conceptual difficulties arising from Aristotle's treatment of women and slaves, see Elizabeth Spelman's Inessential Woman (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988). 24. See the discussion of inherited characteristics and monsters in Generation of Animals iv, chapter 3, especially 767a35-b8. 25. See The History of Animals 496bl8, 507a23, 544b21, 562b2, 576a2. In one text, the early copulation of cows is explained by reference to a "monstrous" factor: 575bl3. 26. See Aristotle: Generation of Animals, translated by A. L. Peck (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), xlv. 27. Aristotle describes the following species as mutilated: mole (History of Animals 533a2; DeAnima 425a9); mule (Metaphysics m.4.1034b3); lobster (Parts of Animals 684a35); seal (History of Animals 498a31; 487b23; Parts of Animals 657a23). 28. In Shame and Necessity ("Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) Bernard Williams has argued a similar point with regard to Aristotle's attempt to justify the institution of slavery. 29. Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 1979): 80. 30. It is true that a position can be devised in order to serve a certain function, and yet be divorced from that function. For purposes of interpretation, however, it is significant whether gender is intrinsic to Aris-

Notes to Pages 113-115 totle's theory. And one important factor in deciding that question concerns whether it was devised in order to support the sexual status quo. 31. Okin, Women in Western Political Thought, 75. 32. Okin, Women in Western Political Thought, 77. 33. Ibid. 34. For a discussion of this issue, see John Cooper's "Aristotle on Natural Teleology" in Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy, edited by Malcolm Schofield and Martha Craven Nussbaum (Cambridge University Press, 1982). In "Is Aristotle's Teleology Anthropomorphic?" (Phronesis 36, 179-196) David Sedley argues that Aristotelian nature was structured by a hierarchy of instrumental relations directed to the benefit of man. It is important to distinguish two issues: the extent of natural teleology and its beneficiary. On neither of these points does Sedley's argument support Okin's thesis. First, does natural teleology extend beyond the flourishing of individual animals and plants to include larger natural events like weather? Even if Aristotle did intend natural teleology to include weather, as Sedley argues, the extension would be in addition to the teleology governing the internal structure and functioning of all organisms. Hence, Okin would still be mistaken in attributing intrinsic goals only to male citizens based on the extension interpretation of Aristotle's natural teleology. Second, who benefits from natural teleology? Again, even if Sedley is right that Aristotle thought that human beings benefit from some natural teleological processes, natural teleology would also benefit the individual animals and plants themselves. The point is that for Okin natural teleology is about one entity serving another's good, so that some have only instrumental worth. This is not Aristotle's position even if we accept some version of the anthropomorphic thesis put forward by Sedley. 35. Reproduction is part of the function of individual animals and plants. But, for Aristotle, reproduction is for the sake of achieving whatever immortality is available to mortals,- even in this case, the goal is a good of the individual animal or plant. 36. The other piece of Okin's case against Aristotle as the philosopher of the status quo concerns his philosophical method: dialectic. "Unlike Plato, he [Aristotle] does not argue, in dealing with ethics any more than with biology, that the world should be different from the way it is, but starts from a basic belief that the status quo in both the natural and the social realm is the best way for things to be" [74]. Note that this view of Aristotle's method does not provide an argument that shows that his metaphysics of hylomorphism was intended to justify the political inequality of women. Rather, it points out that his method of dialectic, which considers the opinions of the wise and the

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Notes to Pages 115-117 many to be important data, has a conservative tendency. The question of how to understand dialectic has received a great deal of scholarly attention since Okin published her book, however, and her view underestimates the critical resources of Aristotle's method. 37. The rejection of any hierarchical ordering in a system is far too strong a view to be plausible. For example, the prohibition would apply to any developmental view like Carol Gilligan's feminist classic In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982), which sets out a sequence of stages of ethical development ordered toward a full, or complete, ethical stage. 38. See "Sex and Essence in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Biology" by Marguerite Deslauriers in Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, edited by Cynthia Freeland (Pennsylvania State Press, 1998). 39. See Martha Nussbaum's Sex and Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 1999). 40. For a discussion of the ways in which science and scientific objectivity have been used to support myths about women, see Anne FaustoSterling's Myths of Gender (New York: Basic Books, 1992) and Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).

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"Logic and Metaphysics in Some Earlier Works of Aristotle" in Logic, Science and Dialectic. ———. "Particular and General" in Logic, Science and Dialectic. Panayides, Christos Y. "Aristotle on the Priority of Actuality in Substance." Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 327-344. Patterson, Richard. Aristotle's Modal Logic. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Patzig, G. "Theology and Ontology in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Articles on Aristotle 3. Metaphysics. Edited by Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji. London: Duckworth, 1979. Peck, A. L., trans. Aristotle: Generation of Animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963. Ross, W.D. Aristotle's Metaphysics. Vol. I and 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924. Scaltsas, T.D. Charles, and M.L. Gill, eds. Unity, Identity, and Explanation in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Sedley, David. "Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic Philosophy." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 203, n.s., 23 (1977): 74-120. ———. "Is Aristotle's Teleology Anthropomorphic?" Phronesis 36 (1991): 179-196. Sorabji, Richard. Necessity, Cause and Blame. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980. ———. "Aristotle and Oxford Philosophy." American Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1969): 127-135. Spelman, Elizabeth. "Aristotle and the Politicization of the Soul." Discovering Reality. Edited by Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983. ———. Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought: Boston: Beacon, 1988. Tuana, Nancy. "Aristotle and the Politics of Reproduction." Engendering Origins. Edited by Bat-Ami Bar On. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. Waterlow, Sarah. Passage and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Williams, Bernard. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Witt, Charlotte. "Form, Normativity and Gender." Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle. Edited by Cynthia Freeland. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. ———. "Powers and Possibilities: Aristotle vs. the Megarians." Proceed-

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Index

Accidental being, 44 Active causal powers: and actuality, 7, 11,37, 39, 73, 77; and agent causal powers, 126n. 10; and different object requirement, 11; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 39, 45, 47; distinguished from agent/passive power, 132n. 9; distinguished from inactive causal powers, 46, 47, 73, 78, 85, 92; and dunamis, 19, 21, 27, 40, 47; and gender, 138n. 1; and Megarian actualism, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25 Activity: and causal power, 24; and dunamis, 4, 87, 88; and energeia, 5, 12-13, 123-24nn. 24, 25; and eternal substances, 93, 94; as good, 103-4; and inactive causal powers, 85-86, 92, 103; metaphorical gender associations with, 99; and motion, 49-50, 134n. 20; and nature, 10, 123-24n. 24; and normative conception of being, 79; and priority in being, 86-87, 89, 92; substance as, 3, 120-21 n. 10

Actualism: and being, 94; and inactive causal powers, 9, 15; ontology of actualism, 14; and paradox of identity, 8; and powers defined by activation conditions, 61. See also Megarian actualism Actuality: and active causal powers, 7, 11, 37, 39, 73, 77; and degrees of being X, 53, 92; and dunamis, 5, 12, 14, 23, 27, 35, 36, 46, 86; dunamis as temporally prior to, 77, 80; and eternal substances, 86, 88, 90, 91-93,- form as, 56, 62, 107, 108, 112; as good, 103; metaphorical gender associations with, 99; and nonrational powers, 62-63; and normative conception of being, 79, 94-95; and priority of being, 81; and rational powers, 61, 62-63, 68, 69; as relational term, 13, 57; role of, 57-58; as way of being, 3, 4, 13. See also Distinction between potentiality and actuality; Energeia; Entelecheia-, Priority of actuality

154

Index Adunatos: and dunamis, 28-30, 33, 125n. 3; meaning of, 29-30, 35, 36-37, 128n. 23; modal connotation of, 30, 35. See also Impossibility; Incapacity Agent causal powers: and Aristotle's arguments against Megarian actualism, 20, 23; definition of, 133 n. 17; and different object requirement, 40, 42, 43, 48, 72-73, 86, 137n. 7; and dispositional analysis, 42, 48, 52; distinction among different kinds of powers, 69; distinguished from active/inactive power, 132 n. 9; distinguished from passive causal powers, 27, 41-42, 72, 131-32n. 5; and dunamis, 17, 41-43, 68; examples of, 59; and form, 42, 68, 69; meaning of, 126n. 10; and normative conception of being, 132n. 10; and perishable substances, 93; and priority in being, 88; rational powers as, 61, 64, 67, 68; and Techne Argument, 23; two-way existence of, 45-46 Artifacts: and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 54, 73; and form, 69, 70; and function, 71, 72; and gender, 102; and incomplete and complete substances, 73, 79; and matter, 47, 52, 53, 54, 56-57; and potentiality, 52, 53, 54, 56-57 Being: and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 44; and dunamis, 4; and gender, 99, 100-103; and Metaphysics ix, 2; and potentiality, 39; as true and false, 44. See also Hierarchical conception of being; Normative conception of being; Priority in being Biology: and deformed, 109; and dunamis, 10, 17, 80; and explanatory priority, 87-88, 140n. 12; and feminism, 105; and gender, 100-101 Bonitz, H., 13In. 4 Capacity: and agent causal power, 49; and causal power, 38-39; development of, 116; and different object requirement, 48; and exercise of ca-

pacity, 46, 48, 78, 86; and Immobility Argument, 32; and Megarian actualism, 29; and modal language, 33, 129-30n. 28; and possibility, 33, 34-36; and potentiality, 37 Categorical being: and dispositional properties, 9; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 2, 8, 9, 39, 44; and dunamis, 10, 22; and gender, 3, 14, 117; and good, 7; and hierarchical conception of being, 6; and priority, 5, 12In. 12; and substance, 4, 5-6, 44, 55, 95, 98, 99, 117; ways of being compared to, 3-4 Causal power: and activation conditions, 40, 41, 49, 69; and activity, 24; conceptual differences with potentiality, 40; and different object requirement, 10-11, 40, 43; and dispositional properties, 7, 9, 40, 42, 57-58, 60, 76, 122n. 18; distinction among different kinds of powers, 46, 60, 63, 69, 72-74, 75, 80-81; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 5, 7, 11, 19, 38, 55, 13In. 3; existence of, 17-18; and inactive powers, 5; and meaning of dunamis, 4, 7, 10, 11, 17, 38, 39-40, 45, 55, 60, 61, 72, 75; and modality, 35, 93; and nature, 12; origin of, 60, 62, 73, 76; and possibility, 19, 20, 30-34, 128-29 nn. 24, 26; and potentiality, 10, 37; and priority of actuality, 76, 77; and time, 36. See also Active causal powers; Agent causal powers; Inactive causal powers; Nonrational powers; Passive causal powers,- Rational powers Causation theory, 31, 128-29 n. 26, 136-37n. 6 Change: and agent and passive powers, 41-42, 64; and causal power, 39; and dunamis, 4, 10, 17, 41, 75; and Identity Thesis, 35, 36; and Immobility Argument, 20-21, 23-24, 28; and Megarian actualism, 21, 22, 23, 30; and nature, 43, 72, 73; and Techne Argument, 25, 27 Children: and change, 43; and incom-

Index plete substance, 39, 54, 70, 109; and potentiality, 39, 52-54, 57, 80, 81; and priority in being, 83-85, 139-40 n. 7; and species classification, 107 Choice: definition of, 65-66; and rational powers, 62, 65, 66 Complete motions, 50, 78, 88-89, 91, 93, 134-35 n. 23 Complete substance: and actuality, 39, 40, 77; and form, 83, 84-85; and function, 55; and potentiality of incomplete substance, 54, 73, 77; and priority in being, 13, 51, 78, 79, 83-87, 89, 92, 103, 104, 115; and priority in definition, 81; relationship to incomplete substance, 8, 46 Contingent beings, 92 Crafts, and dunamis, 10 Deformed, 95, 109, 110-11 Desire, and rational powers, 62, 65, 66 Determinism, 66, 136-37n. 6 Developmental conception of being, 3, 53 Dialectic, 145-46n. 36 Different object requirement: and agent and passive causal power, 40, 42, 43, 48, 72-73, 86, 137n. 7; and causal power, 10-11, 40, 43; and nature, 12, 73 Diodorus Cronus, 126-27 n. 14 Dispositional properties: and agent and passive causal powers, 42, 48, 52; and causal power, 7, 9, 40, 42, 57-58, 60, 76, 122n. 18; and meaning of dunamis, 42; of substance, 7, 9, 62; and teleological dependence, 58 Distinction between potentiality and actuality: and categorical being, 2, 8, 9, 39, 44; and causal power, 5, 7, 11, 19, 38, 55, 131 n. 3; and energeia, 13, 123 nn. 22, 23; and entelecheia, 13, 123 n. 23; examples of, 7-8, 13, 44, 45-57, 58, 74, 86, 123n. 22, 133n. 14, 133-34n. 17; and gender, 14, 117; and hierarchical conception of being, 5, 6, 9, 89, 98, 99, 103, 117; and meaning of being, 44; and

Megarian actualism, 7, 15, 16, 18, 23, 24, 37, 47; and Metaphysics ix, I, 10, 16, 19, 43-44, 103; and Metaphysics vn, 2; and normative conception of being, 5, 6, 9, 98, 99, 103, 105, 111, 117; and ontology, 8, 39, 44, 48, 63, 95; and Perception Argument, 25; and possibility, 37; and reality, 8-9; and substance, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 39; and teleological relationship, 40, 48-49, 57-58, 60, 79, 82, 103; and ways of being, 9, 37, 40, 44, 51, 77,96 Divisions of being: and potentiality and actuality, 2, 120n. 7; relation to each other, 3 Dunamis: and active causal powers, 19, 21, 27, 40, 47; and actualism, 9; and actuality, 5, 12, 14, 23, 27, 35, 36, 46, 86; and agent causal powers, 17, 41-43, 68; and contraries, 94; and energeia, 5, 45, 46; existence of, 9-12, 13, 15, 18; and Immobility Argument, 28, 75, 91-92; and inactive causal powers, 19, 35, 36, 39, 40, 47, 61; and learning, 31-32, 80-81; meaning as causal power, 4, 7, 10, II, 17, 38, 39-40, 45, 55, 60, 61, 72, 75; meaning as potentiality, 4, 7, 10, 22,38,51,54,55,60, 72, 75, 131-32n. 5, 133n. 13; meanings of, 7, 9-10, 17, 19, 38, 39-43, 45-46, 51, 54, 55, 60, 61, 72, 73, 75, 76-77, 88, 131-32nn. 1, 3, 4, 5, 133n. 13; and modal implications, 10, 20, 22, 30, 32, 33, 38, 91, 93, 126n. 9, 128n. 24, 129n. 27; and motion, 49, 51, 75; and natural causation, 4; and nature, 12, 43, 72, 13In. 2, 133n. 13; and normative conception of being, 79, 94-95; ontological meaning of, 10, 22, 37, 40, 46, 54, 72, 76-77, 88, 122n. 19, 132n. 6, 134n. 17; and Perception Argument, 25, 26; and possibility, 19, 20, 33, 35, 91, 125n. 3, 131 n. 4; and priority in being, 80, 81, 87; and priority in definition, 80, 81; and priority in time, 62, 80; and priority of actuality, 5, 23, 60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 75-76, 80, 110;

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Index Dunamis (continued) and substance, 5, 17; as temporally prior to actuality, 77, 80, 141 n. 16; Unitarian interpretation of, 11. See also Causal power; Potentiality Dunatos: and dunamis, 33, 125n. 3; and energeia, 130n. 28; modal connotations of, 30 Energeia: and activity, 5, 12-13, 123-24nn. 24, 25; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 13, 123 nn. 22, 23; and dunamis, 5, 45, 46; and dunatos, 130n. 28; meaning of, 12-13, 45, 123-24n. 24; and motion, 43, 49; and priority of actuality, 12-13, 62. See also Activity; Actuality Entelecheia, as actuality, 12-13, 124n. 24 Ergon, and Nicomachean Ethics, 71, 104-5 Eternal substances: and actuality, 86, 88, 90, 91-93; and dunamis, 13; and normative conception of being, 94; as not defective, 95; and potentiality, 88; and priority in being, 10, 13, 19, 50, 76, 78, 82, 88, 89-94; and priority of actuality, 79, 82, 88, 89; and teleological relationship with perishable substances, 79, 90-91, 114, 139n. 6, 140n. 14 Ethics: and choice, 65-66; and dunamis, 10, 17 Feminism: and Aristotle's theory of being, 99; and form and matter, 100, 102; and ideal of objectivity, 117; and normative conception of being, 105-6, 115; and reproduction, 141-42 n. 6; and substance, 14 Form: as actuality, 56, 62, 107, 108, 112; and agent causal powers, 42, 68, 69; functional nature of, 70, 71, 83, 98, 104, 105, 107, 113-14, 116, 137n. 13, 143n. 14; and gender, 14, 69, 71, 95, 99, 100-102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 137n. 10, 139n. 5, 142nn. 6, 9; and hierarchical conception of being, 115-16; and incomplete and

complete substances, 83, 84-85, 140n. 8; and natural beings, 69, 70, 83-84, 139n. 5; and normative conception of being, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 116; and rational powers, 62, 63, 67-72, 84; and species, 102, 104, 106-7; teleological relationship with matter, 79, 86, 92; and value hierarchy, 103, 104, 105 Frede, Michael, 11, 119n. 2, 131 n. 3 Function: and functional deformities, 111; functional nature of form, 70, 71, 83, 98, 104, 105, 107, 113-14, 116, 137n. 13, 143n. 14; and hierarchical conception of being, 113, 114; and incomplete substance, 55, 83, 84, 85, 108, 109; and natural beings, 70-71, 72, 83; and normative conception of being, 104-5, 143n. 17; and species, 53-54; and telos, 124n. 24 Functionalism, 104, 112-15 Gender: Aristotle's influence on gender ideology, 107, 143 n. 20; and being, 99, 100-103; explicitly gendered terms, 99; and form, 14, 69, 71, 95, 99, 100-102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 137n. 10, 139n. 5, 142nn. 6, 9; and gender functions, 113; and hylomorphism, 95, 101, 112, 114-15; intrinsically/extrinsically gendered, 98, 99, 100, 101, 107-9, 110, 111-12, 117, 143-44n. 21, 144-45n. 30; and matter, 14, 69, 95, 99, 100-102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 142nn. 6, 9; metaphorical gender associations, 99, 117, 143 n. 13; and metaphysics, 3, 14, 98-99, 100, 103, 105, 141 n. 3; and normative conception of being, 14-15, 99, 102, 105-6, 107, 108; and politics, 99, 100, 102, 107; and priority in time of actuality, 77, 80; and sex, 141 n. 1; and value hierarchy, 103 Generation of Animals (Aristotle), 106, 110, 135n. 27 Gill, M. L., 119n. 1 Good: and goal of reproduction, 145n. 35; and normative conception of

Index being, 7, 97; and poll tics, 116; telos as, 79, 103-4, 108; and ways of being, 6 Graham, Daniel, 135 n. 24 Heinaman, Robert, 134n. 21 Hierarchical conception of being: and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 5, 6, 9, 89, 98, 99, 103, 117; and eneigeia, 5; and gender, 99, 103, 106, 108; and nature, 145n. 34; and priority of actuality, 13, 14-15, 74, 76, 95, 99, 103; relation with normative conception of being, 80, 95, 98; and species, 6, 53; and substance, 5-6; and ways of being, 3, 5, 6, 12In. 11. See also Priority of actuality Hierarchy of instrumental relations, 140 n. 13 Hintikka, Jaakko, 35 Hylomorphism: and gender, 95, 101, 112, 114-15; and politics, 106; and substance, 14, 95, 101-2 Identity Thesis, 27, 35, 36 Immobility Argument: and adunatos, 28-30; and capacity, 32; and change, 20-21, 23-24, 28; and dunamis, 28, 75, 91-92; and modality, 93-94; and motion, 21, 23-24, 27-28, 29; and possibility, 33, 34-35, 91-92, 126n. 12, 128nn. 24, 26; and time, 34, 35, 36, 130n. 31 Impossibility: definition of, 34; and dunamis, 28, 29, 30, 32, 125n. 3; and incapacity, 35-36; and possibility, 126n. 9; and time, 34, 35, 36 Inactive causal powers: and activity, 85-86, 92, 103; and actualism, 9, 15; and agent causal powers, 126n. 10; and different object requirement, 11; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 5, 39, 45, 47, 55; distinguished from active causal powers, 46, 47, 73, 78, 85, 92; distinguished from agent/passive power, 132n. 9; and dunamis, 19, 35, 36, 397 40, 47, 61; existence of, 18; and Megarian actualism, 7, 18, 22, 25,

38, 39, 45, 47, 61; and passive causal powers, 20; and potentiality, 7, 11, 37, 39, 50, 73, 77; and priority in being, 86-87, 89, 92; and Techne Argument, 20; and teleological relationship, 49, 58, 83, 85; and ways of being, 10 Incapacity: and dunamis, 28-29, 30, 32; and impossibility, 35-36 Incomplete motions, 50, 78, 88-89, 91, 93, 134-35 n. 23 Incomplete substance: and children, 39, 54, 70, 109; and form, 83, 84-85, 140n. 8; and function, 55, 83, 84, 85, 108, 109; as ontologically dependent on complete substance, 13, 51, 86, 87, 89, 92, 115; and potentiality, 39, 40, 54, 55, 57, 70, 73, 74, 77, 79, 108-9; and priority in being, 78, 83-87, 89, 103, 104, 115, 139-40n. 7; and priority in definition, 81; relationship to complete substance, 8, 46; and ways of being, 96; women as, 95-96, 116 Irwin, T. H., 139n. 4 Kinds of being. See Categorical being Kosman, L. A., 119n. 1, 120-2In. 10, 124n. 25, 134n. 17 Lloyd, G. E. R., 46 Logical possibility, 34, 35 Logos: and distinction between rational and nonrational powers, 63, 67, 136n. 1; and gender, 100-101; meaning of, 64, 67; and priority of actuality, 77 Matter: and artifacts, 47, 52, 53, 54, 56-57; and gender, 14, 69, 95, 99, 100-102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 142nn. 6, 9; and hierarchical conception of being, 115-16; and normative conception of being, 110, 111, 112; as ontologically dependent on form, 13, 87, 89; and passive causal power, 42; and potentiality, 52, 55, 56, 92, 111-12; and priority in being, 87; and rational powers, 68; and sexual difference, 115; and substance, 50,

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Index Matter (continued) 51, 135n. 24; teleological relationship with form, 79, 86, 92; and value hierarchy, 103 Megarian actualism: and active causal powers, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25; Aristotle's description of, 21-22, 27, 126-27n. 14; Aristotle's refutation of, 10, 15, 18-21, 23-30, 32-33, 35, 36-37, 38, 45,61,91-92,93, 127n. 17, 128-29 n. 26; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 7, 15, 16, 18, 23,24,37, 47; and dunamis, 22-23, 24, 25, 127n. 17; and inactive causal powers, 7, 18, 22, 25, 38, 39, 45, 47, 61; and perception, 25-26; and rational/nonrational powers, 66-67. See also Actualism Menn, Stephen, 124n. 24, 134n. 17, 135 n. 24 Metaphysics: and feminism, 102, 105; and gender, 3, 14, 98-99, 100, 103, 105, 141 n. 3; as metaphysics of substance, 3; and normative conception of being, 94-95, 98, 105, 107, 110, 112-15, 117; and politics, 113, 117; and teleological metaphysics, 98, 104, 105 Modality: and capacity, 33, 129-30 n. 28; and causal powers, 35, 93; and dunamis, 10, 20, 22, 30, 32, 33, 38, 91, 93, 126n. 9, 128n. 24, 129n. 27; and Immobility Argument, 93-94; and time, 34, 35, 128n. 23, 130n. 30 Monsters, 110 Motion: and activity, 49-50, 134n. 20; complete/incomplete motions, 50, 78, 88-89, 91, 93, 134-35n. 23; and dunamis, 49, 51, 75; and energeia, 43, 49; and Identity Thesis, 35, 36; and Megarian actualism, 21, 23-24, 27-28, 29, 30; and nature, 43 Mutilation, 110-11 Natural beings: and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 54, 73; and form, 69, 70, 83-84, 139 n. 5; and function, 70-71, 72, 83; and incomplete and complete substances,

73, 74, 79, 81; and potentiality, 52-54, 56-57, 135n. 27; and priority of actuality, 138n. 3 Natural causation, 4 Natural philosophy, 17, 100 Natural possibility, 34, 35, 37 Nature: and activity, 10, 123-24n. 24; and change, 43, 72, 73; definition of, 133-34 n. 17; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 73, 74; and dunamis, 12, 43, 72, 131 n. 2, 133n. 13; and form, 70, 84; and gender, 14, 99; and hierarchical conception of being, 145n. 34; and Immobility Argument, 21; and incomplete substances, 70; and normative conception of being, 97-98, 99, 102, 105, 107, 108, 112, 115; andontological priority of complete substances, 79; and priority of actuality, 69, 76, 77; and teleological goods, 116; and teleological relationship to actuality, 63; as value-free zone, 116-17 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 6, 7, 71, 104-5, 122n. 17 Nonrational powers: and activation conditions, 61, 62, 66, 77, 81, 136n. 2; and actuality, 62-63; dispositional analysis of, 61, 62, 66; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 11; distinguished from rational powers, 27, 41, 58, 59, 60, 61-62, 64-67, 68, 73, 76, 93; and dunamis, 17; effects of, 65, 93; and Perception Argument, 25; and priority of actuality, 11, 12,58,61, 81 Normative conception of being: and agent and passive powers, 132n. 10; and Aristotle's theory of being, 103-9; and categorical being, 6; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 5, 6, 9, 98, 99, 103, 105, 111, 117; and feminism, 105-6, 115; and gender, 14-15, 99, 102, 105-6, 107, 108; and good, 7, 97; and metaphysics, 94-95, 98, 105, 107, 110, 112-15, 117; origin of, 98; and politics, 90, 112-13, 115, 116; and priority in being, 94-96, 103-4; and priority of actuality, 14-15, 79, 90, 94-96,

Index 98, 99, 103; relation with hierarchical conception of being, 80, 95, 98; and ways of being, 3, 5, 6 Okin, Susan Moller, 112-14, 145 n. 34, 145-46n. 36 Ontology: and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 8, 39, 44, 48, 63, 95; and eternal beings, 90; and gender, 14-15, 100, 101; and hierarchical conception of being, 100; and meaning of dunamis, 10, 22, 37, 40, 46, 55, 72, 122n. 19, 132n. 6, 134 n. 17; and Metaphysics ix, 2, 3-4, 18, 55, 60, 61, 67, 76; and Metaphysics vii, 6; and normative conception of being, 97, 100, 105; ontological meaning of dunamis, 10, 22, 37, 40, 46, 54, 72, 76-77, 88, 122n. 19, 132n. 6, 134n. 17; and potentiality, 38, 39; priority in being as ontological, 13, 77-78, 79, 81-91, 92, 93, 94-96, 103, 138n. 2 Orexis, 65 Organic unity, 42-43 Ousia, and priority of actuality, 77 Paradox of identity, 8, 83 Parmenides, 18, 25 Passive causal powers: and Aristotle's arguments against Megarian actualism, 20, 23; and different object requirement, 40, 42, 43, 48, 72-73, 86, 13 7 n. 7; and dispositional analysis, 42, 48, 52; distinguished from active/inactive power, 132n. 9; distinguished from agent causal powers, 27, 41-42, 131-32n. 5; and dunamis, 17, 41-43, 51; and gender, 138n. 1; meaning of, 126n. 10; and normative conception of being, 132n. 10; and Perception Argument, 20, 23, 25, 26; two-way existence of, 45-46 Patriarchy, 115 Peck, A. L., 110 Perception Argument, 20, 23, 25-27 Perishable substances: as defective, 95; and normative conception of being, 94; and potentiality, 92; and priority in being of eternal substances, 10,

13, 19, 50, 76, 78, 82, 89-94; and priority of actuality, 79, 82; and teleological relationship with eternal substances, 79, 90-91, 114, 139n. 6, 140n. 14 Politics: and dunamis, 10; and feminism, 105, 112; and form, 106; and gender, 99, 100, 102, 107; and good, 116; and hierarchical conception of being, 115; and hylomorphism, 106; and metaphysics, 113, 117; and normative conception of being, 90, 112-13, 115, 116 Politics (Aristotle|, 100, 109 Possibility: and capacity, 33, 34-36; and causal power, 19, 20, 30-34, 128-29 nn. 24, 26; and dunamis, 19, 20, 33, 35, 91, 125 n. 3, 131 n. 4; and Immobility Argument, 33, 34-35, 91-92, 126n. 12, 128nn. 24, 26; and impossibility, 126n. 9; and Megarian actualism, 21; and potentiality, 20, 37; principle of, 34, 130n. 32; and states of affairs, 125-26 n. 7; temporalizing of, 32, 33-36 Potentiality: and actualism, 8; and artifacts, 52, 53, 54, 56-57; and capacity, 37; and causal power, 10, 37; conceptual differences with causal power, 40; conditions for being X potentially, 52; and degrees of being X, 53, 92; and form, 69, 70; and inactive causal powers, 7, 11, 37, 39, 50, 73, 77; and incomplete substance, 39, 40, 54, 55, 57, 70, 73, 74, 77, 79, 108-9; and meaning of dunamis, 4, 7, 10, 22, 38, 51, 54, 55, 60, 72, 75, 131-32n. 5, 133n. 13; and natural beings, 52-54, 56-57, 135 n. 27; and nature, 12, 84; ontological notion of, 38, 39; and perishable substances, 92; and possibility, 20, 37; and priority of being, 81-82; and rational powers, 61; as relational term, 13, 40, 57, 70, 75, 132n. 8; as way of being, 3, 4, 7, 11, 13. See also Distinction between potentiality and actuality; Dunamis; Priority of actuality Prediction relationship, 6

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Index Priority: and categorical being, 5, 12In. 12; and hierarchical conception of being, 115; kinds of priority, 62; and priority of substance, 5-6; senses of priority, 58 Priority in being: and agent causal powers, 88; and complete substance, 13, 51, 78, 79, 83-87, 89, 92, 103, 104, 115; and dunamis, 80, 81, 87; and eternal substances, 10, 13, 19, 50, 76, 78, 82, 88, 89-94; and explanatory priority, 82, 87-88, 93, 139 n. 4; and inactive causal powers, 86-87, 89, 92; and matter, 87; and normative conception of being, 94-96, 103-4; as ontological priority, 13, 77-78, 79, 81-91, 92, 93, 94-96, 103, 138n. 2; and priority of actuality, 69, 70, 77-78, 79, 80, 81-89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94-96, 99, 103-4, 137n. 11, 138nn. 2, 3; and teleological relationship, 78, 82, 85-87, 89, 104 Priority in definition: and dunamis, 80, 81; and priority of actuality, 61, 69, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87-88, 99, 138n. 2, 140n. 12 Priority in time: and active causal powers, 68; and dunamis, 62, 80; and gender, 77, 80; and priority of actuality, 69, 73, 77, 78, 79, 80-81, 83, 87-88, 99, 138n. 3, 140nn. 10, 12 Priority of actuality: Aristotle's argument for, 76-78; and complete and incomplete motions, 50; and distinction between rational powers and nonrational powers, 11, 12, 58, 61-62, 68; and distinctions among different kinds of powers, 46, 60, 73; and dunamis, 5, 23, 60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 75-76, 80, 110; and energeia, 12-13, 62; and eternal and perishable substances, 79, 92; and hierarchical conception of being, 13, 14-15, 74, 76, 95, 99, 103; and Megarian actualism, 19, 23; and Metaphysics ix, 55; and nonrational powers, 11, 12; and normative conception of being, 14-15, 79, 90, 94-96, 98, 99, 103; and priority in being, 69, 70, 77-78, 79, 80, 81-89,

90, 91, 92, 93, 94-96, 99, 103-4, 137n. 11, 138nn. 2, 3; and priority in definition, 61, 69, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87-88, 99, 138n. 2, 140n. 12; and priority in time, 69, 73, 77, 78, 79, 80-81, 83, 87-88, 99, 138n. 3, 140nn. 10, 12; and rational powers, 11, 12, 58, 61-62, 81; and teleological relationship, 47, 78, 79, 82, 85-86, 87, 89; threefold nature of, 57, 80-89 Prohairesis, 65, 66 Protagorean relativism, 23, 26, 127n. 19 Rational powers: and activation conditions, 61, 62, 64, 66, 77, 81, 136n. 2; and actuality, 61, 62-63, 68, 69; Aristotle's description of, 64-67; and contrary outcomes, 63, 64, 68, 93; development of, 32; dispositional analysis of, 61, 62, 66; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 11, 60, 73-74; distinguished from nonrational powers, 27, 41, 58, 59, 60, 61-62, 64-67, 68, 73, 76, 93; and dunamis, 17; effects of, 65, 93; and form, 62, 63, 67-72, 84; and priority of actuality, 11, 12, 58, 61-62, 81; and soul, 67, 137n. 7; and Techne Argument, 20 Rationality, 8, 39, 70, 105, 109, 111, 121-22n. 17. See also Nonrational powers,- Rational powers Relationship between potentiality and actuality. See Distinction between potentiality and actuality; Priority of actuality Reproduction: goal of, 114, 145 n. 35; and incomplete substance, 70; and potentiality, 52, 135 n. 27; and women, 100, 109, 110, 111, 116, 141-42n. 6 Ross, W. D., 12, 119n. 3, 123n. 21, 131-32n. 5, 133n. 13, 134nn. 17, 18 Sedley, David, 145n. 34 Sexism, 110, 112-15 Sexual dimorphism, 103, 106 Slaves, 101, 106, 107, 113

Index Sorabji, Richard, 34 Soul: and agent causal power, 42; and distinctions between powers, 64, 136 n. 5; and dunamis, 10; and functionalism, 113, 114; and logos, 67; and rational powers, 67, 84, 13 7 n. 7 Species: and deformed, 109, 111; and form, 102, 104, 106-7; and function, 53-54; and hierarchical conception of being, 6, 53; and priority of being, 85 Substance: as activity, 3, 120-21 n. 10; and categorical being, 4, 5-6, 44, 55, 95, 98, 99, 117; causal power as dispositional property of, 7, 62; composite substance theory, 56, 102; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 39, 55; and dunamis, 5, 17; and gender, 14; and hierarchical conception of being, 53; hylomorphic analysis of, 14, 95, 101-2; immaterial substances, 1, 119n. 2; and matter, 50, 51, 135n. 24; and Metaphysics ix, 1, 2, 3-4, 8, 16, 55, 56, 119n. 1, 120-21 n. 10; metaphysics of substance, 3; and Metaphysics vn, 1, 4, 5, 6; and Metaphysics vn-ix, 1-2; and normative conception of being, 103; and paradox of identity, 8; and possibility, 128-29 n. 26; and priority, 5-6, 91, 139-40n. 7; and priority in substance, 5-6, 91, 92, 93, 95. See also Complete substance,- Incomplete substance Techne Argument, 20, 23, 24-25, 27, 32, 127n. 20 Teleological goods, 103 Teleological metaphysics, 98, 104, 105 Teleological relationship: and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 40, 48-49, 57-58, 60, 79, 82, 103; of eternal and perishable substances, 79, 90-91, 139n. 6, 140n. 14; and function, 72; and hierarchical conception of being, 114, 145n.

34; and inactive causal powers, 49, 58, 83, 85; of matter and form, 79, 86, 92; and priority in being, 78, 82, 85-87, 89, 104; and priority of actuality, 47, 78, 79, 82, 85-86, 87, 89 Telos: and function, 124n. 24; as good, 79, 103-4, 108; and mutilation, 110; and normative conception of being, 79, 103; and rational powers, 63 Time: and causal powers, 36; and Immobility Argument, 34, 35, 36, 130n. 31; and modality, 34, 35, 128n. 23, 130n. 30; and possibility, 32, 33-36. See also Priority in time Unitarians, 11, 16, 131 n. 1 Unity of form and matter, 56-57 Universal instrumental relations, 113-14, 116 Universal teleology, 79, 90, 93 Unmoved mover, and hierarchical conception of being, 5 Value hierarchy, 103-4, 105, 106, 108. See also Normative conception of being Voluntary action, 62, 66 Ways of being: actuality as, 3, 4, 13; categorical being compared to, 3-4; and distinction between potentiality and actuality, 9, 37, 40, 44, 51, 77, 96; and dunamis, 22; and hierarchical conception of being, 3, 5, 6, 121 n. 11; and inactive causal powers, 10; potentiality as, 3, 4, 7, 11, 13; and priority of actuality, 78; teleological relationship between, 48 Women: as deformed males, 95, 101, 109, 110-11; and form, 106, 107; as incomplete, 95-96, 116; and nature as value-free, 116-17; oppression of, 112-15; and reproduction, 100, 109, 110, 111, 116, 141-42n. 6 Yu, Jiyuan, 120n. 3

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