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1 results

  • 9 - Where is the activity?

  • Edited by James G. Lennox, University of Pittsburgh, Robert Bolton, Rutgers University, New Jersey
  • Book:
    Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle
    Published online:
    06 December 2010
    Print publication:
    18 November 2010, pp 198-211

  • Summary

    Aristotle is seeking to establish that actuality or activity (energeia) is prior in substance (ousia) to potentiality. More precisely, he is trying to show that a given energeia is prior in ousia to the corresponding dunamis. The demonstration that energeia is prior in ousia to the corresponding dunamis is third in a battery of arguments showing that energeia is prior to dunamis in many ways. He is aiming to establish that energeia is prior in ousia to dunamis, by way of the intermediate theses that energeia is prior in respect of form, and that energeia is the telos of dunamis. Aristotle gives two considerations in favour of viewing transitive activity. First, this activity is in the patient, in what is being worked upon by the agent so as to produce the house. Secondly, the activity 'comes into being, and is, simultaneously with the house'.