Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

209383

Potentiality in Aristotle's physics and biology

Stephen Makin

pp. 45-70

Abstract

This paper concerns the variety of uses Aristotle makes of the notion of potentiality, focusing on his physics and biology. The main argument of the paper turns on a contrast between two types of potentiality: those which are binary (which are either exercised or inactive, e.g. the capacity to build) and those that are scalar (which can be exercised to a greater or lesser degree, e.g. the capacity to heat). Potentialities of the second sort are involved when there is mutual interaction (the hot iron heats the cold water just as the cold water cools the hot iron), and I say something about what the notion of genuine mutual interaction consists in. I then argue that the notion of optimal conditions for the exercise of these scalar capacities makes no sense while it does make sense for binary capacities). It then follows that the Aristotelian response to the familiar objection that appeals to potentialities cannot be explanatory—a response developed at length in Metaphysics Θ, and crucially involving the notions of optimal conditions for exercise—will not apply to capacities the exercise of which is scalar. That result is offered as a partial explanation for Aristotle's subsumption of lower level interactive biological capacities (e.g. to heat and cool) to higher level non-interactive capacities (e.g. to develop into bone, to develop from embryo to child).

Publication details

Published in:

Engelhard Kristina, Quante Michael (2018) Handbook of potentiality. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 45-70

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-024-1287-1_3

Full citation:

Makin Stephen (2018) „Potentiality in Aristotle's physics and biology“, In: K. Engelhard & M. Quante (eds.), Handbook of potentiality, Dordrecht, Springer, 45–70.