"Act and Potency"

[markeverett49]

Well, but that still intellectualizes potency as though it is something in storage contained in or by the subject itself. Aquinas means it more as possibility, except that he makes it stronger making it “possibility with a relatively inexorable tendency to one particular outcome, rather than another.”/

jd, I get your point. Thanks for helping me out there!
As for rocks, I wasn’t thinking so much of the history of one rock but about the rock cycle: (igneous, sedimentary, matamorphic, magma, back to igneous…) The cycle need not be seen as starting with igneous rocks, and there is more than one way through it, but from an Aristotelian perspective, this must be seen as end-directed, though as with the water cycle, the end is to ‘keep the cycle going’ rather than to remain in a final state. Right?

 

[JDaniel]

jd, I get your point. Thanks for helping me out there!
As for rocks, I wasn’t thinking so much of the history of one rock but about the rock cycle: (igneous, sedimentary, matamorphic, magma, back to igneous…) The cycle need not be seen as starting with igneous rocks, and there is more than one way through it, but from an Aristotelian perspective, this must be seen as end-directed, though as with the water cycle, the end is to ‘keep the cycle going’ rather than to remain in a final state. Right?

Mark:

I fear I’m am not making myself clear, and it’s my fault. It’s imperative that this be understood correctly. May I diagram it?

Potency >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - → Act

Think of them as contraries, as two different aspects that a common subject (a material being) will possess then not possess. At the beginning of any motion, the subject will be in Potency to become actualized by Form. IOW, it will not yet possess the final Form that it will possess when in Act. Diagrammed it would look like this:

Clay >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - → Statue

Potency says capacity or aptitude, and act says fulfillment or realization. A man, about to cross a street, has the capacity to be on the other side and hence is in potency to being there. After the crossing, he will be on the other side in act, i.e., he will be actually there. Now, in terms of our previous discussions, matter is the same thing as the potential, and form is the actualizing principle of matter. Matter is passive. It is indeterminate but determinable; form is the determining principle in all change.

Re. your final question above, that the water keep going is irrelevant. The subject of motion can keep being pushed along in the cycle, or, it can come to rest. That doesn’t really matter. The world and everything in it are in constant change, which we are calling “motion.” The diagram above is an analogy. I don’t think anything in the world will ever reach a “final state” finality. Not even diamond, although it might be the only thing in the world that we can think of as eternal, except our souls.

I apologize for being repetitive. I haven’t thought about this stuff for quite a while, and my feeble mind needs to think it through more than once until I have it clear enough to articulate.

God bless,
jd

 

[Hypatia]

Mark:

I fear I’m am not making myself clear, and it’s my fault. It’s imperative that this be understood correctly. May I diagram it?

Potency >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - → Act

Think of them as contraries, as two different aspects that a common subject (a material being) will possess then not possess. At the beginning of any motion, the subject will be in Potency to become actualized by Form. IOW, it will not yet possess the final Form that it will possess when in Act. Diagrammed it would look like this:

Clay >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - → Statue

Potency says capacity or aptitude, and act says fulfillment or realization. A man, about to cross a street, has the capacity to be on the other side and hence is in potency to being there. After the crossing, he will be on the other side in act, i.e., he will be actually there. Now, in terms of our previous discussions, matter is the same thing as the potential, and form is the actualizing principle of matter. Matter is passive. It is indeterminate but determinable; form is the determining principle in all change.

Re. your final question above, that the water keep going is irrelevant. The subject of motion can keep being pushed along in the cycle, or, it can come to rest. That doesn’t really matter. The world and everything in it are in constant change, which we are calling “motion.” The diagram above is an analogy. I don’t think anything in the world will ever reach a “final state” finality. Not even diamond, although it might be the only thing in the world that we can think of as eternal, except our souls.

I apologize for being repetitive. I haven’t thought about this stuff for quite a while, and my feeble mind needs to think it through more than once until I have it clear enough to articulate.

God bless,
jd

I would just reiterate that only things which are actual have potency, so if you are talking about the potency of something in Aquinas, you are talking about the limitations and determinations associated with its particular act of existing. JD already covers this when he talks about motion in his previous post, but I always find the descriptions that talk about a pure movement from potency to act to be misleading.

The reason things don’t reach a state of rest is because they are determined limited acts that can never shake the limitation inherent in their beginning no matter how they might try. Only God is at rest because God is Esse beyond all determination (i.e., potency).

 

[markeverett49]

JD, thanks for the diagram. I’ll stew over it for awhile, but right off the bat I have to say that crossing the street is a fundamentally different kind of example than an acorn becoming an oak tree. In the case of the acorn, we think of becoming an oak tree as its final end, but that is not how we think of a man crossing a street. Man’s final end is union with God, no?

But like I said, I’ll stew on this. I like the diagram. I’ll make my own copy. I love diagrams and charts when studying philosophy. As Aquinas said, it is for the wise man to order, and nothing says order like a nifty diagram and a chart! (Especially if it also contains a list!)

 

[JDaniel]

JD, thanks for the diagram. I’ll stew over it for awhile, but right off the bat I have to say that crossing the street is a fundamentally different kind of example than an acorn becoming an oak tree.

Hello, Mark:

Yes it is, but it is inseparably related to the species we call: change. It is merely change taken in a wider sense, which, by the way, does not invalidate it, since we must say the same things of either sub-species.

In the case of the acorn, we think of becoming an oak tree as its final end, but that is not how we think of a man crossing a street. Man’s final end is union with God, no?

Here we are relating another exigency to potency-act, that is, final cause. All along the way, a man will undergo numerous changes. As a composite being, he can be the secondary cause of a myriad of his own successive potency-to-act actualizations before his final end. Hopefully, he will be part of the Beatific Vision!

But like I said, I’ll stew on this. I like the diagram. I’ll make my own copy. I love diagrams and charts when studying philosophy. As Aquinas said, it is for the wise man to order, and nothing says order like a nifty diagram and a chart! (Especially if it also contains a list!)

God bless,
jd

 

[markeverett49]

Yes it is, but it is inseparably related to the species we call: change. It is merely change taken in a wider sense, which, by the way, does not invalidate it…

I think this misses a crucial distinction. The man crossing the street is a good example of change in the sense that we see a) the pre-change substance, b) the change, and c)the post-change substance. But the acorn is not like this. The acorn is long gone before the oak tree appears. (The acorn doesn’t change into an oak tree anymore than an embryo changes into a Catholic philosopher!)

The acorn / oak tree example is used to show final causation, not ordinary change. A banana going from green to ripe is a good example of such change but the acorn is not because the acorn doesn’t change into a full-grown tree. And certainly not in the same way a man changes when he crosses a street.

 

[JDaniel]

I think this misses a crucial distinction. The man crossing the street is a good example of change in the sense that we see a) the pre-change substance, b) the change, and c)the post-change substance. But the acorn is not like this. The acorn is long gone before the oak tree appears. (The acorn doesn’t change into an oak tree anymore than an embryo changes into a Catholic philosopher!)

Mark:

OK so I missed a few steps. You will please forgive me?

The acorn / oak tree example is used to show final causation, not ordinary change. A banana going from green to ripe is a good example of such change but the acorn is not because the acorn doesn’t change into a full-grown tree. And certainly not in the same way a man changes when he crosses a street.

I don’t think so. There is not a time when the acorn-to-fully-grown-oak-tree exigency is not undergoing some sort of change. Leaves are growing and dying, branches are growing and falling off, the tree gets wider and taller, its trunk increases in girth, Woodpeckers pierce into its marrow, which has to repair, and so forth. The closest we may come to that type of finality is carbon (or whatever died to become carbon) to diamond, but this is only because of the slowness of it.

Final causation is another concept. Final causation has to do with purpose, IOW, a final cause is that for the sake of which an agent acts… Mankind is made to be one with the Beatific Vision. That some don’t make it, is irrelevant to man’s ultimate purpose. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that we don’t have other purposes too. Of course we do, but, our ultimate purpose is not to swat mosquitoes and procreate.

God bless,
jd

 

[markeverett49]

OK so I missed a few steps. You will please forgive me?

Sure thing, but it’s not just a matter of skipping steps. A man crossing the street is not the same kind of thing as an acorn developing into a full-grown tree. Again, you have the same man on both sides of the street, but you don’t have the same acorn on both ends of the development. The acorn is long gone. It’s like saying you’re still a embryo, but you’re not an embryo at all, though of course you once were an embryo. You were a human being then and a are a human being now, but you’re not an embryo now, or an infant, or a toddler, or a fist-grader. It doesn’t make sense to say the embryo is still "in* you somehow, though it would make sense to say your genome has remained the same since you were a one-cell zygote.