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The Relation between the Terms ΕΝΕΡΓΕΙΑ and ΕΝΤΕΛΕΧΕΙΑ in the Philosophy of Aristotle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Chung-Hwan Chen
Chung-Hwan Chen
Affiliation:
University of Taiwan, Formosa
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Extract

In a paper where we tried to show in how many different meanings the term is chiefly used in the philosophy of Aristotle, we discussed the relation between and , but neglected the relation between and , which seems to be yet more important. The neglect, however, was purposeful; for to answer the question what the latter relation is requires a special research. This we are now going to carry out.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 1-2 , May 1958 , pp. 12 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

1 ‘Different Meanings of the Term Energeia in the Philosophy of Aristotle’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. xvii, no. 1 (1956), 56–65. Although it is full of misprints, and even whole lines are here and there left out, we can do nothing but refer to it for the details about the different meanings of the term Google Scholar

2 p. 279.

3 Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica, vol. v. 253b39 ff.Google Scholar

4 The difference which Biese (Die Philosophie des Aristoteks, Bd. I, S. 479, Anm. 4) makes out between and is in his own words the following: ‘Es entsprechen nun auf dem Gebiet des materiellen Seyns und einander; doch, während die voraussetzt, so geht die über dieselbe hinaus und ist in ihrem Anundfürsichseyn die höhere geistige Einheit, in welcher als dem wahrhaften Prinzip das gesamte Seyn der materiellen Welt sich aufhebt (s. Met. 9. 9, p. 190. 2; 12. 7, p. 248. 8 vergl. 9. 8, p. 187, 23; 12. 6, p. 247, 16). Dies gegen-satzlose Prinzip ist der sich selbst denkende Gedanke der gottlichen Vernunft, welche als das unbewegt Bewegende in der Ruhe absolute Tätigkeit ist.’ Two passages from Aristotle's Met. Book A, namely 8. 1074a35–36 and 5. 1071a35–36 will be sufficient to show that this explanation is not correct.

5 Ideler's, J. L. explanation (Meteorologia veterum Gr. et Rom. ii. 198,Google Scholar see Schwegler's, A.Metaphysik des Aristoteles, Bd. IV, S. 223) is as follows: ‘ entspreche den Substan-tiven, die denen, die auf endigen, jene sei mehr Handlung, diese mehr Zustand.’ It is obvious that this distinction cannot be justified; for in the first case the interpretation is at variance with Aristotle's own explanation of in Met. 6. 1048a30–32 and in the second with the definition of given in Phys. 3. 1. 201a10–11.Google Scholar

1 Ross, , Aristotle's Metaphysics, ii. 245.Google Scholar

2 Aristotle calls God in several places in Met. 6, 7. Let us see how he does so. The most important passage, upon which all other passages in these two chapters are based, is 6. 1071b20–22, where Aristotle establishes his thesis thus: He starts in the previous lines (6. 1071b12–20) from the problem of eternal motion and traces it back to its cause. This cause must be, according to his argument, such a prin ciple whose essence is Further, he continues, this principle is necessarily im material; therefore it is itself It is then obvious that the conclusion: God Him self, not only His essence, is is directly inferred from His immateriality. The other two places where or is directly predicated of God are 6. 1072a25 and b8. Neither of them offers a new argument, but both of them are simply based upon the passage just explained. In the latter part of 7, Aristotle again calls God directly: (sc. ) 1072b27. It is obvious from the context that he does so, not in reference immediately to eternal motion, but to cf. b26–28. The reasoning from the eternal motion to the existence of an unmoved mover is obvious, but the reasoning from this conclusion to the identification of the unmoved mover or God with or is not so clear; it cannot be understood without recourse to Aristotle's thoughts expressed elsewhere. The connecting link which we miss in this identification is his conception of . Human is, according to him, the only mental faculty which functions without a definite bodily organ; it is said , De Gen. Anim. 2. 3. 736b28–29, and this is why of all the of the human soul he allows alone to survive the body, De An. 3. 5. 430a22–23, Met. 3. 1070a26. So as he conceives it, is an activity which is not accompanied by any bodily process; or, conversely, an activity without a material basis is found only in the case of If this is true of human it must be still more unquestionably true of the divine. The unmoved mover has in Chapter 6 been shown to be just a pure activity; so in the latter part of Chapter 7 Aristotle identifies God, Who is the unmoved mover, without further explanation, with or So the reason why Aristotle calls God in the latter part of 7 is also that God is immaterial; on account of this same reason he has in the previous chapter proved that He is So A 6. 1070b20–22 is the locus classicus of his argument for the thesis. If we now turn to 8, where God is described as we read the following: 1074a35–36. Here Aristotle argues the immateriality of God from the premiss that He is So in the present passage, where he describes Him as he fixes his attention equally on His immateriality. Immateriality and or are, according to his opinion, two aspects of God; he argues from either to the other. It is not, as Ross tells us, only in 8. 1074a36 that the immateriality of God is insisted on, nor do we agree that in 6. 1070b20–22, the chief passage where Aristotle proves his thesis, God is viewed as the prime mover of the universe, but rather as an immaterial being. Of course, we do not deny that God is held by Aristotle to be ; but this proposition is not what he means to prove here with the argument which alone concerns us at the present moment.

3 For example, Hein. Ritter, , Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. IIII, S. 210. 2,Google ScholarSchwegler, , op. cit.Google Scholar, Bd. IV, S. 221 ff., Bonitz, cf. n. 2, Zeller, , Philosophic der Griechen, II. 2 (4. Aufl.), 3. 350. 1.Google Scholar

1 In the paper referred to (see p. 12, n. 1) we showed in detail that the term is used by Aristotle chiefly in nine or ten different senses, which are to be classified as follows:

I. Quasi-modal (or ‘static’) meaning:

1. actuality;

2. being actualized or

3. being perfect;

4. in application to form;

5. in application to soul.

II. Non-modal (or ‘kinetic’) meaning:

1. actualization;

2. in application to sensation;

3. in application to thinking or

I (1) Met. 6. 1048a31; 5. 1071a4.

(2) and (3) Met. 8. 1049b25; De Gen. Anim. 2. 1. 734b21.

(4) Met. H 2. 1043a6, 12.

(5) Met. H 3. 1043a35.

II (1) Phys. 3. 1. 201bg; Met. K 9. 1065b16.

(2) and (3) Met. 6. 1048b34; De An. 1. 4. 415a19; 5. 417b20.

(4) Eth.Nic. 1.6. 10a8a16; 10.8. 1178b8.

(5) Met. 6. 1071b2O, 22.

2 Cf. Met. 15. 1021a19–21 Hence are not only intellectual knowledge;

4. contemplative activity of human intellect;

5. pure activity.

The term has all these senses except II. 4, which is, indeed, not a new sense different from all the rest, but II. 3 in a special application. So the two terms are used practically in the same senses. For the sake of comparison we give in parallel the following passages in which each of these terms is employed in these different senses. A detailed examination of these senses will be found in the above-mentioned paper.

I (1) Met. 7. 1017b1; Phys. 3. 1. 200b26.

(2) and (3) De An. 3. 7. 431a3; Phys. 3. 2. 202a11; Met. Z 9. 1034b17; De Gen. Anim. 2. 1. 734a3O.

(4) De An. 2. 2. 414a17; 4. 415b15; Met. Z 13. 1038b6.

(5) De An. 2. 1. 412a27; 2. 414a18.

II (1) Phys. 3. 1. 201a11, 17; 3. 202a14, 16; 8. 5. 257b8.

(2) and (3) De An. 2. 1. 412b28; Met. Z 10. 1036a7.

(4) —

(5) Met. 8. 1074a36.

those which are , but there are still other which are such in another way.

1 The word (II) shows the origin, and originally de notes movement.

2 Our inferences 2 and 3 are generally anticipated by Schwegler, (op. cit. vi. 223)Google Scholar, as he draws the following conclusion from the same passage. ‘Hier werden zweierlei Bedeutungen der unterschieden: erstlich und ursprünglich hat sie die Bedeutung der zweitens und abgeleiteter Weise diejenige der Though he spoke of the derivative meaning, yet he did not trouble to make clear how this derivation had really taken place.

3 Upon this passage Max Wundt (Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik des Aristoteles, S. 85) bases his interpretation, namely, ‘daβ Energeia mehr den Vorgang bedeutet’. But the right inference is not ‘daB Energeia mehr den Vorgang bedeutet’, but rather, ‘daβ Energeia ursprünglich den Vorgang bedeutet’, as Schwegler rightly inferred on account of another passage of die Metaphysics (see last n.). For having obtained its derivative meaning, the term ivipyaa. was then employed to signify perfection no less than process. Wundt himself sees this fact clearly when he says that in other passages than Phys. Aristotle ‘Entelecheia zugunsten von Energeia zurück-zudrängen scheint (besonders Metaphysik )’, ibid., p. 86.

4 has many meanings, cf. p. 14, n. 1. The derivation here concerned is only the derivation of the meaning ‘actuality’, from its ‘kinetic’ meaning.

5 The expression is taken from Ross's paraphrase (op. cit. ii. 264Google Scholar) of the passage quoted above under III. (Ross's interpretation is also accepted by J. Tricot, who translates the passage into French thus: ‘et “acte” tend à signifier la même chose qu’ “entéléchie”', Aristote, métaphysique, tome ii, p. 47.)Google Scholar

6 Cf. Met. 6. 1048a30–32 By at that passage Aristotle means a mode of existence. has this meaning also; see p. 14, n. 1.

7 3. 1. 201a10–11.

1 Hermann, . Diels in Zeitschrift für vergleichende Philologie, xlviii. 200–3Google Scholar (see Ross, , op. cit. ii. 246).Google Scholar

2 Ibid.

3 In the case of the term as well as in the case of the term the nonmodal meaning has different shades. The question of the priority among these shades of meaning in the former case cannot be decided because of want of evidence. To the same question in the latter case we can give only an incomplete answer as follows. The use of the term to signify movement is, according to Met. 3. 1074a30–31, quoted above under II, prior to the use of the same word to denote any in the narrow sense. By in the narrow sense we mean such as etc. Cf. Met. 6. 1048b18–35.

4 Cf. p. 14, n. 1.