The Separability and Individuality of Substance: Potentiality and Actuality in Aristotle more

Trull 1 J.W. Trull The Separability and Individuality of Substance: Potentiality and Actuality in Aristotle “[I]t believes in the „I‟, in the I as Being, in the I as substance, and projects the belief in the Isubstance onto all things—only then does it create the concept „thing‟…Being is thought in, foisted in everywhere as cause; only following on from the conception of „I‟ is the concept „Being‟ derived.”(Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 18). In the Metaphysics, a collection of which details the study of being as “first philosophy,” Aristotle discusses his philosophy of cause from which he applies the idea of substance to form, and matter (Cohen, Curd, and Reeve 796). After surveying substance in the Categories and developing an account of its “separability and individuality” in the Metaphysics, Aristotle establishes the relationship between form, as actuality, and matter, as potentiality (Met. 1029a). In so doing, he argues that form / actuality is prior to matter / potentiality. This paper will argue that the preference of actuality over potentiality is misplaced and emerges from a fundamental misunderstanding of substance which treats things as discrete actuality rather than interconnected, indivisible potentialities (processes). First, I will outline Aristotle‟s account of substance in the Categories, paying close attention to the idea of individuality. Second, I will discuss the relationship between substance, form, and matter found in the Metaphysics, Book VII. Third, I will detail the Aristotelian account of the priority of form / actuality over matter / potentiality found throughout Book VIII and affirmed, finally, in Book XII. Fourth, I will argue against the Aristotelian conclusion by supporting the claim that matter / potentiality precedes form / actuality. Lastly, I will consider the Aristotelian objection to this claim and close the argument. In order to reach the argument on potentiality and actuality, this paper will begin with a discussion of substance. Aristotle‟s account of substance occurs in the Categories. Here, embedded in a discussion on language and predication, Aristotle classifies four categories of Trull 2 subject: quantity, quality, relative, and substance (Cat., 1b25). A substance, the category which seems to stand out from the others, is neither true nor false; it is that which is “neither said of any subject, nor is it in any subject,” making a substance that which is unpredicable yet able to receive contraries (Cat. 2a11, 2a20, 4a10). Aristotle determines of substances, “it is because they change that they are able to receive contraries” (Cat. 4a30). Substance can undergo transmutation, such as the case of an acorn becoming an oak tree, and retain its fundamental distinctiveness. In this way, a substance can be understood “as a thing,” having “the capacity to remain the same throughout changes” (Altman 26). This ability to receive contraries while remaining continuous makes a substance “itself” (Cat. 4b7). For Aristotle, individuality originates in the account of substance. He states, “[e]ach substance seems to signify a particular this” which has the properties of individuality and oneness (Cat. 3b10). Substance is able to remain constant in identity despite subjection to forces of potential and change. A substance does not “admit of more or less,” rather, substance is the itness of a thing (Cat. 4a9). Substance, in a purely Aristotelian framework, can be understood as the bridge between actuality and potentiality. The doctrine of this-ness (it-ness, or thing-ness) Aristotle applies to substance is also affirmed in Book VII of the Metaphysics in the discussion of the relation of substance to matter and form, two concepts which are entirely absent from the Categories. In attempting to identify whether matter, form, and/or their composite can be considered substance, Aristotle envisions a subject stripped of “everything else” (Met. 1029a). The prime substance which Aristotle conjures, shed of predication and form, is composed of “nothing but matter” (Met. 1029a). However, for Aristotle, this pure matter is problematic because “when we take away length and breadth and depth we can see no thing remaining” (emphasis mine) (Met. Trull 3 1029a). This violation of discrete identity, which Aristotle upholds as matter of fact, leads him to conclude the impossibility of matter as substance, arguing that “separability and individuality” are integral to substance (Met. 1029a). Ultimately, Aristotle concludes, “[w]e may speak of [...] form [...] as an individual thing, but we may never so speak of that which is [matter] by itself” (Met. 1035a). In Book VIII of the Metaphysics, after detailing the four main cases of substance (essence, universal, genus, and subject), Aristotle moves to an account of the relationship of part and whole to find the cause of “being one” (Met. 1045a8). He finds that “the whole is something apart from the parts,” but concludes, that there is a cause of unity which must be uncovered (Met. 1045a11). To describe this cause, Aristotle turns again to matter and form. In describing matter as a subject, he equates matter with potentiality and finds that matter is that which is “potentially but not actually a this” (Met. 1042a28). This seems very clear to Aristotle, what remains less clear, and yet undescribed, is the nature of actuality, “the substance of perceptible things that is actuality” (Met. 1042b12). Aristotle turns to form as the source of this actuality, as that which is predicated of the matter (Met. 1043a7). Ultimately, he concludes that “each different sort of matter has a different actuality,” that is, each potentiality contains a discrete actuality (Met. 1043a13). This again allows Aristotle to return to individuality, to state that “each thing that has matter and form is some one thing” (emphasis added) (Met. 1045b20). In Book VII of the Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that actuality should be given priority over potentiality. In the Aristotelian account of substance, actuality is given priority due to the fact that “it is because [a thing] can be actualized that the potential, in the primary sense is potential,” meaning that the actual gives potential its potentiality. Another way of saying this is that potentiality is a function of actuality, but not the other way around. Aristotle restates the Trull 4 reason for the actual preceding the potential: it is the basis that “the potentially constructive is that which can construct, the potentially seeing that which can see, and the potentially visible that which can be seen” (Meta. 1049b). Now that I have given an exposition of Aristotle‟s account of substance, its relationship to form and matter, described Aristotle‟s attribution of actuality to form and potentiality to matter, and given his reasons for the priority of actuality over potentiality, I will return to my argument: potentiality precedes actuality; Aristotle fundamentally misunderstands substance when he treats things as discrete actuality rather than interconnected, indivisible processes. There is no actuality as such; it is not a necessary function of the potentiality of substance. Actuality is never complete; it is always the origin of potentiality. There no things, only potentialities. Potentiality, as matter, precedes actuality, as form. Aristotle argues that potentiality cannot precede actuality because “unless it actually functions there will not be motion[, ... since] that which exists potentially may not exist” (Met. 1071b). If something remains potential it will never be actualized, thus actuality is a necessary principle of reality. For Aristotle, “everything changes from that which is potentially to that which is actually” (Met. 1069b). But what is ever actualized? How can actuality contain the principle of potentiality if actuality is actualized, if it is process completed? If actuality precedes potentiality how can there be a changing, eternal reality? Aristotle‟s argument for the hierarchical priority of actuality over potentiality is complicated by the fact that he confuses actuality in nature. In Book VIII of the Metaphysics, after concluding that form is actuality, Aristotle argues that “stones, bricks, and timber” are only potentialities, “since these things are matter” (Met. 1043a16). He suggests this because he finds that nature is in a process of constant transition: the acorn becomes the tree, the stone becomes Trull 5 the lichen, timber becomes the mushroom. Only in the house, as a constructed artifact, does he find actuality. The house, which contains an “actual cause,” for it has been constructed because the “[w]ood will not move itself,” is no longer fully potential (Met. 1071b). But is the house actualized? Is it not also matter, still potentially, still nature? The house will return again to the earth, never fully actualized. Aristotle seems to contradict himself when he claims that nature is only potentiality but must contain an actual cause because “the seeds must act upon the earth” (Met. 1071b). For Aristotle, nature, which is fully potential, seems to contain within it an internal principle of actuality, “by its own nature” (Met. 1045b7). But once again, how can actuality contain the principle of potentiality if actuality is actualized? In order to sort out the relationship between potentiality and actuality, we must return again to the nature of substance and its relation to thing-ness. Aristotle asserts that wholeness is a property which is generated from the aggregate of parts in a substance and that substance necessitates unity, but then argues of “earth, fire and air” that “none of these is one thing” (Met. 1040b). How can wholeness and potentiality co-exist? Aristotle seems to recognize this problem, “the impossibility of defining individuals,” yet doesn‟t seem to recognize that this calls in to question his entire conclusion about substance and its relationship to matter and form, potentiality and actuality (Met. 1040a). Regarding “eternal entities,” individuality (actuality, form) seems definite and clear, yet when looking at more fleeting subjects, an acorn, a flower, an atom, where/when is individuality actualized (Met. 1040a)? To accept that nature is processual, pure potential, rather than static, ever actualized, requires an acceptance of the idea that all of the „things‟ we purport to experience, the sensation of possessing or knowing a discrete entity is entirely a phenomenological effect of our limited sense of perception. If substance is separate and individual, how can it contain potentiality, the Trull 6 force of becoming something inseparable and derivative? Things, understood as discrete, isolated entities, must melt into processes, complex, interdependent structures which are never fully actualized but always becoming, always potential. How can substances be generated from discrete actualities? What is a discrete actuality? Aristotle argues that an acorn is a discrete thing, containing within its actuality as an acorn the potentiality to become oak tree. Won‟t the tree become another, different acorn? Is the acorn ever actualized? How can the tree be seen as separate and individual when its existence relies upon a complex set of relations with other purported things: soil, microbes, fungus, insects, the entire earth process, the entire universal process for that matter? What is a thing? An Aristotelian preference of actuality over potentiality is deduced from a fundamental misunderstanding of substance which treats things as discrete actuality rather than interconnected, indivisible potentialities. The Aristotelian objection to the dissolution of individuality that preferences potentiality over actuality, the dissolution this paper has suggested, is that this inversion implies the impossible all-togetherness of things (Met. 1069b). For Aristotle this ontological unity creates a logical complication: “why did [matter] become an infinity and not one” (Met. 1069b)? But, as Aristotle concedes, all of this rests on the idea that “Mind is one” (Met. 1069b). How can Mind be a unity if it is embedded in processual reality? This argument is the argument made by Friedrich Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols: “the concept of thing [is] just a reflection of the belief in the I as cause” (TI, 28). If the unity of the Mind is seen as potentiality rather than actuality, “no things remain but only dynamic quanta, in a relation of tension to all other dynamic quanta” (WP, 635). Aristotle misunderstands the alternative; in an ontological state of “all things were together,” there are no things for thing-ness requires identity (Met. 1069b). In The Will to Power, Nietzsche argues that in “[t]he mechanistic world […] causal unities are Trull 7 invented, „things‟ (atoms) whose effect remains constant[, a result of the] transference of the false concept of subject, [the Mind,] to the concept of the atom” (WP, 635). The solution to this Aristotelian dilemma rests in the conclusion that “one is in the whole[, ... that] there is nothing apart from the whole!” and the account of substance as individual and separate is flawed (TI, 32). In conclusion, after surveying the account of substance in the Categories and its relationship to form, as actuality, and matter, as potentiality, in the Metaphysics, this paper has demonstrated that the Aristotelian conclusion that actuality precedes potentiality is flawed. Aristotle‟s conclusion that substance is not a unity of potential but, instead, is composed of discrete actualities creates complications for his arguments about matter and form. The misplaced preference of actuality over potentiality emerges from a fundamental misunderstanding of substance which treats things as discrete actuality rather than interconnected, indivisible potentialities that are forever caught in the process of becoming. Trull 8 Altman, Megan. "Efficient Action: What Process Ontology Could Learn from Aristotle." Concresence: The Australasian Journal of Process Thought 10 (2009): 25-33. Aristotle. "Categories." Cohen, S. Marc, Patricia Curd and C.D.C. Reeve. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle. Trans. S. Marc Cohen and Gareth B. Matthews. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2011. 694-700. Aristotle. "Metaphysics." Cohen, S. Marc, Patricia Curd and C.D.C. Reeve. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle. Trans. S. Marc Cohen and Gareth B. Matthews. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2011. 796-846. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York, 1967. —. Twilight of the Idols. Trans. Duncan Large. Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1998.