The Act-Potency Distinction In 60 Seconds | Philosophy In (Almost) 60 Seconds

The second installment of our Philosophy In (Almost) 60 Seconds series focuses on the traditional act-potency distinction. Please offer suggestions for the next installment in the comments.

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*The Act-Potency Distinction*

Change occurs. But how is this possible? Certain Pre-Socratic philosophers such as Parmenides suggested that change must be an illusion, since it would require something (being) coming from nothing (non-being), which is absurd. Aristotle, on the other hand, agreed that while something coming from nothing would be absurd, disagreed that that is what is involved in change. Rather, Aristotle argued that change involves the actualization of some potential and that being “comes in different ways.” There is actual being, on the one hand — namely, that which is actively present and causally-capable — and there is potential being, on the other, which is a sort of in-built latency grounded in actual being and restricted by the nature of things, that could be brought about under appropriate actualizing conditions. For example: while some cup of water is currently actually cool it is potentially hot given its nature and becomes actually hot when somebody applies heat to it. Water, however — and this is important — is never potentially intelligent, because the nature of water restricts it to a particular range of possible ways of being actual, as all natures, according to Aristotle, do.

The act-potency distinction is foundational to any broadly Aristotelian metaphysic, hence the Thomistic thesis that: "Potency and Act divide being in such a way that whatever is, is either pure act, or of necessity it is composed of potency and act as primary and intrinsic principles."