Extrato da Introdução de BEERE, J.. Doing and Being – An Interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Theta
The ninth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics — Book Theta — is a compelling work of philosophy. It develops a theory of causal powers, and then distinguishes two ways of being: being-in-capacity and being-in-energeia (where energeia is, as a first gloss, the exercise of a capacity). The discussion culminates in a challenging and controversial claim: energeia has priority in being over capacity (dunamis). My primary goal is to explain this claim: its meaning, its justification, and its philosophical import.
The claim is obviously not easy to understand, but the difficulties are much greater than one might have expected. There are a variety of reasons for this. The most interesting and important reason is that the concept of energeia is radically foreign to us.
We can approach the foreignness of energeia by way of some ordinary English words. There are, on the one hand, words for doing such as ‘act,’ ‘action,’ and ‘activity,’ and on the other hand, the words ‘actual,’ ‘actually,’ and ‘actuality,’ which are connected with being. All these words come from the Latin actus, which itself is a form of a word for doing (ago, agere). The connection among these words is not a historical accident, but a linguistic fossil of Aristotle’s thought. The Latin phrase in actu was used to translate the Greek term ‘energeia, which first became a central philosophical concept in Aristotle’s work. There are no recorded uses of the term before Aristotle. This is part of the reason why I leave ‘energeia’ (a linguistic innovation) untranslated, while translating its complement, dunamis (an ordinary Greek word), as ‘capacity.’
‘Activity’ and ‘actuality’ are even now the two standard translations of ‘energeia.’ Sometimes, ‘energeia’ can be translated only by a word for doing like ‘activity,’ while ‘actuality’ and related words yield absurdity. For instance, when Aristotle says that pleasure is unimpeded energeia, he must mean that it is unimpeded activity, not unimpeded actuality.1 Other times, ‘energeia’ can be translated only by a word like ‘actuality,’ while ‘activity’ yields absurdity. For instance, when Aristotle denies that the infinite has being-in-energeia, he is denying that it is has being-in-actuality, not that it has being-in-activity.2
The connection between activity and actuality is not a distraction from the philosophical issues. Nor is it a mere difficulty of translation. In my view, it is the problem of how to grasp this radically foreign concept, how to grasp the unity among the diverse cases of energeia.
The two translations of ‘energeia,’ so very different from one another, suggest that the word is ambiguous. But I will argue that it would be disastrous to see ‘energeia’ as ambiguous, since the very point of the term is to capture what these diverse cases have in common. On the other hand, if we insist on seeing energeia either as activity or as actuality, then we seem to be forced into absurdity.
The problem recapitulates Aristotle’s own development. Aristotle seems to have first used the term ‘energeia’ in his early dialogue, Protrepticus (which survives only in fragments). The term was used to formulate and justify a claim about human happiness: happiness is not the mere possession of wisdom, but the exercise of wisdom in actively thinking about and understanding the world. In this case, an energeia is a certain doing: thinking (noesis), exercising one’s wisdom (theoria).3)
In later works, Aristotle uses the word ‘energeia’ to modify the verb ‘to be.’ In many such cases, it seems possible to give a sensible translation of ‘energeia’ by ‘actually,’ and in some such cases, it seems impossible to give a sensible translation by ‘actively.’ It is this use of ‘energeia, modifying the verb ‘to be,’ that concerns Aristotle in Metaphysics Theta.4 To that extent, energeia is, of course, associated with being. One might readily conclude that energeia is actuality (at least in this usage), since actuality, not activity, is a mode of being. But this would be hasty. It is an open question what kind or mode of being Aristotle is trying to name. Perhaps it is better characterized as activity than as actuality.
I will argue that neither term captures Aristotle’s meaning. But I will focus on the problems with the translation ‘actuality,’ precisely because it has certain advantages that make it attractive as a translation. For ‘actuality’ also has two unfortunate consequences, which have been overlooked. First, it obscures the nature of the analogy that unifies the enormously diverse cases of energeia. It makes central cases, such as building a house, into outliers. This is already misleading, and it is liable to make ‘energeia’ ambiguous [5] between actuality and activity. Second, the translation ‘actuality’ is liable to make the culmination of Metaphysics Theta seem superfluous. For actuality seems obviously to have priority over mere possibility (except on certain eccentric contemporary views). It would thus be very strange for Aristotle to justify this claim at length in the way he does. To make this argument superfluous is to lose the philosophical achievement of the work: the powerful reasons Aristotle gives for his claim that energeia has priority over capacity.5
It is no exaggeration to say that energeia and capacity are among the most important concepts in Aristotle’s philosophy. They occur in diverse contexts, and serve to solve crucial problems. Aristotle’s discussions of human happiness, of body and soul, and of the nature of God depend on these concepts, as do his treatments of perception, infinity, causation, pleasure, weakness of the will, the definition of change, the unity of sensible substance, and the generality of knowledge. Metaphysics Theta is the unique place where Aristotle focuses his discussion on being-in-capacity and being-in-energeia themselves.
Nicomachean Ethics VII.12 1153a12-15. ↩
Physics III.5 204a20-1 and III.6 206a14-18. ↩
See fragments B38, B85-6, B93-6, among others. (The numbers refer to Düring’s edition [12]. The fragments can also be found, with the same numbers, in [17]. ↩
Throughout, by ‘Book Theta,’ I will mean chapters 1 through 9 of that book. There is a tenth chapter, but it deals with a different topic: being as truth. Nothing in Book Theta suggests that the discussion of the new topic relies on or extends the discussion of energeia and capacity. ↩
Identifying energeia with activity, as I did when I finished my dissertation, is the less dangerous error. It is less seductive, because the problems with it are more glaring (as in the case of the infinite). And it is less damaging, because it avoids the second problem (although it does fall prey to the first). ↩