Aristotle on Energeia and Kinesis

The following is an essay I had to write for my Aristotle class.

Aristotle’s discussion about the distinction between energeia and kinesis is an organic development of his previous discussion about the distinction between potencies (1048a25). He thinks that clearing up distinctions about actualility will also help us understand in a clearer way what we mean by our distinctions within potencies (1048a25). If there is a distinction like natural potencies and rational potencies (1047b-1047b30), then it stands to reason that there will be a correlating distinction within actualities. Aristotle also claims that actuality, or energeia, is an extension of the same movement, or kinesis (1047a30), which could be problematic since if they are essentially identical, then it shouldn’t be possible to have those correlating distinctions, as there can be no distinctions among identical things. So, energeia and kinesis would have to be distinct. This is what is motivating Aristotle.

So what is actuality then? Aristotle’s answer seems somewhat unhelpful. If one is to understand what potentiality is by understanding actuality, then the natural question to ask is: What is actuality? Aristotle’s answer is that we don’t have to seek a definition for it, and that we should be content with analogies (1048a35). The closest thing to a rigid definition is that we can define actuality as an antithesis to potentiality and potentiality as an antithesis to actuality (1048b5). But this seems circular. If you define A in terms of B, and you define B in terms of A, you don’t seem to have really defined it in a meaningful way. However, his point about being content with analogies does have some force. If we take a straight line to be antithetical to a bent one, and a bent line to be antithetical to a straight line, and this makes sense to us, there is a practical truth to what Aristotle is saying (or perhaps there is something flawed within the Analytic approach to philosophy). In any case, Aristotle takes this to be sufficient for understanding what actuality is.

With this background, Aristotle then begins to make distinctions within actuality. There is the first understanding of actuality, as given above. Just as actuality and potentiality can be understood in terms of one another, so can other things be understood in terms of one another, like form and matter (1048b5), but the second way we understand actuality is not in this qualified way. We can understand the infinite and the void in an unqualified way, without reference to another (1048b10). The void is to potentiality as the infinite is to actuality, and the infinite is said to be potential only in the mind (1048b15). There is no antithesis to it. For example, if there are an infinite amount of points in a line, then the fact that you can divide the line into those points infinitely means that the act of division is never complete, which entails that there is no potentiality for the infinite, and so there is no potentiality to be said of said of this actuality. The infinite then has no antithesis to understand it by as was understood in the first way.

The first way then is understood as kinesis and the second way is understood as energeia. Energeia is actuality in an unqualified sense and complete sense, with antithesis being impossible whereas kinesis is actuality in a qualified and incomplete way, with antithesis being possible (1048b30).