Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 2, Issue 2, 2018

Ancient Greek Philosophy: Classical Greek Philosophy

Motion and the Pair of Potentiality and Actualityas Key Notions for the Comprehension of Aristotle’s Theory of Sense

The concepts of sense, movement and potentiality are closely interwoven and the effort to approach the Aristotelian theory of sense leads to the notions of motion and dynamei (δύναμις). We will attempt to show that physical and mental processes of change have many things in common. Our point will be that the important pair of potentiality and actuality, which is a significant contrariety for Aristotle, is a key notion in both of these changes. The role of contrariety and, more specifically, the transition from potentiality to actuality plays the same role both in physical changes (movements for example), and - in the case of sense - since processes of change that take place in the soul does not differ from those found in physics, despite the fact that are being more subtle and complex. We will try to illustrate that the soul is (ἀρχὴ) the principal (the beginning) of a unique kind of movement, but it is not itself a movement, because it is not a separated substance completely independent and self-existent. Sense is a movement, a process that requires a transition from potentiality to actuality and potentiality can be the key notion for the understanding of the Aristotelian theory of perception.