iwpoe wrote:

Pardon me for being a little naively Hegelian here, but why would we suppose actuality and potentiality to be more fundamental divisions of being than, say, being, nothing, and becoming? (As well as relation, substance, etc...)

After all, even actuality and potentiality are subject to being, not being, and becoming.

I'm also inclined to say that relation has to be more fundamental than actuality and potentiality, since they do appear to be in some kind of relation, though perhaps I would have to make a distinction between logical and metaphysical relations.

What do you mean when you separate Being and Becoming? We cannot say that Being and Non-Being is the Fundamental Division of Being (unless we embrace Meinongianism) for the old Paremenidian reason that Non-Being is not.

I agree that we might argue for more or at least as fundamental divisions other than Act and Potency, for instance that of Universal and Particular (this might come close to capturing what you mean about Being and Becoming).  Alternatively I would be inclined to give Possibility, Actuality and Necessity as the most fundamental divisions - of course the theory of Act and Potency/Dispositionalism construed probably enough to include notions such as Essence/Existence and Logical Potency was intended as a way of capturing this.
 

Last edited by DanielCC (2/08/2016 5:22 am)

DanielCC wrote:

What do you mean when you separate Being and Becoming?

Since they are so devoid of any particular content, this is hard to say since examples are misleading. Aristotle says somewhere: "'Coming-to-be and passing-away' cannot itself have come to be." and that might point in the right direction of the thought.

The idea is something like: 'the presence of things is a coming into being and a going out of being, a flux, but this presence/flux is not itself the things but is becoming itself, but becoming cannot have itself became, and must simply be, being, but that which is not the presence and forms its limit is not: neither being nor becoming, but is nothing.'

iwpoe wrote:

Pardon me for being a little naively Hegelian here, but why would we suppose actuality and potentiality to be more fundamental divisions of being than, say, being, nothing, and becoming? (As well as relation, substance, etc...)

After all, even actuality and potentiality are subject to being, not being, and becoming.

I'm also inclined to say that relation has to be more fundamental than actuality and potentiality, since they do appear to be in some kind of relation, though perhaps I would have to make a distinction between logical and metaphysical relations.

I would still say that anything you might point to is essentially and necessarily still derivative of potentiality and actuality - and especially actuality. I mean, without something actual there would be nothing.

iwpoe wrote:

Timocrates wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

Pardon me for being a little naively Hegelian here, but why would we suppose actuality and potentiality to be more fundamental divisions of being than, say, being, nothing, and becoming? (As well as relation, substance, etc...)

After all, even actuality and potentiality are subject to being, not being, and becoming.

I'm also inclined to say that relation has to be more fundamental than actuality and potentiality, since they do appear to be in some kind of relation, though perhaps I would have to make a distinction between logical and metaphysical relations.

I would still say that anything you might point to is essentially and necessarily still derivative of potentiality and actuality - and especially actuality. I mean, without something actual there would be nothing.

Should we properly say that it's substances that are actual or actuality that is here substantive?

Some of the problem here is that I'm working with at least two or three vocabularies that I'm trying to reconcile.

Yes, I imagine that could add no shortage of difficulties.

My point here is that you are already assuming actuality whenever you think of substance(s). That's why act is such a universally basic conception for metaphysics but at the same time difficult 'to see' - i.e. separate and distinguish, because in reality they (act and substance) are not and never separate. Again with form and matter for physical beings. The mind resists the separation especially exactly because in reality they aren't separate. You obviously think of substances meaningfully (to your credit) but exactly so you are also assuming act or actuality in the very process (otherwise you wouldn't even be tempted to think or see substance or substances as universally basic or having a priority when considering being). What I'm saying is that it's because of their virtual identity with act or actuality that you consider substance to be, as it were, the starting point. But you also know that substance varies greatly; and it's not just any substance that one would think of as being basic or having priority. Any substance that you do give such credit is - I am arguing - exactly on account of its actuality.