Aristotle on Bodies, Matter, and Potentiality
Cynthia Freeland
In Gotthelf and Lennox, eds., Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology
Cambridge, 1987

"The Metaphysics argues that the form and ergon or work of a thing constitute its end or completion (telos): and Aristotle maintains that 'the actuality is the work' (he de energeia to ergon, 1050a21-22; cp 1023a34).... By calling form the actuality (energeia) of a thing Aristotle clearly means to emphasize these functional specifications." (FREELAND-1987, p. 394)

"Kosman's reading of Metaphysics Theta reminds us of the integral connections between Aristotle's term dunamis and the verb dunasthai, 'to be able'. For Aristotle a given matter's potentialities are its capacities to become or to be certain things - i.e. to be formed into, and serve in, artifacts (or organs) having particular functions. Aristotle is willing to call the matter actually in a thing 'potential' because it preserves its capacities." (FREELAND-1987, p. 396)

"Aristotle calls matter potential because it has capacities to become and be certain things; these capacities vary according to the varying compositions and dispositional properties of the matter itself. What holds true of hatchets is equally true of living substances and their organic parts." (FREELAND-1987, p. 397) [PSA: including parts of psuche and their hexeis, i.e., aretai.]

"Aristotle holds that a body is potentially alive because in it reside capacities for life-activities. These capacities exist and even flourish in the actually living being, though never, as a contingent fact, in a purely potentially living thing." (FREELAND-1987, p. 407)

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