Volume 97, Issue 1, Winter 2023
Hikmet Unlu
Pages 49-68
https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq2023328263
A Transcategorial Conception of Dynamis and Energeia
On the standard interpretation of Metaphysics IX, Aristotle proceeds from the original sense of ¦Ä?¦Í¦Á¦Ì¦É? and ?¦Í?¦Ñ¦Ã¦Å¦É¦Á to an ontological conception of these terms. This should raise the question of what is not ontological about the former and what is ontological about the latter. To address these questions I discuss the commentaries by Heidegger and Menn, which alone come close to addressing these issues. But their readings cannot neatly distinguish between the two senses of ¦Ä?¦Í¦Á¦Ì¦É? and ?¦Í?¦Ñ¦Ã¦Å¦É¦Á that we find in the Aristotelian text, thus compelling us to seek a better way of clarifying the standard interpretation, which I argue can be more precisely understood in the following way: ¦Ä?¦Í¦Á¦Ì¦É? and ?¦Í?¦Ñ¦Ã¦Å¦É¦Á in their customary meaning cannot be considered ontological in the sense that they have a particular locus among the categories, which is what sets them apart from their newer, ontological meaning. I conclude therefore that the text of Metaphysics IX can be understood as proceeding from an intracategorial conception of ¦Ä?¦Í¦Á¦Ì¦É? and ?¦Í?¦Ñ¦Ã¦Å¦É¦Á toward a transcategorial conception of these terms.