Caitlin Griffith
Ms. Day, Section 2
Philosophy
4-16-12
Extraordinary
Alteration; the Suffering of Coming to Be Able to Sense and the Suffering of
Sensing Simply
In
178 of Chapter 5 of Book II, Aristotle lays out two kinds of suffering. One, he
says, is a kind of destruction due to the contrary, while the other is the
preserving of a being in potency by a being in actuality. Later in this chapter
he defines the sense power when he says ‘The sensitive in potency, however, is
like the sensible now in actuality, as was said. Therefore, not being like, it
suffers, while, having suffered, it has been made like and is such as is that
[sensible].’ His conclusion is that between the two kinds of suffering that
sensing might be, sensing is the preserving of a being in potency by a being in
actuality. He wants to complete the idea that the sense power is in potency,
that it is acted upon by the sensible objects, and that it has the potentiality
to take on the forms of these sensible objects. Though it is tricky to work out
what kind of suffering sensing is because Aristotle does not speak of act and
potency simply, and while it may at first seem that the suffering of sensing is
a standard alteration, what is evident is that sensation is a suffering not of
destruction and replacement, but of an actualization and preservation, of the
capacity of the sense power itself. And while coming to have sense power in the
first place may be loosely said to be an alteration, the movement from the
having the sense power to actually sensing is really a fulfillment of the
nature of the soul, and so this kind of suffering cannot be called an
alteration at all or it can be said to be a strange sort of alteration.
Though
actuality and potentiality have been treated on fairly thoroughly throughout
Book 2, Aristotle introduces two complex kinds of potency in 176 of Chapter. In
Chapter 1, Aristotle brings up potentiality and actuality often, even making
the distinction between the thinking and considering kinds of actuality. Yet it
is only after he speaks of the sense power as a passive potentiality that it is
important for him to make further distinctions that one sees in Chapter 5. He
lays out the sense power as potentiality in 171 when he says;
“It is clear
therefore, that the sensitive is not in act, but only in potency; whence it
does not sense, just as what can be ignited does not ignite itself through
itself, without what can ignite.”
This
determination will lead him to discuss how the sense power is moved or suffers
later in Chapter 5. Before that, however, he will explain a more complete
account of potentiality and actuality that he has in mind to apply use in his
different kinds of suffering.
Knowledge
is a good example to use when introducing ideas about kinds of potency and
actuality because with knowledge one either A) has knowledge of something and
uses that knowledge, B) has no knowledge, or C) has knowledge and does not
employ it. It is useful for later to note that these are analogous to three
ways a person may sense. A person may be brought from no knowledge, i.e, raw
potency, to some knowledge. This new knowledge they gain still leaves them in a
state of potency, because they have the potency to employ the new knowledge – to
actually think about it. It is clear from experience that man doesn’t have to
be thinking about the knowledge in order to retain it to think on later. Aristotle
says in regards to knowledge of a specific letter of the alphabet at the end of
176 “the one already considering is being in actuality and is chiefly knowing
this A.” So here we see that is it the knower who is in actuality, not the
knowledge. The knowledge remains unchanged whether or not Man #1 thinks, just
as the capacity to be heated remains unchanged whether or not Pot #1 is heated.
Since
there are two types of potency, there are two types of change from potency to
act. Aristotle says in 177 of the two types of knowers in potency, “one is
altered through learning and changing often from the contrary state, while the
other, from having sensation or grammar, though not being at work {in act},
[changes] to being at work {in act} in another way.” The first kind of
alteration is the change from raw potency to developed potency, because the man
is brought from ignorance to knowledge. The second kind is from an already
developed potentiality to the actualization of this potentiality. It’s a little
tricky here to sort out the different uses of actualization, since it seems it
can be applied both to the developed form of potentiality, and to the further
employment of that potentiality (e.g. both to the man who knows how to read and
to the man who is actually reading). The important thing to note is that the
two types of change from potency to act are either 1) a change from not having
to having or 2) a change from simply having to putting to use.
These
kinds of potentiality and actuality are not as simple as they were previously
in Book 2, and appropriately, neither are the sufferings involved in the
different kinds simple. This is where a key text comes in, where Aristotle
says, “Neither is suffering simple, but one sort is a kind of destruction due
to the contrary, while another sort is rather the preserving of a being in
potency by a being in actuality and by something similar in the way that
potency is related to actuality.”[1]
It is good to note that right after that passage Aristotle brings up the
question of whether these sufferings are alterations or not. The first
suffering he described is not an alteration simply speaking because just as in
his example from ignorance to knowledge, it seems the first quality is
destroyed and the second quality is replaced. He also says in that passage of
the first sentence of 179 that the second kind, the change from having
knowledge to considering, is either not altering or is a different kind of
alteration. This suffering is the preserving of a being in potency by a being
in actuality that one can anticipate him applying to the sense power in 183.
This suffering does not fit neatly into the existing definition of alteration
because it is an actualization rather than a destruction, and it is an
actualizing of a pre-existing capacity rather than a becoming other. The
stricter account of alteration one may compare here is described in On
Generation and Corruption; “When the change… is with respect to passion and
being such and such, it is alteration.”[2]
He also uses the example of the musical man passing away and an unmusical man
coming to be, making sure to note that the underlying man must remain the same.
It seems alteration is usually said in regards to the qualities of a thing,
like when green replaces red in the apple, the red of the apple can be said to
have been destroyed. We have to apply a looser understanding of alteration with
something like coming to know or the capacity to sense, because in becoming an
animal and gaining sense power or in coming to know, it’s not a transition
between two contraries in the same genus, nor are they even passions in the way
spoken of in On Generation and Corruption. This is why calling gaining sense or
gaining learning merely a kind of
destruction[3]
makes sense.
While
this quasi-alteration can be said of the first kind of suffering of 178, the
movement to gaining the sense power, the second suffering, the change from
sense capacity to sensing is either not alteration or is a different kind of
alteration than the standard concept. Aristotle emphasized why it is
inappropriate to speak of this change as a normal alteration when he says
“Whence, it is not well to say that the one judging, when he judges, is
altered, as neither is the house builder when he builds.” Instead, it is when
the house builder builds it is then that he is actualizing his capacity to build.
Actualizing the capacity to build does not destroy or replace the capacity to
build, as would be true for a standard alteration. Likewise actualizing the
capacity for sense perception does not destroy that capacity, as we know that
the sense power may receive sensible objects over and over. In a standard
alteration, one something would have to be replaced by a contrary something in
the same genus. Instead, with this second suffering, the builder seems even in
some way to be renewing his capability to build by building, a fulfilling of
the nature of ‘capable to build’.
To
compare this strange way of alteration to the first suffering of 178, we know
that in learning the state of ignorance is destroyed and the state of knowledge
replaces it. But when the knower employs the knowledge, and similarly, when the
one who is capable of sensing senses, it is a renewing or preserving of that
which is employed. That is why Aristotle speaks of the second sort of suffering
as the preserving of a being in potency.
Aristotle
has used this idea of preservation before when speaking of the nutritive power.
In 166 of Chapter 4, he says of the nutritive power, “Whence such a principle
of the soul is a power such as to conserve the one having it, as such, while
food helps it to be at work.” While the actualization of the nutritive power
preserves itself in the life of the animal, which is its primary object, the
actualization of the sense power preserves the soul in that it preserves the
sense capability of life of the soul.
So
both motions, from raw to developed potentiality and from developed
potentiality to its exercise, cannot be called standard alterations. In the one,
In the other, we see Aristotle presenting the alteration either as not an
alteration at all or as a strange sort of alteration. He purposely includes
these seemingly incompatible notions because we see that actualizing a capacity
is not an alteration at all, yet if we do want to use the language of
alteration, it has to be spoken of in the peculiar second way of suffering that
he presents in 178, and not in the first way.
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