BECOMING
ARISTOTLE
We will now consider what things do. What is their natural pattern of activity? What is the primary fact of our sensual experience of things? Things, as opposed to ideas, change. The material world around us is in constant flux. Although, like all our primary notions, it is very difficult to explain philosophically, everybody knows by experience in what this great fact of change consists. We may say that wherever there is a change there is a transition from one being to another, or from one mode o f being to another. And for that transition to happen, there must be something which undergoes the process of becoming, something which is the subject of change.
Those who claim that there can be change without a subject of change (e.g. Heraclitus, Empedocles, Hegel, etc.), deny the principle of identity and therefore fall into absurdity. When they take up this position, they must either continue to accept the notion of "being," in which case to affirm that there is change without a subject of change, or that change is prior to being, is to affirm that what has no being changes, which is manifestly absurd, or they must reject the notion of being as illusory an d argue that instead of conceiving "being" we must conceive "change," or "becoming," in which case they must reject as false, together with the notion of "being," the principle of identity which is bound up with it, and maintain that thought is essential ly deceptive, which is equally absurd. If I say that I think that thought is essentially deceptive, then it follows that If I'm right, my statement is itself wrong.
Therefore Aristotle holds that the first concept is that of "Being" and that it is presupposed to the idea of Becoming. This is also true of reality.
There is no change without a subject which is changed. Becoming presupposes Being.
We will stop here and state the argument of Parmenides that concludes to the denial of the reality of change. We don't accept this position, but we think that it is valuable to the student if we are to understand how Aristotle eventually accepts both Being and Becoming in a synthesis of the ideas of both Parmenides, who accepts Being as the one, changeless, eternal reality, while rejecting Becoming, as an illusion of the senses, and Heraclitus, who accepts Becoming on the testimony of the senses, b ut holds that Being is an illusion of the intellect.
How can Aristotle simultaneously accept both Being, and Becoming?
How can he accept that reality is simultaneously one and many, changing and permanent, particular and universal, concrete and abstract? How can he defend the validity of both our sensual awareness of reality, and of our intellectual ability to underst and universality within the particular, the idea in the reality of things, the abstract instanced in some way in the concrete reality attested to by our sensual awareness. He will proceed to analyze the position of Parmenides, and find within it the clue that leads him to be able to accept something of Parmenides, and something of the teaching of Heraclitus.
The following is the argument presented by Parmenides which he feels concludes logically to the denial of the reality of all change, or becoming. Parmenides say that if anything comes to be, it comes to be from either being or non-being. From being, however, nothing can become. The reason is that nothing can become what it already is. On the other hand, from nothing, nothing can become.
Those of us who are committed to the intellectual acceptance of change or becoming, would answer this and say that while nothing can become what it is, it is possible for it to become what it is not yet.
Parmenides would argue that this is not possible. He would argue as follows: If we grant (for the sake of discussion), that one being becomes another, and we express this simply by saying that "A" becomes "B" , then we would have to say two things ab out "A" at point "A". "A " is "A". "A " must not be "B".
The first judgment simply expresses the principle of identity, and the second is true because if, at point "A", "A" is "B", then for "A" to change into what it already is, is impossible. Nothing becomes what it is. Then, at point "B" it must be said that "B" is "B", and that it must not be "A". If it is "A", then no change has taken place. If, I ask myself, after making these four judgments, what is "A", at point "B", I have to respond that it simply is not. A has not become anything. It h as simply ceased to exist. Therefore change is impossible.
Many of us have much too much common sense to deny what our senses tell us is the primary fact about the world of things. That primary fact is that things change. One thing becomes another. But how is that possible given the logic of Parmeni des' argument.
What is required of us at this point is that we explore our idea of "being". Evidently in the analysis we have just made something has been left out. The starting-point of change is no doubt already everything which it is, but it is not yet al l which it can become. It is not yet all that it can be.
Therefore, between the actuality of a being,and non-being, there is the reality of the potential of a being. It is neither in respect of what it is actually, nor in respect of what it is not, but in respect of what it can be, that the starting poin t of change becomes its goal.
Things, therefore, are not confined and held fast by what they are and what they are not actually. They possess the power to be other than what they are actually. This power in them is something real. It is not being in the full and primary sen se of the term: but the power of being without as yet actually being is not sheer non -entity. The power to become taken precisely as such is irreducible either to non -entity, or to being as actual. It is something different from either, something fo r which philosophy must find a name. Precisely so far as things can be something they are not, they, after an inferior fashion, are. This inferior mode of being is called, by Aristotle, potency or potentiality.
Since, however, power of being, though not nothing, is not "Being" in the full and primary sense of the term, we must find a name for "Being" in the full sense of the term as distinguished from potentiality. Aristotle calls it actuality, or act. Act is, therefor, defined as "Being taken in the fullest sense of the word," or again, as the finished, the determinate, or the perfect as such.
Potentiality, on the other hand, is not a"Being" that is actual but the very real power of a "Being" to become that which it is not yet actually.
We must be careful not to attempt to think with our imagination this concept of potentiality. It can be thought by the intellect alone. Potentiality is, in itself, absolutely incapable of being represented. It is absolutely nothing done or in th e process of doing, absolutely nothing in act. In itself it cannot be conceived for in that case it would necessarily be conceived as something determinate. It can be conceived only by means of the act to which it is ordered.
How did Aristotle arrive at this idea of the reality of the potential. He accepted the concept of "Being" as the first concept of the mind, and he accepted the testimony of the senses making us aware of the reality of "Becoming." But for one bein g to become another being, it must both actually be what it is, and have the real potentiality to become other that what it is. Without understanding the reality of the potentiality in all that changes, change becomes inconceivable. Nothing can become w hat it actually is. If actuality exhaust the totality of real being, then change, or becoming, is impossible.
CONCLUSION
Aristotle accepts "Being as such" as the first concept of the mind. He holds that this concept has objective validity and is the basic concept prior to all other concepts. He also accepts the testimony of the senses as these powers tell a person of the reality of change, or becoming. Far from the reality of becoming or change implying the denial or rejection of "Being," it is "Becoming" or "change" that manifest "Being" to the observing and inquiring mind. It is true that "Becoming" or "change" cam obscure "Being" from the mind that fails to observe "Becoming" or "change," but to the thinker attentive to the reality of "Becoming" or "change" the reality of "Being" is laid bare and rendered intelligible. A being both is what it is, and acts i n accord with what it is. In the order if Being, what a thing is precedes and determines what a thing does, but in the order of our knowledge, what a thing does, is prior to what a thing is.
If there is a logically prior idea, is this concept commonplace or extraordinary?
5.- Is there a logically prior judgment that is prior to all other judgments that the mind can make? Can the validity of this judgment be demonstrated by the power of reason?