Kitap 9
1
We have now dealt with Being in the primary sense, to which all the other categories of being are related; i.e. substance. For it is from the concept of substance that all the other modes of being take their meaning; both quantity and quality and all other such terms; for they will all involve the concept of substance, as we stated it in the beginning of our discussion.Aristot. Met. 7.1.
2
And since the senses of being are analyzableCf. Aristot. Met. 6.2.1. not only into substance or quality or quantity, but also in accordance with potentiality and actuality and function, let us also gain a clear understanding about potentiality and actuality; and first about potentiality in the sense which is most proper to the word, but not most useful for our present purpose— for potentiality and actuality extend beyond the sphere of terms which only refer to motion.
3
When we have discussed this sense of potentiality we will, in the course of our definitions of actuality,Chs. 6-10. explain the others also.
3
We have made it plain elsewhereAristot. Met. 5.12. that potentiality and can have several senses.
4
All senses which are merely equivocal may be dismissed; for some are used by analogy, as in geometry,Cf. Aristot. Met. 5.12.11. and we call things possible or impossible because they are or are not in some particular way. But the potentialities which conform to the same type are all principles, and derive their meaning from one primary sense of potency, which is the source of change in some other thing, or in the same thing qua other.
5
One kind of potentiality is the power of being affected; the principle in the patient itself which initiates a passive change in it by the action of some other thing, or of itself qua other. Another is a positive state of impassivity in respect of deterioration or destruction by something else or by itself qua something else; i.e. by a transformatory principle—for all these definitions contain the formula of the primary sense of potentiality.
