John and others,
you mention Aristotle's concepts of 'energeia' and 'dynamis' and you say
that what we need is are non-energeticist notions. I think that the
energeticist views of 'energeia' and 'dynmanis' are mainly a modern product.
Aristotle itself was not an energeticist. In fact he criticized the logic
mistake that he called 'metabasis eis allo genos' i.e. the use of a category
in different levels without making a difference (analogical, equivocal). And
Aristotle conceived 'energeia,' i.e., that something is 'in' ('en') its
final stage ('ergon') as (ontologically) higher that that which is 'just' in
the process of becoming ('dynamis'). His (intellectual) invention was the
following: what Plato (and Parmenides) could not conceive, i.e., that
between 'being' and 'non being' there is no third alternative, could be
thought now with the concept of 'becoming' ('dynamis'). Plato learned this
insight from his young follower and wrote about it in his "Sophistes". In
'Being and Time' Heidegger turned Aristotle's view by saying that
'possibility is higher than reality'. This means that the concept of
'dynamis' needs not to be thought as a 'lower' concept with regard to
'energeia'. This makes also possible to think of evolution as a 'creative'
process without conceiving it in teleological terms. Heidegger called the
difference between the potentiality of being and the one of beings,
ontological difference. In Luhmann's terms: there is no possibility of an
'outside observer' with regard to being. We are 'inside' the process (of
becoming) and thus the perspective of the present progressive tense is the
original dynamic perspective. Science (as far as it is reduced to present
tense formulations) is existentially secondary but no less 'true' and
'important' for survival. Am I simplifying things?
Cheers
Rafael
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM) University of Applied Sciences, Wolframstr. 32,
70191 Stuttgart, Germany
Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: rafael@capurro.de; capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de
Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de
Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
Homepage IRIE: http://www.i-r-i-e.net
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Received on Thu May 26 12:25:37 2005
