42. Pantheism, Potentiality, and the Confusion of Matter with Privation

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Problem of Confusing Potentiality with Actuality #

• Pantheism’s Error: Pantheists place everything God is able to produce actually in God, making God a composition of all things
• This is a different kind of error than earlier discussed, but involves the same fundamental confusion
• Common Human Inability: Understanding potentiality is extremely difficult for the human mind
• This difficulty appears in mathematics, logic, and natural philosophy

Mathematical Example: Points and Lines #

• If you slice a line, you get a point
• Students commonly learn that “a line is composed of an infinity of points”
• The Problem: If a line is made of points and points touch, they must coincide
• If two points coincide, they have no length
• Therefore, even infinite coinciding points cannot compose a line with length
• The Error: Making actual what is only in potentiality (ability)

Scientific Examples: Composition and Reduction #

• Water Example: Getting hydrogen and oxygen from water does not necessarily mean H and O are actually composed in water
• Particle Physics Problem: Cannot say every atomic particle is composed of all others just because we can extract others from it
• Anomaly: Extracting larger particles from smaller ones contradicts the composition thesis
• The Greeks attempted to understand all change as change of place, which avoids the deeper understanding of substantial change involving potentiality

The Three Principles of Becoming (Preview) #

• Matter receives a form which it previously lacked
• Form is what is received
• Lack of Form (privation) is the absence of form
• These three must be carefully distinguished

The Critical Distinction: Form vs. Lack of Form #

• Most Obviously Distinct: Form and lack of form are clearly not the same thing
• Being of form versus non-being of form cannot be identical
• This is the clearest of the three distinctions

Anaxagoras’s Confusion #

• Confuses what is in the ability of matter with what is actually in matter
• Treats potential composition as actual composition
• Puts form merely as “hidden” in matter rather than as a genuine potentiality

Plato’s Different Confusion #

• More advanced than Anaxagoras in distinguishing matter from form
• However, confuses matter with lack of form itself
• Thinks of matter as formless, thus identifying it with privation
• Confuses the potentiality of matter with its formlessness

Key Arguments #

Argument: Matter and Lack of Form Are Not Identical #

1. Form and lack of form are opposites (clearly distinct)
2. Matter desires form as its perfection
3. Lack of form, if it desired form, would desire its own destruction
4. What naturally desires its perfection is not the same as what would desire its own elimination
5. Therefore: Matter and lack of form are distinct

Important Definitions #

Potentiality (δύναμις / dynamis) #

• The ability or capacity to be something
• Not yet actual, but genuinely real
• Distinguished from mere non-being or privation
• Matter possesses potentiality toward form

Actuality (ἐνέργεια / energeia) #

• What is present and real in act
• Contrasted with potentiality
• Form is actual; matter is potential

Lack of Form / Privation (στέρησις / steresis) #

• The mere absence of a particular form
• Non-being as such (not being capable, but simply not being)
• Distinguished from potentiality
• Example: blindness as lack of sight (not the eye’s capacity for sight)

Change of Place (μετάβασις τόπου / metabole topon) #

• Movement from one location to another
• Something already actual exists; only its position changes
• Does not involve change in what a thing is (substantial change)
• The Greeks largely limited their understanding to this type of change

Examples & Illustrations #

The Line and Points #

• Dividing a line yields points
• Common error: “A line is made of infinity of points”
• Reality: Points cannot compose a line because coinciding points have zero length
• Lesson: Confusing potentiality (ability to generate points) with actual composition

Water Decomposed #

• We can extract hydrogen and oxygen from water
• Does not prove H and O are actually in water as components
• Confuses “able to produce” with “actually composed of”

Butter Becoming Hard #

• Soft butter in refrigerator becomes hard
• Can say “the butter becomes hard” (correct)
• Butter as matter is capable of hardness; softness as such is not
• Softness is the privation of hardness, not matter itself

The Fall and the Frog #

• Creatures begin as aquatic (fish-like) before becoming terrestrial
• Example of developing consequences from principles: if water is the origin of things, aquatic animals should come first
• Shows how proper reasoning from principles develops new understanding

Questions Addressed #

Why Do Humans Struggle to Understand Potentiality? #

• Answer: It is abstract and not empirically obvious
• We can see what is (actuality) more easily than what can become (potentiality)
• This difficulty is universal, appearing in mathematics, logic, and natural philosophy

How Do We Distinguish Matter from Privation? #

• Matter is capable of receiving form (near to substance)
• Privation is merely the absence of form (not substance in any way)
• Matter naturally desires form as its perfection
• Privation, if it could desire, would desire its own elimination (contradictory)

Why Did Plato Make This Error? #

• When distinguishing matter from form, one naturally thinks of matter as formless
• This led Plato to identify matter with formlessness itself
• He lacked the precise conceptual distinction between “lacking a particular form” and “being the non-being of that form”
• Aristotle will correct this by reasoning from common ground with Plato

Connection to Augustine #

• Augustine independently arrived at similar language about matter
• Describes it paradoxically as “something that is nothing, or nothing that is something”
• Both recognized the difficulty of thinking about matter without form
• This distinction becomes crucial for theology (rejecting Manichaeism)

The Method of Critique: Aristotle as Best Student of Plato #

• Aristotle does not simply reject Plato’s errors
• Instead, he:
  1. Explains how his own thinking differs from Plato’s
  2. Finds common understanding shared with Plato
  3. Reasons from that common ground
  4. Shows that Plato himself should make the necessary distinction
• This reflects what a good student does: humble submission to the teacher combined with careful discrimination and fruitful development