Aristotle's completeness test as heuristics for an account of dynamicity

In: V. Petrov/A. Scarfe (eds.) 2015, Dynamic Being, Cambridge Scholars, 2-‐28.

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Aristotle’s ‘completeness test’ as heuristics for an account of dynamicity

Johanna Seibt

Aarhus University Abstract: If being were ‘dynamic,’ would it be more amenable to a definition? In this paper I present a number of preliminary considerations for an exploration of this question. Working from the methodological stance of analytical ontology, I assume that the first task for an ontology of dynamic being(s) must be to locate suitable linguistic data that can represent the conceptual content to be modelled by an ontological domain theory. I try to show that Aristotle’s so-‐called ‘completeness test’ in Metaphysics Θ. 6, and the discussion of this passage in Aristotle scholarship, offers some useful heuristic leads to a class of inferential data (aspectual inferences) that analytical ontologists have all but overlooked so far. In addition, I suggest that the passage also can offer some ideas about how one might formulate, in mereological terms, a component of an implicit definition of dynamicity. The study of dynamic being or ‘dynamicity’ is an unlikely task for a present-‐day

analytical ontologist. Other modes of being, such as actuality, possibility, and

necessity, have been dominating the discussion during the early decades of post-‐

war analytical ontology, together with a focus on the ontological reduction of

universals; even during the last three decades, when the spotlight finally turned

onto the category of events, the problem of existence in time, and the ontology of

emergence, the investigation of the nature of dynamic being remained outside

the purview of the mainstream debate. With the exception of work on verbal

aspects, it seems fair to say that analytical ontology so far has been strikingly

disinterested in the exploration of dynamicity and the forms of dynamic being.

How should one interpret this startling neglect? Is this another instance

of the “Werdensvergessenheit” that Nietzsche castigated as the distinctive

mindset of Western metaphysics?1 And if so, is it a purely sociological

phenomenon, a case of theoretical habituation that is reinforced and propagated

by the review system for professional publications that gained such weight in

20th century analytical philosophy in general? Or is it rather, as Bergson would

have us explain, the inevitable outcome of using the wrong investigative

1 Cf. Nietzsche (1882/1974), 306.


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instruments, namely, theories that rely on conceptual cognition and codified

meaning?2

In my view, the reasons for the neglect of the category of processes and

the dynamic mode of being lie in a combination of sociological and conceptual

factors. As I have argued elsewhere, analytical philosophy may have shed the

“myth of the museum” (Quine) and the “myth of the given” (Sellars) but it still

trades the “myth of substance,” a set of about twenty traditional presuppositions

about the features of basic categories or types of beings.3 While these

presuppositions block the introduction of the conceptual tools needed for a

theory of dynamicity and dynamic entities, they are, as I have tried to show, by

no means ‘laws of thought’ or constitutive elements of conceptualization.

Equally important, in my view, is the insight that the neglect of dynamic

entities and the notion of dynamicity is not due to the methodological approach

that has become characteristic for analytical ontology, in particular the use of

formal languages for the description of ontological domains, or the use of

quantifier logic for the analysis of ontological commitments. While the

presuppositions of the “myth of substance” have strongly influenced our

informal interpretations and axiomatizations of formal tools, there are no

principled obstacles against analytical process ontology in the sense of a formal

theory of dynamicity and dynamic entities.4

My aim in this paper is to present some preliminary and heuristic

consideration for a formal account of the notion of dynamicity. Process

philosophers of all stripes share the belief that being is a fundamentally dynamic

affair, but the sense of the epithet is mostly left in the space of the metaphorical.

Some process philosophers hold that the notion of dynamicity cannot be defined

or even conceptualized. The considerations that underlie this position—I call it

the ‘ineffability position’—surely must be taken into account by any attempt to

situate the notion of ‘dynamicity,’ ‘dynamic Being,’ or ‘dynamic’ (as predicate for

types of beings) within a theory. In the following I will address the ineffability

2 Cf. Bergson 2002 (The Idea of Duration). 3 Cf. Seibt 1990, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2010. 4 For arguments in favor of a pluralist reading of the existential quantifier see e.g., Turner (2012). For sketches of a process ontology that uses a non-‐standard mereology as domain theory see Seibt 1990, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009.


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concerns only obliquely, however, by exploring the first steps of a possible

strategy for an implicit definition of dynamicity.

Since the study of dynamicity and its forms is a new task in ontology, it is

important to distinguish from the outset a number of different subtasks. These

tasks—and other tasks one might want to add to the list—are multiply related, of

course, but they are conceptually separable and much dialectical headway can be

made, I think, if we consider them as modules of a larger investigation.

First, and this is surely the most significant distinction, we need to keep

ontological and metaphysical investigations apart. It is a striking—though little

observed fact—that during the early phase of 20th century analytical ontology,

until the 1960’s, ontologists were adamant to distinguish ontology and

metaphysics, while nowadays the terms are used almost interchangeably.5 But

the ontological project of devising a ‘domain theory,’ a rational reconstruction of

the inferential commitments embedded in a natural or scientific language can

and should be set apart from metaphysical project of determining the status of

such ontological domain theories. Bergson’s arguments that “durée” or

becoming cannot be conceptualized illustrate the metaphysical perspective,

which is driven by epistemological concerns about the significance of ontological

domain descriptions: are these descriptions of reality, and if so, in which sense—

of reality in itself, reality for us, or ‘reality’ in yet another sense that transcends

these traditional oppositions? This is surely legitimate business in philosophy,

and it has particular traction on the notion of dynamicity, which lends itself

particularly well to a deconstruction of the traditional set-‐up of the skeptical

dimension. But it is possible to do category theory without raising the questions

of the skeptical dimensions; while Carnap may have been wrong in dismissing

the possibility of doing metaphysics, he was right, in my view, about the

possibility of doing ontology without metaphysics. Here then is the first task for

a theory of dynamicity:

(1) A theory of dynamicity should position itself clearly with respect to

two fundamental investigative perspectives that may, but do not need to, be combined. That is, a theory of dynamicity should clarify

5 I must omit here any discussion of this terminological shift, which, as far as I can see, has merely sociological reasons. For a presentation of the methodological insights of the early analytical ontologists see Seibt 1996, 1997, and 2000; for a methodological position paper see Seibt 2001.


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whether it pursues an ‘ontology of dynamicity’ or else a ‘metaphysics of dynamicity,’ or both. An ontology of dynamicity takes the investigative perspective of ontology and aims to reconstruct the inferential meaning of ‘dynamicity’ and ‘dynamic’ with the conceptual tools of an ontological ‘domain theory’ (i.e., a structural description of a domain of truth-‐makers for a language). In contrast, a metaphysics of dynamicity either investigates the status of a given ontological domain theory for dynamic beings, or else discusses the role of dynamicity in a philosophical account of cognition.

Let us call this first task for a theory of dynamicity the task of methodological

positioning. To comply with it right away, let me state that my considerations in

this paper will pertain exclusively to the ontology of dynamicity, in the sense of

this term stated in (1).

Turning to the ontology of dynamicity, then, we can again identify a

number of basic tasks among which are the following three:

(2) An ontological account of dynamicity must suggest a direct definition

of dynamicity in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, or else an axiomatic definition, or else discuss in which sense, if any, dynamicity can play a role in analytical ontology. This task I call the question of the definability of dynamicity.

(3) It must clarify whether we can make sense of dynamicity independently of temporal relationships. In other words, it must clarify whether it is possible to claim that there are dynamic entities outside of (space and) time, as Whitehead notoriously has claimed.6 This task I call the question of atemporal dynamicity.

(4) It must clarify which modes of dynamicity there are, which are basic

and which derived, and whether there is any one basic mode of dynamicity. This is the question of the primacy of directed dynamicity.

The proximate target of my following considerations is task (4), the clarification

of the question of the primacy of directed dynamicity, but in the course of the

discussion I shall also address task (2) and propose a definition of dynamicity.

1. Locating inferential constraints An ontological account of dynamicity, if undertaken in the general

methodological paradigm of analytical ontology, aims to reconstruct conceptual

6 But also, which has hardly been noticed so far, by Wilfrid Sellars in his 1962.


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content as manifested in (or constituted by) inferential relations. If we want to

explore what we rationally could take ourselves to be committed to in speaking

about our ‘world’ (i.e., the world of common sense or the world of physics etc.)

we need to begin by investigating the inferential commitments carried by

relevant linguistic expressions. The structure of our world of experience—so

runs the basic methodological thesis on which neo-‐Kantianism and pragmatism

could meet in the 1930s—dovetails with the inferential roles of basic

classificatory concepts and other linguistic means of encoding inferential

knowledge that has been produced in interaction with the world.

Since, for the analytical ontologist, language is the guide to the inferential

data that drive the development of an ontological domain theory, it is important

to focus on relevant linguistic expressions and elements, and to avoid any form

of linguistic bias. For example, if one were to discuss the possibility of a domain

of ‘dynamic’ entities—as opposed to a ‘static’ four-‐dimensional domain—in

relation with John McTaggart’s proof for the impossibility of the A-‐series, one

would immediately be on the wrong track, no matter whether one would argue

pro or contra dynamicity. For the link to McTaggart’s proof or even his

terminology would create, first, a problematic tie between dynamicity and

temporal flow or passage. Such a presuppositional link is to be avoided since

temporal passage does not seem to be either a sufficient nor necessary condition

for dynamicity—temporal passage may be only one special manifestation of

dynamicity. Only if one could show (i) that change is the only type of dynamicity,

(ii) that we must conceive of change in terms of states with contradictory

features, and that temporal passage must be conceptualized in terms of states

with contradictory temporal features, such implications could come into view. 7

Second, if we were to begin a discussion of dynamicity with a reference to

the A-‐series, we would , confusingly, give the impression that the issue of

dynamic being turns on the question of how to interpret tensed verbal

predications or the temporal adjectives ‘past,’ ‘present,’ and ‘future.’ But even if

one could be somehow convinced that atemporal dynamicity is not possible, or

even that dynamicity always requires temporal passage, it would be bizarre to

7 Whether our notion of temporal passage presupposes (a) change, and (b) change in temporal characteristics (‘past, present, future’) is debatable, see e.g., Maudlin 2007: ch. 4.


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assume from the outset that tensed verbal predications or temporal adjectives

‘past, present, future’ are the only or even the most relevant linguistic aspects to

concentrate on.8

Such a line of approach to an analysis of the notion of dynamicity or

dynamic being would be a non-‐starter from the outset in my view. I am

mentioning it here only to draw attention that to the fact that the recent debate

in analytical ontology on existence in time has little to offer for an ontology of

dynamicity, even where it nominally speaks of “static” entities, of “events,” or

“becoming”. This debate centers either explicitly or implicitly around

McTaggart’s contrast between a (fourdimensional) eternalist universe and the

inconceivable universe with temporal passage, where the latter has been

replaced with the conception of a “presentist” universe, and the interpretation of

tensed verbal predications and the adjectives of tense still plays an important

role in deciding between four-‐dimensionalism and presentism.9

Instead, or so I want to suggest here, an ontological account of

dynamicity needs to sidestep contemporary uses of ‘dynamic’ and ‘static’ in the

mainstream discussion of analytical ontology and take its bearings from other

sources. One possible heuristics would be to turn to an analysis of scientific

conceptions of dynamic phenomena and to try to identify relevant inferential

constraints from the representational tools of science. Another route towards

locating inferential data is to review discussions of dynamic being in the history

of philosophy. This is the path I shall follow here, turning to a passage in

Aristotle that contains central leads to a general method as well as specific

inferential constraints.

The passage I want to focus on is Aristotle’s so-‐called ‘completeness test’

in Metaphysics Φ. 6. In this chapter Aristotle comments on his double distinction

between, on the one hand, dynamis and energeia and, on the other hand,

between kinesis and energeia. The chapter can be roughly divided into four

thematic sections. (a) Aristotle begins by announcing that, after treating dynamis

in the previous sections, he will now discuss energeia; (b) he warns the reader

8 There are languages with less or more than three forms of verbal tense, there are languages that mark tense on nouns rather than on verbs, and there are languages without adjectives—why should English be our guide to ontology? 9 Cf. e.g. Rudder-‐Baker 2010.


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that there is merely an analogical unity among the senses of energeia; (c) then he

clarifies in which sense the infinite is potential, and finally (d) offers a paragraph

distinguishing kinesis and energeia; he concludes the chapter claiming to have

explained therein ”what and how” [ti esti kai poion] energeia is. The relevant

paragraph of section (d) runs as follows (cf. Metaphysics 1048:b18-‐b35):

[1.] Since among actions [praxeis] that have a limit [peras], none is a completion [telos], but each is the sort of thing relating to the completion—as e.g., slimming is to slimness; the [bodily parts] themselves are in movement, though those things which the movement is for the sake of [whose presence constitutes slimness] do not yet belong [hyparchonta] to them—these things are not action, or at least not complete [teleia], just because it is not a completion. But that [sort of action] in which its completion is contained [enuparchei] is a [real] action.10 [2.] E.g., in the same moment [hama] one is seeing and has seen [= “knows” by sight], is understanding and has understood, [=possesses understanding], is thinking and has thought [= ‘knows’ by insight]. But if you are learning, it’s not the case that in the same moment you have learned, nor if you are being cured, that in the same moment you have been cured. However, someone who is living well, at the same time has lived well, and someone who is prospering, has prospered.11 [3.] If that were not so, [the prospering, e.g.,] would have had to come to an end [pauestai] at some time, as is the case with slimming [= when the state of slimness, of one’s having completed an act of slimming has been achieved]. But in fact, it does not; you are living and have lived. [4.] Of these [actions], then, one group should be called movements [kineseis], and the other actualizations [energeias].12 [5.] For every movement is incomplete [ateles]—slimming, learning, walking [ = walk-‐taking], house-‐building; these are movements and are incomplete. [6.] For one cannot in the same moment both be taking a walk and have taken it, nor be house-‐building and have housebuilt, not be coming-‐to-‐be and have come-‐to-‐be, nor be being moved [kineitai] and have been moved [kekinehtai]; they’re different, as [in general] are moving [kinei] and having moved [kekinehken]. But at the same moment the same thing has seen and is seeing, and is thinking, and has thought.13 [7.] This …then I call an actualization [energeian], the other …a movement. What is actually [energeiai], then, what it is and what sort of thing [poion], may be regarded as clear from these and like cases.

This passage is commonly read as containing an inferential criterion or ‘test’ for

distinguishing two types of occurrences. Indeed, if we go by the textual surfaces,

Aristotle distinguishes in passage [1] occurrences that cannot be called actions

because their telos, their end or completion does not belong to them, from 10 Barnes (cf. 1984: 1656) translates ‘this is not action’, i.e., ‘kinesis is not action’ instead of Furth’s ‘these are not action’, i.e., the kineseis of the bodily parts that constitute the process of slimming. 11 Commenting on this translation with resultative perfect, Furth notes that what is at issue here is not a matter of tense but “what linguists call Aktionsart or Behandlungsart,” also called “aspect” in a “terminological variant” (1985: 134f.). 12 The addition “[occurrences]” replaces Furth’s addition “[actions]” which seems odd given that Aristotle just determined that kineseis are not actions; Barnes (1984: 1656) adds “processes.” 13 Note the variation in Barnes: “”it is a different thing that is being moved and that has been moved, and that is moving and that has moved; but it is the same thing that at the same time has seen and is seeing, is thinking and has thought.”


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occurrences that can be called actions because they contain their completion.14

For convenience let us call occurrences which do not contain their completion

‘other-telic’ and those which do ‘self-telic’. This difference in completedness is

explicated by means of differences in the inferential role of sentences expressing

‘cases’ of energeia and kinesis. Part [2] tells us that statements about kineseis

abide by the pattern

[8.] (subject, Greek verb in present tense) implies the falsity of (subject, Greek verb in the Perfect)15

while statements about energeia do not govern such implications—the present

tense statement is compatible with the associated statement in the perfect. Most

commentators read the expression ‘hama’, ‘at the same time,’ as an inference; so

for statements about energeiai it holds:

[9.] (subject, Greek verb in present tense) implies (subject, Greek verb in the Perfect).

Part [7] connects the inferential criterion for completion to the natural temporal

boundedness of occurrences. Those occurrences for which implication [8] holds

are bounded by their completion—it is part of what they are (since they have

their completion not in themselves) that they come to an end some time. Part

[5] restates the inferential difference of [8] and [9], with the interesting variation

that in one case the implication in [9] takes the other direction – ‘the same thing

has seen and is seeing.’ More importanly, however, Aristotle reformulates the

inferential difference between statements about kinesis and energeia taking the

role of the subject into account; that is, [8] and [9] are amended to: [10.] (subject1, Greek verb in present tense) implies the falsity of (subject2 Greek verb in the

Perfect) [11.] (subject1 Greek verb in present tense) implies (subject1, Greek verb in the Perfect).

On the background of these restatements of Aristotle’s text, let us now consider

its possible heuristic significance for an ontology of dynamic being.

To restate, the passage just set out traditionally has been read as

providing a distinction between incomplete and complete occurrences. In order 14 Telos is a relational noun: the ‘for-‐the-‐sake-‐of-‐which’ or the ‘towards-‐which’ of an occurrence. In the present context this metaphorical characterization must suffice. 15 Following a linguistic convention language-‐specific grammatical forms are capitalized (‘Perfect’) while general tense or aspect labels are lower-‐case (‘present tense,’ ‘perfect’).


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to appreciate the methodological clues contained in the passage we need to

review for a moment the development of the traditional reading within the

interplay between philosophy and linguistics. Following Aristotle’s observation

about a systematic difference in the inferential role of certain Greek verbs in

present tense, G. Ryle distinguished between “verbs of activity or process” and

“achievement verbs” (1949:149ff), in order to contrast at the ontological level

activities and results. Inspired by Ryle—but apparently independently of each

other—Z. Vendler (1957) and A. Kenny (1965) later produced extended

classification of “action verbs.” To illustrate, in Vendler’s fourfold distinction

between “activity verbs, state verbs, accomplishment verbs, and achievement

verbs,” activity verbs such as “run, walk, swim, push” fulfill the following four

conditions: (C1) They take the continuous form i.e., ‘A is V-‐ing’ is a well-‐formed sentence. (C2) Their denotations are unbounded, i.e., the form ‘x finished V-‐ing’ cannot be supplemented to yield a true sentence. (C3) [Distributivity condition] For every temporal interval [t], if ‘A V-‐ed during [t]’ is true then ‘A V-‐ed’ during [t’] for every period [t’] that is part of [t]. (C4) [Homomerity condition] Any temporal part of the denotation d of V is of the “the same nature” as the whole of d.

In contrast, “accomplishment verbs” such as “paint a picture, build a house, grow

up, recover from illness, run-‐a-‐mile” fulfill (C1) but their denotations are

bounded, they are not distributive and their denotations are not homomerous.

Since Vendler’s classification of “action verbs” combines syntactic and

semantic criteria—i.e., the conditions I called ‘distributivity’ and ‘homomerity’—

in ways that seemed to dovetail directly with the quoted passages [2] or [6]

above, Aristotle scholars in turn applied Vendler’s analysis to interpret the

distinction between energeia and kinesis in these sections of the Metaphysics .

Just as Vendler sought to derive a division in “types of action” on the basis of a

division of “action verbs,” Aristotle’s interpreters now discussed whether the

energeiai mentioned in paragraphs [1] through [6] should be understood as

activities, achievements, or states.16

However, when Vendler’s and Kenny’s distinctions became the subject of

more comprehensive investigations within linguistic verb semantics (in so-‐

called “aspect theory,”“aspectology,” or theories of “Aktionsarten”) they soon

16 Cf. Graham 1980, Hagen 1984, Ackrill 1965, Kosman 1984.


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appeared fundamentally flawed. Upon closer inspection, and taking a larger

sample of languages into account, the differences in inferential roles that the two

classifications aimed to identify and use for the purpose of ontological

classifications are, in fact, not carried by the lexical meaning of verbs. Rather, the

processual information that linguists call ‘aspectual meaning’ is carried by entire

sentences or even small discourse section. Moreover, the aspectual system of

different languages are so different that it seemed hopeless to derive ontological

classifications from just English or Greek.17

But despite their shortcomings, both classifications—and in particular

Vendler’s analysis of Aristotle’s original observations—produced two important

general insights for an ontology of dynamic being(s). First, when we try to locate

relevant inferential data that can guide a classification of occurrence types, we

do not restrict ourselves to reflecting on the material inferences that are encoded

in the lexical meaning of the general nouns of a language (e.g., ‘development,’

‘proceedings,’ ‘production,’ ‘oscillation,’ ‘growth,’ ‘expansion,’ ‘transition’ etc.);

nor do we need to limit ourselves to inferential constraints encoded in the tense

of verbal predications. Another class of linguistic data for an ontological

classification of occurrence types, and perhaps the most relevant one, seems to

be provided by ‘aspectual inferences,’ i.e., inferences based on the aspectual

meaning of sentences. Aspectual meaning—often but not always encoded in the

verb form, e.g., in the continuous form in English or in the English Perfect—

expresses a perspective onto the form of dynamicity of an occurrence; for

example, whether the occurrence is going on (“imperfective” or “progressive”

aspect) or available as result (“perfective” aspect), or has just begun

(“ingressive”) or is about to be finished (“egressive”), or a recurrent feature

(“habitual”).18 As it stands, Aristotle’s grammatical test in [2] and [6] for the

distinction between energeia and kinesis remains ambiguous; it can be taken to

involve tense, or aspect, or tense and aspect, and it is due to Vendler and Kenny

that the aspectual reading of the “completeness test” came into focus.

17 Cf. Verkuyl 1972, Taylor 1977, Mourelatos 1978, Rijksbaron 1989. For a review of the relevant part of the linguistic debate on Aktionsarten and verbal aspect Seibt 2004b, ch. 2. 18 This is a simplified illustration; see Seibt 2004b, ch. 2 for a review of various linguistic theories of aspectual meaning. Note, incidentally, that ontologists so far have been overlooking not only inferences based on so-‐called ‘verbal aspect,’ but also the aspectual information based on ‘nominal aspects’; see ibid. ch. 4 on this and Seibt 201+.


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While the pointer to aspectual inferences is particularly pronounced in

Kenny’s analysis, Vendler’s analysis can be credited with conveying most clearly

the second important insight I wish to highlight here, namely, the insight that

aspectual inferences dovetail with mereological properties. As the conditions of

‘distributivity’ and ‘homomerity’ (C3) and (C4) above suggest, implications

between sentences with different aspectual meaning can be used to derive

mereological features in terms of which one can introduce different types of

truthmakers (occurrence types) for the sentences in question.

With these credentials in place, let us return to our review of the

traditional reading of Aristotle’s distinction between energeia and kinesis as

occurrence types. As the discussion of Vendler’s and Kenny’s classifications per

se, as well as in application to the quoted passage has shown, it is not possible to

define different occurrence types just in terms of one aspectual implication as in

Vendler’s (C1) or Aristotle’s [8/10] and [9/11], respectively. For example, the

fact that the sentences ‘I am walking about’ or ‘I am swimming’ both allow for an

aspectual inference in the sense of [9/11] are not sufficient to claim that they

denote “activities,” if the latter are taken to be characterized by homomerity

alone—as has been observed by a number of authors, what ontologists call a

‘state of affairs’ (e.g., a exemplifies the (possibly complex) property F ) would

seem to fulfill the homomerity condition just as well. Moreover, it is

questionable whether an occurrence denoted by a sentence that licences the

aspectual inference in [9/11] and fulfills what Vendler calls the “time schema”

associated with this inference, here listed as the ‘distributivity condition’ (C3),

should at all be labeled an ‘activity’—some authors have argued that the notion

of an activity does allow for some temporal granularity, i.e., for some short

phases that do not satisfy the predicate in terms of which the activity is

characterized.19

In reaction to these difficulties one might (a) develop alternative ways of

making use of aspectual inferences for the definition of occurrence types, and (b)

search for an alternative interpretation of Aristotle’s ‘completeness test’ in

19 For a discussion of such challenges to the distributivity of activity predicates see Seibt 2004a and 2004b ch. 2.


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Metaphysics Θ.6. Elsewhere I have explored (a), 20 here I want to offer a

suggestion following line (b).

2. Two modes of dynamicity

As I want to argue now, drawing on the larger context of Aristotle’s writings, the

passage I quoted in the previous section contains a definition not of occurrence

types but of two modes of dynamicity. Consider the following four predicates: [12] Likepartedness or homomerity: An entity of kind K is likeparted iff some of its spatial or temporal parts are of kind K. [13] Strict likepartedness or strict homomerity: An entity of kind K is likeparted iff all of its spatial or temporal parts are of kind K. [14] Self-containment or automerity: An entity E is self-‐contained iff the spatiotemporal region in which all of E occurs has some spatial or temporal parts in which all of E occurs.21 [15] Strict self-containment or automerity: An entity E is self-‐contained iff the spatiotemporal region in which all of E occurs has only spatial or temporal parts in which all of E occurs.

An action is complete, Aristotle says in section [2] of the quotation in the

previous section, if is completed “at the same time” (“hama”) at which it is going

on. This can be read in three ways: ‘at the same time’ (i) for some, or (ii) for any,

or (iii) for all of the of the times at which it is going on. If we take the first

reading we can claim that energeiai are homomerous or automerous. If we take

the second or the third reading, we can claim that energeiai are strictly

homomerous or strictly automerous. Since Aristotle in no place introduces a

qualification of ‘the same moment’ that would suggest a restriction from ‘any’ to

‘some,’ I take the second or third reading as the more plausible one. As far as I

can see, all of the commentators of the passage agree on this point. Remarkably,

however, the difference between homomerity and automerity seems to have 20 For example, I have suggested a classification of sentences about activities, accomplishments, states, and achievements in terms of small networks of aspectual inferences, see ibid. 21 The condition of automerity is fulfilled by any kind of repetitive occurrence, whether it be an ‘activity’ or a sequence of Vendler ‘accomplishments’ or ‘achievements’.


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gone unnoticed. Or to put it more precisely, it seems to have gone unnoticed that

Aristotle commits himself by the combination of [1] and [2] to the claim that

energeiai are strictly automerous. For in [1] Aristotle explains that the telos

(completion) of an action is that ‘for-‐the-‐sake-‐of-‐which’ the action is undertaken.

If we were to take the telos of an ongoing action α to be the result of α, taking the

result or upshot of α to be different from α as ongoing, then no ongoing action

could contain literally “its” completion. For an ongoing action to contain its

completion we need to assume that the telos of α as ongoing is α as ongoing, not

the result of α. Consider the following contrast:

[16] Intelicity (self-directedness or upshot completion): An action α is intelic iff α is done for the sake of α’s having been done. A non-‐agentive occurrence α is intelic iff the telos of α is α’s having occurred. [17] Autotelicity (strict self-directedness or occurrence completion): An action α is autotelic iff α, while going on, is done for the sake of the ongoingness of α. A non-‐agentive occurrence α is autotelic iff if the telos of α, while going on, is the going-‐on of α.

If we take Aristotle’s text literally we must adopt the view that an ongoing

occurrence that contains its completion is autotelic in the sense specified, which

means that it contains literally itself. In other word, then, we must read Aristotle

as holding, or being committed to holding, that energeiai are strictly automerous

in the sense stated above.

Before we investigate the predicate automerity in greater detail, let us

consider in which way the difference between autotelic and ‘other-‐telic’ /allotelic

occurrences (i.e, occurrences the telos of which is not reached while they are

going on, cf. [1]) could steer us towards an new understanding of energeia and

kinesis. In other places (cf. De Anima 417a2ff, Physics 193b7) Aristotle uses the

contrast between dynamis and energeia to characterize the difference between

changes and activities. He presents these not merely as different occurrence

types (e.g., actions vs. events) but as two fundamentally different genres of

occurrences. Changes realize dynameis for becoming F—for example the

dynamis for becoming a human organism or a flute player. The realization of

such a dynamis for becoming F, also called a ‘potency’ or ‘first level potentiality,’

brings about a dynameis for being F, also called a ‘capacity’ or ‘second level

potentiality’. The realization of a potency for becoming F is a transition which


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results in the capacity for being F; the latter are the telos of the transition but

are not included in the transition. As Aristotle emphasizes in Nicomachian Ethics

1174a25-‐14, occurrences of this genre, changes, are characterized by inherent

and ubiquitous difference, with each part being “different in kind” from the

other. In contrast, the realizations of capacities (e.g., of the dynamis of being a

human being or a flute player) are characterized by inherent sameness; they are

‘self-‐realization’ structures since the telos of this genre of occurrence is the

realization of the capacity itself.22 Since Aristotle calls the first genre of

occurrences kineseis and the second energeiai one might at first form the

impression that these passages confirm the traditional reading of kinesis and

energeia as occurrence types. All that this larger context of the completeness

test reveals, one might argue, Aristotle’s target is not a distinction between

‘species’ of occurrences (‘actions’ vs ‘non-‐actions) but a division at a much more

fundamental level between different ‘genera’ of occurrences.

However, this adjustment of the traditional reading does not square well

with the fact that Aristotle characterizes energeia as a form of kinesis, calling a

capacity a

[18] “principle of movement (kinesis)…in the thing itself qua itself” (Metaphysics 1049b9).

More importantly, he even defines kinesis in terms of energeia:

[19] [T]he energeia of the buildable as the buildable is the house-‐building (Physics

201b6-‐14)

[20] I call the energeia of the potential as such kinesis (Metaphysics K 1065 b16)

22 In the case of living organisms the exercise of the capacity for being F is not only self-‐realizing in the sense that this capacity for being F is realized as an exercizable capacity for being F, but here the capacity in question is (a) for being-‐an-‐organism-‐of-‐this-‐kind or (b) for being-‐this-‐organism-‐of-‐this-‐kind. In this way the self-‐directed is even stronger, it does not only pertain to the capacity qua capacity but also to the ‘content’ of the capacity. Aristotle calls self-‐directness in the sense of (a) physis—the nature of an organism is to realize this nature; it is controversial whether the notion of physis also can be read as self-‐directedness in the sense of (b), as the self-‐realization of an individual instance of this nature.


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Passages [19] and [20] state that kinesis is a certain ‘way of the being-‐there’ of a

potency, namely, the way in which the potency is there if its potentiality for

generating a change or transition is no longer dormant but going on (and not yet

actualized). The potency for becoming a house is in bricks, beams, and tiles even

if these never become a house; but for this ‘dormant’ productive potency to

become ‘manifest’ it needs to attain a mode of being-‐there that realizes it as

productive potency—the potency needs to ‘go on’. Kinesis, the occurrence of the

development or movement, is thus the going on of the potential as potential. But

then kinesis is not an occurrence type, not a development, but the mode of

occurrence of such an occurrence type: coming about. Coming about is a

distinctive mode of occurrence or mode of dynamicity that always strives

beyond itself, a continuous tendency towards difference, until a definite endpoint

is reached.

In contrast, when a capacity, a dynamis for being-‐F, is going on, the

occurrence generated has another mode of dynamicity—it is the continuous

expression of the capacity-‐for-‐being-‐F to express itself. Aristotle calls that

mode of dynamicity energeia.

If kinesis and energeia are modes of dynamicity, however, one might have

some qualms about the role of energeia in quotations [19] and [20]. There the

term energeia is used to characterize a ‘way of being-‐there’ (‘going-‐on’) of a

dynamis . On the other hand, if energeia were a mode of dynamicity, it should be

the result of the ‘going on’ of a dynamis (i.e., of a dynamis for being F). Some

scholars thus have suggested that energeia is simply ambiguous and in certain

contexts means ‘activity’ (occurrence type) and in other contexts ‘actuality’(way

of being-‐there of a dynamis).23 I believe that when Aristotle reminds his readers

at the beginning of Metaphysics Θ. 6 that the meaning of energeia can shift

(1047a30) he does not intend to announce an ambiguity. We can work towards

a more interesting resolution of the double-‐functionality of the term if we

translate it into ‘logical grammar’. In [19] and[20] energeia appears both in the

logical position of a function (or operator) on dynameis; in other contexts it

appears in the role of the ‘value’ (or outcome):

23 Cf. Chen 1965.


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[21] going-‐on (dynamis to become F) = coming about, kinesis

[22] going-‐on (dynamis to be F) = self-‐expression, energeia

To achieve a uniform reading of energeia we might try then to understand ‘going

on,’ which I so far characterized as a ‘way of being-‐there’ of a dynamis, to amount

structurally to the self-‐expression of a capacity for being F. In other words,

applying the operator ‘self-‐expression’ to the dynamis to become F would

express this dynamis as itself, the potential as the potential, as stated in [19] and

[20]. Applying the operator ‘self-‐expression’ to a dynamis to be F, to a capacity

for expressing F, would again express this dynamis as itself, namely, as the

capacity of expressing-‐F, which means the continuous self-‐expression of that

capacity, and the continuous expression of F in the course of it.

Where does this interpretation leave us? We started this section in search

of an interpretation of distinction between kinesis and energeia that would not

associate it with a division in occurrence types and arrived at a reading in terms

of a contrast of two modes of dynamicity—coming about and going-‐on-‐by-‐self-‐

expression. However, in the course of motivating this reading we also

discovered that energeia is also used in ways that seem to go beyond the label

for a mode of dynamicity (see [19] and [20]). Can we equate ‘ongoingness’ with

‘self-‐expression’ to achieve a unified reading of energeia in two roles, as mode of

dynamicity and as mode of existence of a dynamis? Is energeia then simply the

primary mode of dynamicity, is it tantamount to being understood as an dynamic

affair? Should we say then that in Aristotle’s ontology all that is is going-‐on-‐by-‐

self-‐expression and once a potency ‘is’ in this way we get something occurring in

another mode of dynamicity that is a variation of the underlying basic form of

dynamic being?

Before we can explore these questions, one might object at this point, we

should investigate whether we can all think the mode of dynamicity of self-‐

expression. In the Nicomachian Ethics (1174b10-‐13) Aristotle emphasizes that

the mode of dynamicity of energeia is strictly without developmental phases: [23] From these considerations it is clear, too, that these thinkers are not right in saying there is a movement or a coming into being of pleasure. For these cannot be ascribed to all things, but only to those that are divisible and not wholes; there is no coming into


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being of seeing nor of a point nor of a unit, nor is any of these a movement or coming into being; therefore there is none of pleasure either; for it is a whole.24

But to think self-‐expression as an unstructured, non-‐developmental whole seems

quite impossible and so we have arrived at what one could call the riddle of

’dynamicity.’ It appears that we can somehow ‘fathom’ two forms of

’dynamicity.’ First, there is the ’stretched’ developmental variety, as a ’push

from here to there,’ as continuous becoming different—the mode of dynamicity

of coming about (kinesis). Second, there is ’dynamicity’ in the form of going-‐on as

self-‐propagation—the mode of dynamicity of self-‐expression (energeia). But

this mode of dynamicity also appears to have wider scope than the other—it

appears to articulate a notion of dynamicity or dynamic being in general.

Anything in the mode of coming-‐about, any development ‘is’ in a dynamic

sense—i.e., is in sense of being as self-‐expression. And yet, while we somehow

can ‘fathom’ self-‐propagation, we cannot think nor represent symbolically self-‐

expression as an unstructured whole—we cannot think it without thinking a

production or coming about that is somehow ’collected’ into a point. This creates

a curious interdependence: the second mode of dynamicity, going on or self-‐

expression, is the way in which the first mode of dynamicity is there—coming

about is there by the going on of some dynamis to become-‐F. On the other hand,

it appears that we can only understand the mode of dynamicity of self-‐

expression by contrasting it with coming about.

3. The riddle of dynamicity

What to do with the interdependence between the two modes of dynamicity I

called ‘coming about’ and ‘going-‐on by expressing-‐itself’? There are four possible

reactions all of which are exemplified in the history of metaphysics. First, one

might give up on the ontology of dynamic being, since it does not bring us any

further with respect to the overall ontological project of defining being.

Ongoingness is as indefinable as being, so there is little use in claiming with the

process metaphysicians that being consists in ongoingness. 24 1174b10-‐13.


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Second, one might reject Aristotle’s idea, expressed in [19] and [20], that

the dynamic being of coming about somehow would need to be conceived as

ongoingness. Dynamic being can be coming about and nothing else. When a

house is being built, what there is at any moment during which that coming

about occurs is itself a ’temporally unextended’ coming about. So at any moment

there is a coming about of coming about—any temporally extended coming

about is the sequence of temporally punctiform coming abouts which do not

happen over time. This one could consider to be Whitehead’s solution to the

riddle of dynamicity; the basic entities of Whitehead process metaphysics, so-‐

called ’actual occasions,’ all have the structure of kineseis, i.e., they are all

becomings, which do not happen over time but constitute that which happens

over time.

Third, one might claim that the interdependence is not symmetric. To use

a distinction by W. Sellars, self-‐expressing depends on coming-‐about in the

”order of understanding,” while coming-‐about depends on self-‐expressing in the

”order of being.” In order to make descriptive sense of being as going-‐on or self-‐

expressing, i.e., in order to render going on a concept that is not only ’clear’ but

also ’distinct’ in the rationalist’s classification, we need to resort to the contrast

with coming about. But this does not detract from the fact that ongoingness is

the way in which coming about is there. In Bergson’s pregnant articulation of

this third reaction to the ‘riddle of dynamicity,’ process-‐metaphysical inquiry

finds itself in a tragic situation. It aspires to conceptualize something that is

outside of the very domain of conceptualization. What can be conceptualized of

a coming about is the pair of initial state and end state; the transition between

these states, however, the ongoingness of coming about, entirely eludes any

effort of descriptive conceptualization. Dynamicity or ongoingness is something

we can only experience in ”duration,” as plenum without separable components,

and can only approach as the ever fleeting, ever evanescent object of an

attempted conceptual reflection of that experience.

Fourth, and this appears to be the most popular reaction among process

metaphysicians, one might deny that self-‐expressing is descriptively dependent

on coming-‐about, because the metaphor of self-‐directedness (self-‐production

etc.) is a definiens in its own right. A number of metaphysicians have played on


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the intimate connection between ’dynamicity’ and self-‐directedness and the

curious self-‐validation that occurs when we think that connection. Fichte and

Hegel went so far as to take the performative validation of the thought of self-‐

production to be the metaphysical ’core-‐relation’ on which a whole system could

be ’grounded.’ While Descartes provided the model of performative self-‐

validation of thinking, Fichte and Hegel noticed that something metaphysically

even more powerful is to be gained along these lines. The attempt to think self-‐

production results not only in the performative validation of one specific type of

process (thinking) but of a way of being there, of actual existence. The thinking

of self-‐production (self-‐directness) as an item of ”objective reality” not only

brings about self-‐production as an item of ”formal reality,” but, together with a

view of knowledge as perfect ’adequatio,’ it also suggests itself as the situation in

which the correlativity of thinking and being is fully exhibited.25

Instead of embracing any of these four reactions here, I want to suggest a

fifth option, namely, a standard implicit definition of ongoingness of ‘dynamicity’.

By an implicit definition we can skirt the ‘riddle of dynamicity’ I just drew

attention to, i.e., we can dodge the difficulties in having to conceive of dynamicity

via negativa as an ‘other-‐directed movement rolled back onto itself.’ The above

25 The concept of self-‐production forces us to conceive of a unity which generates and cancels a relationship to itself, and this peculiar dynamic structure—vide Fichte’s notion of an ”Ego” as ”setting the Non-‐Ego” or Hegel’s ”identity of identity and non-‐identity”—can be used to undercut the traditional dichotomy between thinking and being, ”subject” and ”object.” In Fichte’s and Hegel’s scheme, the thinking of self-‐production thus fulfills three functions: it generates (a) a case of self-‐production, (b) a definition for a dynamic account of being correlative to the structure of thinking, and (c) a model for the relationship between thinking and being: a unity that is both identity and difference, that generates and cancels its own relatedness. Is there anything in this approach that could invite further exploration from the perspective of the analytical ontologist? Let us briefly look at (b). Hegel’s insists that normal predications are not suited to express “speculative truths” (definitions of dialectical relationships) but must be articulated by means of a “speculative sentence,” a special linguistic form. This can be understood as a precursor to the idea that not all definitions have to be explicit definitions. In essence, then, it is the proposal of grounding self-‐expression and other self-‐referential terms in what one might call ‘performative constitutions.’ Such performative constitutions capitalize on the self-‐similarity of content and form, which—in first approximation—we might conceive of the self-‐similarity of performative constitutions on the model of the ‘triangle of triangles’, i.e.,as the similarity of the nature of the items arranged and the mode of arrangement. Hegel’s focus is on connections between an item (e.g., the subject) and that which is other to it (e.g., the object) in various ‘modes’ (e.g. epistemic modes) that he characterizes themselves in terms of such connections. For example, if we let subscripts representing the ‘mode’ of presentation, the following complex structure—which corresponds to Hegel’s characterization of self-‐consciousness in the Phenomology and his definition of “something” (“Etwas”) in the Science of Logic— has a mode of interrelatedness that mirrors the interrelatedness of its components and their respective “one-‐sided” modes of presentation: ‘((S ⇔ ∼ S) S ⇔ ∼ S ⇔ ∼ (S ⇔ ∼ S) ∼(S ⇔ ∼ S)) (S ⇔ ∼ S) ⇔ ∼ (S ⇔ ∼ S)’ .


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rehearsed historical reactions to the riddle of dynamicity all proceed from the

assumption that if dynamicity has no explicit definition it must be indefinable, or

even inconceivable . But once we admit of the idea that, within a suitable system,

a condition can set sufficient constraints to ensure that dynamic entities are

among its models, a new path opens up.

I suggest that we take the feature of strict automerity as an inferential

constraint that, in combination with additional restrictions within a formal

system, all and only ongoing or ‘dynamic’ entities fulfill. The general strategy of

my proposal can be summarized into the following four claims. (i) Dynamicity or

dynamic being is ongoingness by expressing itself—to be is to go on. (ii) Self-‐

expression is reflected in a characteristic structure in the description of an entity.

(iii) For example, if we describe an entity E in terms of a partition that specifies

what is ‘part of being that entity’ (i.e., we specify its spatial, function, material etc,

parts within one partition using a generic part relation), the fact that E is

dynamic will be reflected in the partition in the form of certain distinctive

patterns representing self-‐expression. (iv) Self-‐expression is mereologically

reflected in strict automerity, which generates self-‐similar patterns within a

partition.

Above I argued that autotelicity (self-‐expression) dovetails with strict

automerity. Let us turn to a closer look at automerity then. I have been using the

predicate without discussing whether this predicate is at all conceptually

coherent. How can a whole, E, contain itself as a part? Indeed, if we interpret the

expression ‘is part of’ on the basis of the axiomatization of Classical Extensional

Mereology (or, in fact, any axiomatization that operates with a transitive part

relation), then the only way in which an entity could be automerous is by having

no spatial and temporal parts at all. Since the classical part relation is transitive

and irreflexive, no part of E can have E as part—by the transitivity of ‘is part of’

we receive the statement that E is part of itself, which is in conflict with the

irreflexivity of the part relation.

However, we are by no means bound to the interpretation of ‘is part of’ as

axiomatized by Classical Extensional Mereology. There are at least two varieties

of non-‐standard mereologies both of which allow for ‘mereological loops’: one

can either relinquish anti-‐symmetry (Cotnoir 2010), or, as I have suggested, one


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can give up on transitivity. Classical Extensional Mereology axiomatizes in effect

the natural language expression ‘x is a spatial /temporal part of the spatial/

temporal region occupied by y’; in contrast, ‘is part of’ in the commonsensical

usage is not a transitive relation. The switch from a transitive to a non-‐transitive

part-‐relation betokens that ‘is part of’ must be defined relative to partition levels.

The parts of an entity α are a’s 1-‐parts, the parts of the parts of α are at α’s 2-‐

parts, and so on—in general, the nth iteration of the part-‐relation yields one of

α’s n-‐parts. This implies a profound change in the expressive power of a

mereological system; as I have argued, however, the shift to “Leveled Mereology”

is for many purposes in ontology quite advantageous. 26

One of these advantages is the fact that in a mereological system with a

non-‐transitive part-‐relation there is a non-‐vacuous reading for strict automerity.

In ‘Leveled Mereology’ not only parthood is relativized to partition levels, also

identity (i.e., coreferentiality) is defined—via the Proper Parts Principle—

relative to a certain level of depth—briefly, α and β are identical just in case they

have the same 1-‐through-‐n-‐parts, for a given n. Assume that n =1, which means

that two entities are identical just in case their share the same 1-‐parts. If β and γ

are the 1-‐parts of an entity α, and α and δ are 1-‐parts of β, then α can be a 2-‐part

of itself. In other words, provided a partition has self-‐similar structure relative

to the level n for which the identity principle has been fixed, such a partition can

represent an entity E that contains itself or is (strictly) automerous in the sense

that if R is the spatial/temporal region that contains E as a whole, the some (all)

subregions ri of R contain E as a whole. For example, in Figure 1 the entity α is

identified via its 1-‐parts β and γ; both of these parts contain α, even though they

not directly, but as part of a part. If we were to supplement the figure by

assuming that also δ, k, ε, and θ have α as a part, it would represent a strictly

automerous entity.

26 See Seibt 2004b, 2009 and 2015.


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4. Conclusion

In this paper I have presented reactions to Aristotle’s so-‐called ‘completeness

test’ in Metaphysics Θ.6 that were to serve heuristic purposes only. Whether the

suggested interpretation of energeia as the ‘dominant’ of two modes of

dynamicity is at all tenable, can remain open. My main aim was to use Aristotle’s

text as a foil for a discussion of the most basic concepts within an ontology of

dynamic being, concepts like coming about and going on, that remain

presupposed in more specific and more easily analyzable notions for

occurrences and dynamic features in the science (e.g., production, motion,

causation, reaction, feedback, self-‐maintenance, autopoiesis etc.). I have tried to

highlight that Aristotle’s text provides us with two very useful methodological

pointer. First, it can direct analytical ontologists to a more careful investigation

of aspectual inferences as the relevant linguistic data for an ontology of dynamic

beings or occurrence types. I have argued here that the single aspectual

inference used in the completeness test does not suffice for a distinction between

occurrence types, which are to be correlated with more complex dynamic

information, but it can be used to fix a contrast between two basic modes of

dynamicity, coming about and going on. The second important pointer that

γ

Figure 1


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Aristotle has left us with is to mereology as a tool for a formal ontology of

dynamic beings and modes of dynamicity. Within a non-‐standard mereology, or

so I tried to illustrate in the final section, we can formulate the self-‐referential

structures that seem to be the hallmark of any attempt of conceptually

characterizing dynamicity.

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Aristotle's completeness test as heuristics for an account of dynamicity

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