Aristotle, potential and actual, conflicts
Abstract
In The Metaphysics Book Theta, Chapter four, Aristotle claims that to state that “some
X is possible but X will never be” is a mistake. In effect, he collapses the possible into
the actual. This view conflicts with the existence of dispositions which I argue exist,
as they are indispensable to science. In Theta Chapter three, Aristotle sets out a test of
possibility whereby we assume that some entity exists and then see if an impossibility
ensues. I apply this test to Aristotle’s theory and show that it entails the impossibility
of dispositions. Given the clear existence of dispositions, Aristotle’s conflation of the
possible with the actual fails his own test of possibility and must be wrong.