Aristotle is both complicated and exciting. As we know, he discusses the same questions in various texts. We also know that his texts are uneven and also inconsistent in their elaboration. We know that some of what we have as Aristotle’s texts was written by him, whereas some seems to be notes provided by his hearers. If it were simply a question of a text-based argument, then the received/inherited and traditional interpretation of Aristotle could be maintained. But this is possible only if one ignores (a) other texts and also (b) that which is so important for Heidegger: how the things are and that which goes beyond logic and thrives in the direction of experience.
Here I invite the reader to join me in looking at several places in the 8th Book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, to study how the English translations affect the reading and interpretation of Aristotle. The big question here is the dynamic between potentiality and actuality (also named possibility and actuality) or from potentiality to actuality.
The question in this section is the τέλος/goal of things or of movement. The central question here is movement/κίνησις. When observing a phenomenon or a thing, where and how does it begin (δύναμις)? Of what does the “actuality” of a phenomenon or thing consist (ἐνέργεια)? How can we understand the movement (κίνησις) of the transition from potentiality to actuality? And finally: When the whole process comes to an end – when the movement has reached its goal (τέλος), what is reached and what is this reaching? Is the end or goal an end station – an end where there is no longer anything in movement, in action, in process? Or is there always a dynamic, a movement, in this “end”? And what can we know of the phenomenon or thing at this “end”? This is the question of the Greek word ἐντελέχεια. “Literally” ἐντελέχεια says being-in-the-end: ἐν-τἐλος-ἐχε͂ιν or ἐχε͂ιν in τἐλος, being in the end.
The traditional interpretation, handed down to us through the Scholastics and into the modern period of philosophy, is roughly