Actus et potentia

The terms act ( actus in Latin, Greek ἐνέργεια, energeia; largely synonymous entelecheia is ) and potency ( potentia Latin, Greek δύναμις, dynamis) are in philosophical parlance opposing concepts. " Potency " refers to the unrealized possibility but there is an asset or a skill or disposition. "Act " on the other hand refers to the implementation or realization of this possibility.

This term use goes back to the philosophy of nature and ontology of Aristotle. The later Greek and Latin philosophy has the largely connected.

It can also be made between active and passive potency. The passive potency means the possibility of receiving an act against. Passive power is, for example, a piece of clay, which can be formed into a vase. The active power means the ability to self- produce an act. Active power has, for example, an artist who can mold a piece of clay, a vase or a jug. Both active and passive potency relates to ontologically proper attribution containing specific assets and is thus more than logical possibility. A state of affairs is in fact already then logically possible, when its opposite is not logically necessary; a power is one thing but then when the actual world is set up so that the thing has a fortune to a corresponding act.

For Aristotle, the reality has an ontological priority over the possibility. One of the arguments for this position is that the implementation of each specific changes can not be explained, if not each one principle is assumed that causes this change. Since an infinite number of Updaters is inconceivable also, Aristotle takes as the first principle of his cosmology to an unmoved mover - not just an unformed matter with power to change. This first principle he referred also as related only to itself thinking. At the same time it is connected with the most perfect kind of motion, circular motion. God and his rational activity is " real work ".

In these initial positions of the scholastic concept of the essence of God as pure act ( actus purus ) its origin.

Also in reliance on Aristotle Wilhelm von Humboldt has understood language as energeia, ie as a force acting rather than as a static system.