Aristotle’s Act and Potency as Relative Concepts, Neoplatonism, and Aquinas’s Pure Act

Abstract

In an important article, Enrico Berti, reports recent studies of the manuscript tradition of Metaphysics Lambda (XII) which indicate that Aristotle never characterized the Unmoved Mover simply as “act”, but only as “in act.” According to Berti, the conception of Aristotle’s God as ʻpure actʼ results from a Neoplatonic interpretation that is closer to Plotinus than to Aristotle. Berti insists that, for Aristotle, an act without a subject is impossible, and that Aristotle’s notion of act is not absolute but relative to potency, expressing an analogy that applies to subjects of very different kinds. The present article argues that Thomas Aquinas’s way of conceiving the highest principle as pure act differs sharply from the Neoplatonic way, and that Thomas’s way is not prey to Berti’s objections. Thomas’s God is not an act without a subject, and to call Him act is indeed to relate Him to being in potency.