Relation to the world· Nature and the livingnamed middle
Hylomorphism (Aristotle)
Axis: Being and becoming — Is the real, at bottom, what endures or what becomes?
Change is neither an illusion nor the dissolution of all things: it is the passage from potentiality to actuality within a substance that persists. The form endures while the matter is transformed: the seed becomes a tree without ceasing to be that living thing. Being and becoming do not exclude each other; becoming is the way beings realize themselves. Aristotle is the emblem of this middle way, but any thought of substance persisting through change inhabits it.
Philosophers 1
Aristotleexplicit
Against Parmenides, who made change unthinkable (being cannot come from non-being), Aristotle distinguishes potentiality and actuality: becoming is not an emergence out of nothing but the actualization of what was potential, within a persisting substrate. Substance endures through the change of its accidents, form realizes itself in matter: being and becoming cease to be rivals, becoming is the way beings accomplish their form.
Physics, I.8 · Metaphysics, IX (Theta)