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[[Polybius]] in 150 B.C. in his work the ''Histories'' uses Aristotle's earliest use of the word as activity. Polybius also uses the term to describe the "Clarity and vividness" of things.<ref>pg 51 Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw Cambridge Press ISBN 0521035562 ISBN-139780521035569</ref> |
[[Polybius]] in 150 B.C. in his work the ''Histories'' uses Aristotle's earliest use of the word as activity. Polybius also uses the term to describe the "Clarity and vividness" of things.<ref>pg 51 Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw Cambridge Press ISBN 0521035562 ISBN-139780521035569</ref> |
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[[Diodorus Siculus]] in 60-30 BC uses the term in a very similar way to Polybius. However Diodorus uses the term to denote qualities to unique to individuals. Using the term in ways that could translated as "vigor" or "energy"; for society, "practice" or "custom"; for a thing,"operation" or "working"; like vigor in action". <ref>pg 55 Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw Cambridge Press ISBN 0521035562 ISBN-139780521035569</ref> |
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Revision as of 13:50, 24 August 2010
Template:The Works of Aristotle Energeia (ἐνέργεια) is an important Greek technical term in the works of Aristotle. The two components of his coinage indicate something being "in work". It is the etymological source of the modern word "energy" but the term has evolved so much during Western History that this link is no longer helpful in understanding the original Aristotelian term.
As a neologism created specifically to explain Aristotle's philosophy, it is difficult to translate. One American scholar, Joe Sachs, attempts to translate it literally as a "being at work," although most frequently terms derived from Latin translations like activity and actuality are used, attempting to give the sense of something which is more than just potentially existent.
Philosophy
Aristotle
At Nicomachean Ethics I.viii.1098b33 the relative importance of activity or being at work is made clear, and the matter is also discussed in Metaphysics VIII-IX. Aristotle claims that pleasure, as opposed to the popular view of an emptiness that needs to be fulfilled, actually consists in energeia of the human body and mind (Book X). Thus, he would claim that eating is pleasurable in the sense that it allows the human digestive system to fully function, sex is pleasurable for the same reason with the reproductive system, and activities such as studying mathematics or admiring art are pleasurable because they are an energeia with respect to the mind.
Aristotle also contrasts energeia and ergon with dunamis and hexis, in various places. See Eudemian Ethics II.i.1218b and Nicomachean EthicsI.viii.1098b33 where concerning virtue, hexis is equated to possession (κτῆσις) and energeia is equated to use (χρῆσις). In that passage, Aristotle argues that virtue must be an energeia, and more than just a hexis or potential for happiness. However the two are closely related. The translator Joe Sachs (2002), using "being-at-work" for energeia, writes:
In the Nicomachean Ethics, everything depends upon the idea of an active condition (hexis) that can be formed by a deliberately repeated way of being-at-work, and that can in turn set free the being-at-work of all the human powers for the act of choice
Energeia is also sometimes compared to kinesis (movement or perhaps sometimes change). See Metaphysics IX.iii.1047a.
Polybius in 150 B.C. in his work the Histories uses Aristotle's earliest use of the word as activity. Polybius also uses the term to describe the "Clarity and vividness" of things.[1]
Diodorus Siculus in 60-30 BC uses the term in a very similar way to Polybius. However Diodorus uses the term to denote qualities to unique to individuals. Using the term in ways that could translated as "vigor" or "energy"; for society, "practice" or "custom"; for a thing,"operation" or "working"; like vigor in action". [2]
Neoplatonism
Plotinus was a late classical pagan philosopher and theologian whose monotheistic re-workings of Plato and Aristotle were influential amongst early christian theologians. In his Enneads he sought to reconcile ideas of Aristotle and Plato together with a form of monotheism. Plotinus taught that The One, or Monad was force while its emanation, the demiurge or nous, was energeia, as that which is motionless but sets all (as force or dunamis) in motion. This, it was proposed, reconciled Plato's good and beautiful with Aristotle's Unmoved Mover as energeia.[citation needed]
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
St Gregory Palamas wrote about the energies of God (in contrast to God's essence) in his defense of the Eastern Orthodox ascetic practice of hesychasm. Gregory and the time that he wrote his defense do not represent the expression of God and his various manifestations of energy as being a new or innovative ideology or theology, rather St Gregory is according to tradition the one who gave the traditions a defense and established these teachings as Orthodox theological dogma. Gregory wrote that God has realities Father, Son and Holy Spirit and these realities effect the created world as does the energies of God. All being in essence uncreated.
Other
Energeia (energy) was invoked as the protector of the ephemeral Free State of Fiume (Croatia, 1920-1924) by Italian poet and war hero Gabriele D'Annunzio, who also called it "the tenth Muse" in the constitution he drafted for it.[3]
See also
Bibliography
- Energeia And Entelecheia: "Act" in Aristotle by George Alfred Blair University of Ottawa Press ISBN 978-0776603643
- Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon by Francis Peters NYU Press ISBN 978-0814765524
References
- ^ pg 51 Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw Cambridge Press ISBN 0521035562 ISBN-139780521035569
- ^ pg 55 Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw Cambridge Press ISBN 0521035562 ISBN-139780521035569
- ^ October 27th, 1920 Issue of The Nation