Gary wrote:
I'm still trying to get a firmer grip on the concept of "entelechy"
myself, but the best definition i can offer at the moment is "the end
product of a completed process."
Yes, that's a good definition. Keeping in mind Peircean idea of meaning as something having it's being in futuro. So, the process in question will never actually be completed. Which is tied with Peirce's idea of continuity (which goes beyond those of Aristotle and Kant).
The Greek word comes from: en-telos-ekhein. With en (preposition)= inside, telos =end, and ekhein = to have. So, it comes to something like: Having it's (or a ?) being within an end.
G.F.: So the problem with the translation "actuality" is that the reality ofAgreed. I don't think it does in the Aristotelian sense either.
the entelechy does not depend on its actuality -- not in the Peircean
senses of those words.
Personally i find it almost impossible to apply these "-tel-" conceptsSo do I, so do I. This is exactly where Peirce's notion of continuity is crucial. It's not a linear notion.
(such as entelechy and final cause) to a linear process. It seems to me
that they are only really meaningful in the nonlinear or cyclical
domain.
And yet this is not evident from Peirce's discussion in "New
Elements", which for me is the central text in the discussion of
"entelechy". There he applies the term to the universal process -- the
process of the universe evolving toward complete being -- and he doesn't
appear to say that this universal process is nonlinear. (Though i don't
think he rules it out either.)
I assume Peirce takes it in New Elements as something he had already made clear in earlier writings, and consequently did not feel the need to make it explicit there. (Thus highly overestimating the capacities his audience:).)
Well, I do hope I'll have time in the future to discuss the New Elements in the list. Now I've just jotted down these few thoughts in a hurry. Noticing that there are twenty unread messages. So, someone else might have written something I should have taken notice.
Best
Kirsti Määttänen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7.5.2006 kello 18:25, gnusystems kirjoitti:
Kirsti, Wilfred et al.,
Kirsti writes,
[[ I was quite perplexed to read that
J.A. Smith's translation of De
Anima renders [entelechy] as "actuality." ]]
Yes, that perplexed me too when i compared the Smith translation with
the Greek original. Peirce would never translate it that way -- he would
no doubt write "realization". And yet Smith's choice does make some
sense in the context (though it might make more sense if rendered
"actualization").
I'm still trying to get a firmer grip on the concept of "entelechy"
myself, but the best definition i can offer at the moment is "the end
product of a completed process." (The "end" part represents the
connection with /telos/ cited in the Century Dictionary.) In that
sense, the complete actualization of an idea would be an entelechy; it's
what you'd have when the material, efficient, formal and final causes of
the fact had all completed their work. The problem is that we can (and i
think Peirce does) talk about the entelechy of a process which may never
*actually* be completed. As you say, Kirsti,
[[ Perfection of being, which you take up from Peirce, is something
never attained to the full. Still, something which is effective, and in
that sense real, even if never actual, to the full. ]]
So the problem with the translation "actuality" is that the reality of
the entelechy does not depend on its actuality -- not in the Peircean
senses of those words.
Personally i find it almost impossible to apply these "-tel-" concepts
(such as entelechy and final cause) to a linear process. It seems to me
that they are only really meaningful in the nonlinear or cyclical
domain. And yet this is not evident from Peirce's discussion in "New
Elements", which for me is the central text in the discussion of
"entelechy". There he applies the term to the universal process -- the
process of the universe evolving toward complete being -- and he doesn't
appear to say that this universal process is nonlinear. (Though i don't
think he rules it out either.)
That's the crux of the problem, to me -- and this problem is the main
reason i wanted to start (or rather revive) the discussion of "New
Elements" on this list when i first joined. (It's also the main reason
that i first looked into Aristotle's book On the Psyche.)
By the way: Looking again at the Century Dictionary entry on
"entelechy", we can see that the final part of it is attributed to E.
Wallace. But where in the entry does Peirce's contribution end and
Wallace's begin? Where the fine print starts, or at the paragraph break?
Does anyone know?
gary F.
