Capacities

As with an affection, a capacity (dunamis) is characterised two ways: (1) In the field of ethics and character development a capacity is characterised by its range and degree of strength of, say, an emotion or ability and how greatly it is affected by a desire (orexis), while in the field of metaphysics a capacity is (2) a potential property, condition or state innate in the subject which given the right point in development and circumstance will become an actual property, condition or state. To put it in its Aristotelian flow-chart it is when the changing or activation (kinesis) of a capacity or potential property (dunamis) happens, changing the capacity

(dunamis) to an exercising power (energeia) becoming an actual property/disposition (hexis), illustrated as so:

Table 2.2⁸

The characterizations (1) and (2) need clarification. As for (1) the characterisation of capacity in the ethics and Categories 8, and to recap, while an affection is something‟s reception for change, a capacity has to do with that things “readiness” for change, in the sense that the subjects “readiness” will invoke the person‟s ”capacity” to change in a small degree, or a large degree, fast or slowly, easily or with difficulty, activating the emotion pleasure here or pain there etc. This readiness is regarded as the subject‟s readiness to act and says something about that subjects ontological state:

8 I owe this illustration to Eyjôlfur Kjalar Emilsson.

Potentiality: Actuality:

Dunamis (capacity)

Kinesis (movement/change) Energeia (functioning/working)

Hexis (disposition)

30 Another kind of quality is that in virtue of which we call people boxers or runners or

healthy or sickly – anything, in sort, which they are called in virtue of a natural capacity or incapacity. For it is not because one is in some condition that one is called anything of this sort, but because one has a natural capacity for doing something easily or for being unaffected... Similarly with the hard and the soft: the hard is so called because it has a capacity not to be divided easily, the soft because it has an incapacity for the same thing.

(Cat. 8, 9a14-27)

Here we see that a capacity has to do with a subject‟s ability to exercise certain functions in practice. As Aristotle mentions, a boxer or runner will have the potential ability to run or box, otherwise we would not call them boxers or runners. Another connotation of capacity seems to be the capacity to do something well⁹, since you would not be called a runner or a boxer if you did not do it well. But even more confusingly, Aristotle adds that these potentialities belonging to the subject qua the subject, when they are capacities, are there from nature. Are they not there by training or by practice? And how can a capacity to maintain health be regarded in the same way as a capability to box or run well? Is the one not a product of training and the other one not? Instead of thinking of these capabilities as a mixed bunch of what is hypothetical and what is imminent, it seems that Aristotle is suggesting that these imminent potential exercises exist “in virtue of” or because of the capacity. So it looks like these „exercisings‟ do not say very much about the capacities themselves or the natural capacities. That is, the „exercisings‟ are not necessary for the capacity to exist; however, it does appear as if the capacities are necessary in order for the „exercisings‟ to exist. Are the capacities enough to explain the exercising? It does not appear so. Health and being a boxer are not necessary outcomes for someone who is capable of being good at boxing or of being healthy. Such a person could just as easily find interests in other activities or have an accident so as to cease being a boxer or being

healthy. So “in virtue of” means that capacities are necessary, though not sufficient, for a specific activity to exist.

“Natural” seems here to invoke more of what the capacities themselves are for and capacities in the first (1) state mentioned above, meaning what we are by nature equipped

9 In the Metaphysics V 1019a23-25, this notion of dumanis as the capacity to do something well is second of three notions of dunamis, the first being dunamis as a source of change in another thing, like the verb building is the dunamis of what is being built. The third notion is quite the opposite of the affective states we have been examining so far: not capacity as a condition but capacity as a state, not easily changeable, enduring. Thus we see that capacity, in that it denotes both rapid change and resistance to change, can be linked both to affections and dispositions.

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with, including our individual emotional taxonomies. In addition “nature” seems to refer to whether these potentials enabled by our emotional-physical makeup function well or not in regard to what they are for qua what they can do. Take Hannah‟s running. She undoubtedly has what we also call today a great “natural” capacity for running. We can easily imagine that Hannah has had this capacity her whole life, “readying” it through all sorts of

development, like play and games. However, performing this capacity as an exercise of her capabilities is in a sense the status quo of her abilities: In addition to a well performing cardiovascular system, partially because of it, she has the ability to tolerate pains more easily; knowing more about her limits and the rewards of pushing them, maybe even the potential courage she showed in front of the piano is a part of the stock of capacities Hannah commands as a runner that enables her to run with running being a purpose and end in itself. Her capacities say something about who Hannah is now by way of what she is ready to do. Also when she is not running she is capable of it. Also when she was younger she was potentially capable of being a runner. She is easily moved by her desire to “work well” when she is running and the pains of running don‟t affect her enough to hinder her functioning to her contentment as a runner, i.e. her capacities survive rapid changes of affection that do not contribute to her running. All these things add up to Hannah‟s capacity, or dunamis, power, to run.

Let us look at the second characterisation of capacity. What we first have is an initial condition or state of pre-reception, usually characterized as a state of rest as exemplified by the Greek word pathé or “passive condition” which is “ready” to change.

The condition‟s readiness will either be determined by having the capacity to affectively change quickly or easily, in this case representing a condition, or change slowly or not change at all representing a state. In either cases a pre-reception (or non-reception) of change, if they have a capacity either to change or resist, they exist potentially. This

potentiality stands in relation to the “bringing about” of this change by a power, movement or cause, kinesis, a movement or process, it then becoming actuality, energeia.

Since our capacities are potentially existing capabilities or movements or conditions or states that are hinged on an “external” qualifier that moves us, it would appear as if our understanding of human intention is quite at odds with what is going on here and is not taken in under consideration. In what way can we say that we are φ-ing, doing what we wish to do, when as it seems we are lugged out of our unqualified state by a force or movement, kinesis, external from this state and otherwise would not φ? The answer from

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Aristotle is cryptic but seems to say that when something is wished for (boulesthai) or given thought then it is the thought or rational desires that does the φ-ing: “And the

definition of that which as the result of thought comes to be in fulfilment from having been potentially is that when it has been wished it comes to pass if nothing external hinders it, while the condition on the other side – viz. in that which is healed – is that nothing hinders the result” (Met. IX, 7. 1049a5-8). Here thought and wish are linked marking wish as the kinesis or qualifier of an act. Moreover, when a wish is potential it is by definition possible and wishing in this circumstance is a rational desire to bring about that which is in fact possible. Being a boxer or runner are actualities that have been brought about by the wish and corresponding circumstances and processes, internal and external, qualified by the desires to run and to box. Being healthy in contrast, does not necessitate wish as the qualifier is the power that brings it into being.

We may at this point ask where capacities as here described fit in to the greater scheme of character development. It is easy to see how capacities as defined in the first (1) sense (defined at the beginning of 2.2.2) presuppose our emotional capabilities and

restraints and fittingly coincides with how we are affected, what affections do to us, how greatly or easily we are affected, i.e. our “readiness” to be affected as subjects. We may aptly add what the term „capacities‟ adds to the definitions of affection discussed in 2.2.1.

In addition to “readiness” capacity invokes that our emotions are engaged in specific actualisations or activities, and the dynamics of our emotions will in turn increase or decrease our intensity and desire to continue and develop that activity.

Pleasures and pains are the movers of our functions that we are first familiar with in that they partake in defining desires. The pleasures that are derivative of the more basic natural capacities of the part of the soul that has to do with natural growth and consumption will later often be in conflict with the pleasures deriving from the development of a good intellect. We do not have the capacity to judge and regulate our disposition to feel about different pleasures and pains in an encouraging way or in a way producing shame to begin with, but we have the capacity to learn it. This capacity will be wasted if one does not choose to follow the cause of the best pleasures. Though pleasure can derive from bodily activity and sensations, enjoying pleasure is a capacity of the soul, as „what is pleasant is pleasant by nature‟ (1099a13). Because function in nature is necessarily done excellently as functions in nature are fulfilling whatever they are for, and will correspondingly always be doing it well, the function of pleasure in man is different in that it can exceed our

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substantial needs, and because the soul‟s different potentials define different needs and conflicting pleasures that can hinder it in fulfilling what a soul does well.