eidos and energeia
Eidos and Energeia The hallmark of Aristotle as a philosopher is a robust common sense, which refused to believe that this world was anything but fully real. Philosophy, as it appeared to him,was an attempt to explain the natural world. And if it could not do so, or could explain it only by the introduction of a mysterious, transcendental pattern-world, devoid of the characteristically natural property of motion, then it must be consideren have to fail. His comment on the Platonic Ideas is typical :But to call them patterns, or speak of the other things as sharing in them,is to talk in empty words and poetic metaphors. Aristotle was more builder than a visionary. He looked for solid foundations in the physical and social order and developed logic to guide his scientific elaboration. To put strength in the resulting intellectual structure, he fixed each part in its place with firm bends of principle and cause (Ancient Western Philosophy. The Hellenic Emerg...