Ep. 338: Aristotle on Potential vs. Actual and the Unmoved Mover (Part One)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Summary
We read portions of books 9 (Theta) and 12 (Lambda) of Aristotle's Metaphysics, first on "being-at-work" (actuality) vs. mere potency, then on Aristotle's famous argument for the existence of God.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just want to let you know about our book coming out on April 25th, just in time for our 15th anniversary. |
| 0:06.4 | It includes chapters for 18 of our episodes with such guests as Lucy Lawless and Michael Sandel, Peter Singer, and Arthur Danto. |
| 0:16.4 | The book also includes essays by me, Mark, and our editor. |
| 0:20.8 | For more information, go to partially examined life.com. |
| 0:24.0 | book. You are listening to partially examined life, a podcast by some guys who at one point |
| 0:36.3 | set on doing philosophy for a living, but then thought better of it. |
| 0:39.2 | Our questions for episode 338 are, what's the relationship between the potential and the actual |
| 0:44.4 | and what is the ultimate source of all motion in the universe. This is our fourth |
| 0:48.5 | and final discussion of Aristotle's metaphysics. If you're jumping in here you may wish |
| 0:52.4 | to listen first to |
| 0:53.3 | episode 335 where our treatment of this book starts. Today we're discussing a |
| 0:57.5 | book 9 aka theta and also book 12 or Lambda. For more information, please see partial examined life. |
| 1:03.8 | This is Mark Linton Meyer causing motion |
| 1:06.5 | in the matter of something loved in Madison, Wisconsin. |
| 1:09.6 | This is Wes Allone, whose potency |
| 1:11.9 | is according to a rational formula in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1:16.4 | This is Dylan Casey, being at work day in myself in Madison, Wisconsin. |
| 1:21.0 | All right, wrapping up the metaphysics. There's a lot of books that we skipped. I sort of... this one's |
| 1:22.8 | is right wrapping up the metaphysics there's a lot of books that we skipped I sort of |
| 1:24.6 | skimmed over some of them and I know we got this exact reading assignment from the |
| 1:29.1 | St John's college reading |
| 1:40.0 | included one through three or something like that too, which go through |
... |
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