Abstract
This is a translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s article “Der Megarische und der Aristotelische Möglichkeitsbegriff: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des ontologischen Modalitätsproblems,” first published in 1937. In this article, Hartmann defends an interpretation of the Megarian conception of possibility, which found its clearest form in Diodorus Cronus’ expression of it and according to which “only what is actual is possible” or “something is possible only if it is actual.” Hartmann defends this interpretation against the then dominant Aristotelian conception of possibility, based on the opposition between dynamis and energeia, and according to which there is always an open multiplicity of simultaneous “possibilities,” the outcome of which remains undetermined. Since, according to Hartmann, reality suffers no indetermination, the Megarian conception of possibility is an account of real possibility, whereas the Aristotelian one is merely an account of epistemic possibility (Frédéric Tremblay).
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Notes
Phys. γ. 201b, 28f.: οὔτε εἰς δύναμιν τῶν ὄντων οὔτε εἰς ἐνέργειαν ἔστι θεῖναι αὐτὴν ἁπλῶς.
Ibid. 201a, 10f.: ἣ τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος ἐντελέχεια ᾗ τοιοῦτον κίνησις ἐστιν.
Metaph. θ. 1046b, 29f.: εἰσὶ δέ τινες οἳ φασὶν οἶον οἱ Μεγαρικοὶ ὅταν ἐνεργῇ μόνον δύνασθαι, ὅταν δὲ μὴ ἐνεργῇ οὐ δύνασθαι.
Arrian, Epicteti dissertationes, II, 19, at the beginning of the text. The sentences are: (1) πᾶν παρεληλυθὸς ἀληθὲς ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι, (2) δυνατῷ ἀδύνατον μὴ ἀκολουθεῖν, (3) δυνατὸν εἶναι ὃ οὔτ᾿ ἔστιν ἀληθὲς οὔτ᾿ ἔσται. The conclusio drawn from the demonstration of the contradiction is: μηδὲν εἶναι δυνατὸν ὃ οὔτ᾿ ἔστιν ἀληθὲς οὔτ᾿ἔσται.—The ἀληθές in the first and third sentence, as well as in the conclusio, means “actual” (ἀληθὲς εἶναι = “being evident”), and arises from the polemic of Epictetus.
Sitzungsberichte der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1882, pp. 151–159, “Über den κυριεύων des Megarikers Diodorus”; for what follows, especially p. 155 ff.
The best known formulation is the one in Metaph., Book θ, 1047a, 24 ff: ἔστι δὲ δυνατόν τοῦτο, ᾧ ἐὰν ὑπάρξῃ ἡ ἐνέργεια οὗ λέγεται ἔχειν τὴν δύναμιν, οὐθὲν ἔσται ἀδύνατον… See also: Prior Analytics, 32a, 18ff.
[Note from the translators] Fallacy of four terms.
E. Zeller, Op. cit., p. 151 ff.
We should not argue here ex silentio without further ado. If we compare how central the κυριεύων is to the whole question for its Stoic opponents, and how extensively Aristotle tends to get into the details of related arguments (such as the Zenonian), then it becomes improbable that he merely remained silent about Diodorus’ demonstration.
Metaph. θ, 1046b, 34—1047a, 14. Aristotle also remarks that the relativity of the αἰσθητόν (sensible object) to the actual αἴσθησις (sensation) involves Protagoras’ subjectivism.
The complete formula in θ, 1047a, 20 ff. says: ἐνδέχεται δυνατὸν μέν τι εἶναι μὴ εἶναι δὲ καὶ δυνατὸν μὴ εἶναι εἶναι δέ.
It is in this way that at the time, in the above-cited paper, Zeller already interpreted it or at least held it to be probable; and hence he proved to be more discerning than later interpreters. However, he went in the opposite direction, because he took the Megarian thesis to be erroneous and stood under the banner of the Aristotelian dynamis. The words with which he takes his systematic position are very characteristic (p. 152): “We call possible, but not actual, that whose conditions of actualization are only partially given, from which we suppose that they could at some point be fully given…” We easily see that this definition only avoids the problem, since “possible” is defined through “could,” which is obviously tautological. Instead, the genuine question of real possibility is whether the conditions “can be fully given at some point.” For if they “can” not, then the thing really is impossible.
On the historical question of how the Megarian concept of possibility is to be interpreted and ontologically evaluated, there is a recent very noteworthy short study, “Logik und Ontologie der Möglichkeit” by V. Sesemann (in Blätter für deutsche Philosophie, vol. 10, n. 2, 1936, pp. 161 ff.). The text was written as a critical review of the work by August Faust, Der Möglichkeitsgedanke, Heidelberg, 1931. Against Faust, Sesemann emphasizes that Megarian thought constitutes a significant ontological advance that has been unjustly underestimated by the now traditional account. Sesemann clearly shows the weaknesses of the Aristotelian concept of dynamis, which, despite all of its tendency towards a dynamic worldview, nevertheless remains attached to the static aspect of the principle of motion, the eidos, and thus remains unable to adequately account for the problem of a world in motion. Against this concept of dynamis, the Megarian concept of possibility retains lasting significance as an advance of an entirely different and unique kind. Of course, it is still questionable whether Sesemann interprets it properly, especially since he mostly sticks to the κυριεύων, and not to the more modest principle of the ancient Megarians, and since he does not distinguish the latter from the former.
The methodological justification of this interconnection is not at all simple. On this subject, I must refer to my lecture of last year: “Der philosophische Gedanke und seine Geschichte,” Abhandlung der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1936, Phil.-hist. Klasse, № 5; especially p. 6 ff. as well as pp. 15–18.
[Note from the translators] This “difficult and lengthy” work Hartmann published as Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit the next year with Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1938. An English translation is available: Nicolai Hartmann, Possibility and Actuality, translated by Alex Scott and Stephanie Adair, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2013.
On this subject, one needs only to think of the thoughtlessness with which Martin Heidegger, in his famous work Sein und Zeit, speaks of the “possibilities” of the individual man (of “Dasein”), without even posing the question as to whether he is dealing with mere dispositions or with genuine real possibilities. Only an answer to this question could have generated a [useful] reflection on man in relation to society; for in society lie the totality of conditions that completes a mere capacity into a fully real possibility.
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“Der Megarische und der Aristotelische Möglichkeitsbegriff: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des ontologischen Modalitätsproblems,” Sonderausgabe aus den Sitzungsberichten der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften philosophisch-historischen Klasse, X, Berlin: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Komission bei Walter de Gruyter, 1937. Translated by Frédéric Tremblay and Keith R. Peterson. The original pagination is inserted in angle brackets.
Translators: Frédéric Tremblay and Keith R. Peterson.
Nicolai Hartmann: Deceased.
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Hartmann, N., Tremblay, F. & Peterson, K.R. The Megarian and the Aristotelian Concept of Possibility: A Contribution to the History of the Ontological Problem of Modality. Axiomathes 27, 209–223 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-016-9315-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-016-9315-1