Dynamis / Energeia (δύναμις / ἐνέργεια) — Aristotelian conceptual pair distinguishing dynamis — potency, capacity, or the possibility of being — from energeia, the act or actual fulfillment of that capacity. Dynamis derives from the verb meaning “to be able, to be capable,” while energeia comes from the root ergon (work, deed), naming that which is at work, in full exercise. The distinction structures Aristotle’s thought in the Metaphysics (above all Book Θ, IX) and the Physics, and Aristotle also uses the closely related term entelecheia (entelechy), the state of having attained one’s end or completion. The classic example is the seed: it contains the tree in dynamis, as a possibility not yet actualized, whereas the mature tree is that very potency realized in energeia. With this pair Aristotle resolves a problem inherited from Parmenides — how to account for coming-to-be without falling into the contradiction of deriving being from non-being: movement or change is defined precisely as the passage from potency to act, the actualization of what was merely possible. The scheme also underpins hylomorphism, in which matter figures as potency and form as the act that determines it. At the summit of Aristotelian metaphysics stands the Unmoved Mover, which moves all things by being pure act, without any residual potency — which is why it neither changes nor can fail to be what it is. Closely related concepts are therefore entelecheia, movement (kinēsis), and the doctrine of the four causes.
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