The Aristotelian Conception of δύναμις in Arendt’s Understanding of Power

Abstract

Hannah Arendt, one of the most significant political and philosophical intellectuals of the 20th century, frequently brought up the issue of power. In The Human Condition, to distinguish power from force, strength, and, particularly, violence, she pointed out that the word ‘power’ had been derived from the Aristotelian conception of δύναμις. Since Arendt had written about power as the capacity to act together in the political realm, her understanding of the term δύναμις was credited to Aristotle. In order to make the distinction between power and its extremity, that is, violence, in Arendt’s theory more comprehendible, it is crucial to examine the Aristotelian conception of the term δύναμις and its original definitions, which are mostly found in Metaphysics. This paper aims to provide a philosophical analysis of δύναμις in Aristotle to clarify Arendt’s notion of power as well as her theory of action. In the first part of the article, the author discusses the word δύναμις which had a variety of meanings in antiquity including power, potentiality, potency, capacity, possibility, and force. Unlike common meanings, Aristotle used the word δύναμις in its relation to the term ἐνέργεια, which were usually translated as ‘potentiality’ and ‘actuality’. Aristotle defined δύναμις as the principle of change, that is, the power or capacity to act and be affected, which reveals itself when it achieves its fulfilment, or ἐνέργεια. In the second part, the author demonstrates that Arendt’s concept of power is based on the Aristotelian δύναμις as the power to act together, which cannot be stored up and exists only in its actualization. The author concludes by saying that power in the Aristotelian sense cannot be substituted for violence but instead manifests itself in the ability to be a political human being.

Keywords:

power, δύναμις, Aristotle, Hannah Arendt, capacity