7 The Exercise of Powers (Theta 5)

AbstractThis chapter analyzes Theta 5, where Aristotle resumes the topic of rational powers that is so important in Theta 2. While Theta 2 had set out his fundamental conception of rational powers, Theta 5 goes on to make a substantial claim about them: in any exercise of a rational power, something else is in control of it. The picture of animate powers that emerges is this: if a power is not innate, and hence must be acquired, then it is acquired by engaging in the action that it is a power for. Sometimes, the resulting power is a habit. Sometimes, the resulting power is rational; that is, a power that consists in rational comprehension. Theta 2 has already argued that rational powers are of opposites. Theta 5 argues on this basis for a further claim about these powers: there is something else in control of them.