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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Fifty-Three: A Continuation of the Discussion of the Potential and the Actual The Correspondence of Potentiality and Actuality in the Case of Change Focusing on the concepts of potentiality and actuality, it is clear that three conditions are necessary for their abstraction: Two existences are to be compared with one another. Therefore, nothingness cannot be considered an instance of potentiality or actuality.

One of the two existences must be temporally prior to the other in order for potentiality to be ascribed to it. Therefore, two simultaneous existents cannot be potential or actual with regard to each other. The potential existent, or at least a part of it, must remain in the actual existent. For this reason, an existent which is completely destroyed cannot be considered to be potential in relation to a later existent.

Given these points, it is clear that the first of the types of change [mentioned in Lesson Fifty-Two] is not a kind of transformation from potentiality to actuality, because the earlier condition is nothingness while the potential is to be abstracted from existence. Likewise, the second type of change is irrelevant to potentiality and actuality because the earlier condition is nothingness and actuality is not abstracted from nothingness.

In the third type, although one existent replaces another, since there is no common factor between them, one cannot be considered potential with regard to the other. In the fourth type, the earlier existent is entirely potential with respect to the later existent and remains within it; hence, the actual existent is more perfect than the potential existent.

In the fifth type, the actual existent is less perfect than the potential existent, because only part of the earlier existent remains and nothing is added to it. In the sixth type, the superiority, inferiority or equality in perfection of the actual existent in comparison to the potential existent depends upon whether the part which is substituted for the destroyed part is more, less, or equally perfect in its level of existence.

However, in the seventh type, potentiality and actuality are the beginning and end of motion, and motion is this gradual progression from potentiality to actuality, and in the context of motion, actual parts do not exist so that some may be considered potential with respect to others.