Abstract

Throughout the tradition of Aristotelian commentary, there is a common tendency to present a static conception of substance according to the persistence of form imposed upon matter. In this essay, I present a dynamic conception of substance beginning with an account of the striving movement of the soul in De Anima. I argue that the paradigm for Aristotle’s definition of substance as actuality (entelecheia) is necessarily determined by his account of desire (orexis) as an efficient cause of the soul. The striving movement of desire as an efficient cause fulfills a holistic function by providing a teleological unity to the various capacities of the soul.