Substantial Holism

Abstract Substances are the most unified wholes in Aristotle’s metaphysics, being paradigmatically single but complex entities. My concern in this paper is to understand the nature of their unity, and through it, explicate an important aspect of the relation of the potential to the actual, which is fundamental in Aristotle’s system. Although the nature of this relation is illuminated by examples offered by Aristotle, this is not sufficient, in view of the enormous explanatory weight that is placed by Aristotle on this relation. An attempt must be made to understand why it is that this relation can deliver such fundamental and rather spectacular—denigrated as ‘magical’ by its critics —metaphysical results.