Not-being's potential: How to determine the indeterminate?

Abstract

In continuation of Parmenides’ and Plato’s writings, the emphasis in studies on not-being seems to lie in the relation of not-being to being. This relation in which not-being stands to being is broadly demonstrated in two classes of negative concepts: (1) those that signify the metaphysical and ontological distinctions or differences between being and not-being and (2) those that are used in the linguistic and logical function of negation. Not-being therefore would seem to depend on its function as to how it is to be defined. In the first case, not-being seems to be mostly connected to nonexistence, not being there or the realness of the necessary negative opponent for being (Bacon, Kant, Hegel, Bergson and Strawson). In the second case, not-being often refers to the predicative role of the negation sign, ¬, which opposes its positive counterpart and may or may not bear a veridical meaning (Frege, Geach and Ayer). In this essay, it is argued that we should merge those two classes of not-being, and stated that the correct way of connecting them is if (2) forms the underlying, metaphysical (and logical) structure of the ontological differences presented in (1). This can only be the case if both (1) and (2) share the same meaning of not-being as such. For the aim of merging (1) and (2), I revive the Greek conceptualizations of not-being and negation in Parmenides’ and Plato’s writings, where these are also discussed as standing in opposition with being (2) and as being different to being (1). By means of the Aristotelean vocabulary of capacity, potentiality and actuality, the conclusion that is argued towards is that a merging of (1) and (2) is possible on the basis of characterizing not-being as potentiality for being. As it turns out, not-being as such stands in a metaphysical opposition to being in the way potentiality for being would and every negation therefore forms a difference to its specific counterpart in being, since it refers to every particular potentiality for being. Not-being therefore corresponds to the undetermined part of reality that is not being, yet is potentially being.