entelechy (en-TEL-uh-kee)
noun Late Latin entelechia, from Greek entelecheia. From enteles (complete); telos (end, completion); echein (to have).
1.Perfect realization as opposed to a potentiality.
2.Being complete.
3.In some philosophies, a vital force that propels one to self-fulfillment.
— where there is no further potentiality to be realized, where the thing’s essence has been fulfilled.
4.It is also understood by many as the dynamic purpose that is coded within; the purposeful unfolding of what a thing is.
5. In Aristotle’s philosophy, it’s synonymous with completed actuality
6. the actualization of form-giving cause as contrasted with potential existence.
7. a hypothetical agency not demonstrable by scientific methods that in some vitalist doctrines is considered an inherent regulating and directing force in the development and functioning of an organism.
Philosopher/poet David Appelbaum says:
"The terms of a self-actualizing process, or any that guides the self into being, are those of an entelechy. The entelechy itself, by moving toward its destiny, fulfills its own nature as a consciousness. It brings Being forth and gathers the invisible intelligence of mortality. The eternal, the ‘always already,’ finds its place through the entelechy’s self-actualization, its work on itself, and its discovery of the infinite in the finite. It creates itself as a self-enclosed monad that is unbounded. Its internal evolution mirrors eternal movement, cosmic movement, and by its gradual attunement, it gains a place in concert with its identity and that of the whole. Its becoming becomes what it is and is meant to be." 6/8/05
Copyright © 2006 Entelechy: Mind & Culture. New Paltz, NY. All rights reserved.
hear it 