POSSIBILITY. - In the logical sense, possible is that which, once posited, has no absurd consequence; it is that which can be and not be, to which there corresponds in the ontological order the "contingent"; in this logical sense the possible constitutes the sphere of the problematic and corresponds to Aristotle's "topics" (cf. Met., VIII, 3, 1047 a 24 ff.). In the real sense, p. indicates the capacity or power of beings that is related to their own act, but this is a sense defined in relation to the original one that embraces the whole of being.

P. can be external and internal. "External" or relative p. (possibilitas extrinseca) is related to the existence or actual realization of things and therefore rests on the principle of causality: it connotes the active power or productive energy of a being that is called precisely "cause" in relation to what it can produce (its effects). The essence of God, insofar as He is creator, is the source of reality for all beings and of causality for each according to its own nature (St. Thomas, De Potentia, q. 1, a. 1, ad 5). "Internal" p., or p. in the absolute sense, is instead related to the proper essence of each thing and indicates the compatibility of the principles of the essence, that is, the non-contradictoriness of their synthesis (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 25, a. 3). This p. is also called "objective p." and constitutes the proper essence of things whose ultimate foundation is the divine essence itself insofar as it is diversely imitable by things; given the infinity of the divine essence, possibles too are infinite in number because God remains inexhaustible in relation to finite reality (St. Thomas, De Verit., q. 3, a. 2; cf. Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 45, a. 3). Sudre really identifies p. with "power" and therefore denies the real distinction of essence and act of being in creatures.

In contemporary thought, N. Hartmann finds contradictory the sharp separation that Aristotle makes between potency and act, to which he substitutes a theory of the possible, which he conceives not as something that is only a "condition" (Zustand) of the entity placed alongside that of real being but as a modal moment contained in and presupposed by the real: as the Megarians already said, wrongly criticized by Aristotle (Met., IX, 3, 1046 b 29), the "pure possible" is a nonsensical notion; possible is only that which is real (N. Hartmann, Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit, Berlin 1938, p. 13 ff.). Then one can say that "in the real the possible is equally actual, so that one can also affirm that every real possible is equally necessary and that which is really possible is also really necessary" (op. cit., p. 126). In this perspective, which places the possible within the real, there is no passage to an Absolute that would be the principle of the possible and of the real, but finite being is resolved into its internal relations.

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: L. Schutz, Possibilitas, in Thomas Lex., 2nd ed., Paderborn 1895; repr. New York 1949, p. 606 ff.; A. Faust, Die Möglichkeitsgedenke, 2 vols., Heidelberg 1931-32; L. Baur, Metaphysik, 3rd ed., Munich 1935, p. 61 ff.; H. Barth, Philosophie der Erscheinung. Eine Problemgeschichte, part 1; Basel 1946, especially p. 326 ff. (IV Stück, Das kontingente Sein); R. De Ferrari, Possibility, in A Lexikon of St. Thomas Ag., Washington 1949, p. 851 f.; J. Hessen, Lehrbuch der Philos., III. Munich-Basel 1950, p. 58 ff.

Cornelio Fabro

@incollection{ec9_possibilita, author = {Fabro, Cornelio}, title = {Possibilità}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1837--1838}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/possibilita} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

About this entry