Entelechy

Entelechy — the Aristotelian entelecheia, denoting the condition in which a potentiality has achieved actuality in accordance with its inner telos — occupies a peculiar and generative position in the depth-psychology corpus. The term arrives charged with its Aristotelian freight: the soul as the ‘first entelechy’ of a natural body, form realizing potential through time. Edinger traces the lineage from Aristotle’s De Anima through the neo-vitalist Hans Driesch, who retrieved entelechy as a non-material ordering factor in organic life — neither force nor soul, yet describable only in psychological analogues. Jung absorbs the term directly, proposing that ‘entelechy’ may in certain conditions be more fitting than ‘synthesis’ to name the individuation process, precisely because the symbols of wholeness appear at the beginning of life, suggesting an a priori potential that unfolds rather than is assembled. Hillman draws an explicit genealogy linking Aristotle’s entelechy, Leibniz’s monad, and Jung’s self — all converging on a fantasy of self-contained, self-realizing independence. Plotinus, by contrast, challenges any entelechy doctrine that binds soul irreversibly to one body, insisting that soul’s substantial existence precedes its somatic function. Simondon complicates the picture further, arguing that a being harbors several entelechies corresponding to its several phases. The tension throughout is between entelechy as teleological completion immanent in nature and entelechy as a concept that depth psychology must reclaim from biology to name the self’s own drive toward wholeness.

In the library 13 passages

the symbols of wholeness frequently occur at the beginning of the individuation process, indeed they can often be observed in the first dreams of early infancy. This observation says much for the a priori existence of potential wholeness, and on this account the idea of entelechy instantly recommends itself.

Jung argues that entelechy is, in certain conditions, more apt than ‘synthesis’ as a name for individuation, because wholeness-symbols appearing at life’s outset imply an a priori potential unfolding toward actuality.

Edinger, Edward F, The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One Early Greek Philosophy thesis

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the symbols of wholeness frequently occur at the beginning of the individuation process, indeed they can often be observed in the first dreams of early infancy. This observation says much for the a priori existence of potential wholeness, and on this account the idea of entelechy instantly recommends itself.

In the context of the child motif, Jung directly endorses entelechy as a descriptor for individuation, grounding the claim in the empirical observation that wholeness precedes synthesis in developmental experience.

Jung, C. G. and Kerényi, C., Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis, 1949thesis

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This something we call entelechy…. Introspective analysis shows that human reason possesses a special kind of category — individuality — by the aid of which it is able to understand to its own satisfaction what entelechy is.

Driesch’s neo-vitalist entelechy is presented as a non-spatial ordering factor in organic life, knowable only through the psychological category of individuality, directly linking biological and depth-psychological formulations.

Edinger, Edward F., The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus, 1999thesis

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There is a similarity of metaphor, as others have observed, between Aristotle’s entelechy, Leibniz’s monad, and Jung’s self of which the child is a primary image… Entelechy, monad, and self coincide in this fantasy of independence: self-substantial entelechy on the course of its actualization.

Hillman draws an explicit structural homology among Aristotle’s entelechy, Leibniz’s monad, and Jung’s self, arguing that all three instantiate a fantasy of self-contained, self-realizing independence epitomized by the child archetype.

Hillman, James, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis

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Entelecheia is usually taken to mean realization or actuality, a condition in which a potentiality becomes an actuality, in keeping with its basic root in the Greek word telos, meaning…

Edinger provides the philological grounding for entelecheia, tracing its root to telos and establishing the semantic field of potentiality-to-actuality that depth psychology subsequently inherits.

Edinger, Edward F., The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus, 1999supporting

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Driesch — Ernst Haeckel’s student at Jena, and a double-threat hitter who turned to philosophical biology after 1911 — postulated a nonmaterial ordering entity (deriving from Aristotle’s entelechy) that constructs an organism’s actuality… ‘a mind-like movement which seeks form.’

This passage establishes the Driesch–Aristotle–Jung transmission chain, showing how the neo-vitalist retrieval of entelechy as a psychoid, non-material ordering factor entered Jung’s theoretical vocabulary.

Jung, C.G., Dream Interpretation Ancient and Modern: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-1941, 2014supporting

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An Entelechy is not a thing of parts; how then could it be present partwise in the partible body? An identical soul is now the soul of one living being now of another: how could the soul of the first become the soul of the latter if soul were the Entelechy of one particular being?

Plotinus refutes the Aristotelian entelechy doctrine on the grounds that soul’s transmigration and indivisibility are incompatible with the notion of soul as the entelechy of any single body.

Plotinus, The Six Enneads, 270supporting

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the being has several forms and consequently several entelechies, not just one, as the doctrine extracted from a biological abstraction supposes… this manifestation is just the entelechy of a single phase; while this phase actualizes, other latent and real phases exist.

Simondon critiques the monadological restriction of entelechy to a single form, proposing instead that a being’s plurality of phases implies a corresponding plurality of entelechies, each actualized in its own moment.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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The first is the Platonizing stage that is represented for us by the Eudemus… the last is the Entelechism to be found in the De Anima.

The introduction to De Anima maps Aristotle’s developmental trajectory from Platonism to Entelechism, establishing the latter as the mature psychological doctrine that depth psychology selectively appropriates.

Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul), -350supporting

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In discussing the Harmony Theory, which he seems to have considered hardly more than a jeu d’esprit, for all the similarities that have been seen by some between it and the mature entelechist view…

The De Anima commentary distinguishes the Harmony Theory from mature Entelechism, clarifying the intellectual terrain against which Aristotle’s entelecheia doctrine must be read.

Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul), -350supporting

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the crux of Jung’s work rests on the premise that the psyche is essentially a self-organizing entity stirring to continually unfold some innate destiny factor.

Conforti articulates Jung’s teleological premise — the psyche as a self-organizing entity unfolding an innate destiny — in language that functionally recapitulates the entelechy concept without naming it directly.

Conforti, Michael, Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche, 1999supporting

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entelechy 260

Descartes’s index registers entelechy as a term requiring philosophical attention, marking the concept’s presence in early modern metaphysical debate as a reference point against which Cartesian mind-body dualism defines itself.

Descartes, René, Meditations on First Philosophy, 2008aside

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