The Philosophical Appreciation
of Change in Metaphysics
AURELIO TEODORO D. MAGUYON III teaches Ethics, Philosophy, and the Humanities. He is a Bachelor of Arts Major in Philosophy degree holder from St. Francis de Sales Major Seminary. He earned masters degree units in Teaching Philosophy from the Ateneo de Manila University.
Everything flows and nothing abides; nothing gives way and nothing stays fixed.
-Heraclitus
Change is permanently stapled to life: When water freezes, it turns to ice; when a child reaches 13, he becomes teenager; when the sun sets down, the moon usually rises; when rain starts to pour, the grass became green; when the wood is burned, it turned to ashes - these are changes. These are real.
We do not need to go far just to experience change. We do not need volumes upon volumes of books nor need to be a nuclear and quantum physicist to gain knowledge of it. We do not need to be an Aristotle to understand it. We can see it in our own context. By looking at our entity, we can see and value what ‘change’ really means. If we try to be keen on how our life goes, we can fully grasp what this concept means. We can explain why change happens, ought to happen, and will still happen.
For the past 26 years, I have seen and felt different changes in my life. When I was a child; my mom kept on telling me that I am the cutest baby in the world, while my dad playfully caressed me. But now, I do not know if they still have the same physical notions of me (I still hope, though I am afraid to ask). My physique, for instance, has changed since I was still, according to my mom, a cute cuddly child. My hairs terribly and genetically grew thinner, my waistline goes way up north, and my weight, thankfully, increases little by little.
Change tends to become consciously customary, though we often neglect its real essence. We try to understand it as it happens and comprehend it literally to know its meaning.
First, what is change? Do we have a standardized or institutionalized meaning for it? Why change happens? Can we find substance in dealing with it?
Change was a major topic in Metaphysics during my days at the seminary. Sadly, it almost passed by to me unconsciously. Until I found myself in front of the monsignor: bombarding me with profound questions about change in relation with Metaphysics. Deciphering and extracting meaning from statements like “…the aim of looking for the ultimate laws of intelligibility of being as being”[1] proved to be futile then. Now, since my postgraduate course imposed that I should take Metaphysics this year, it would be nice to have a second look on the then unfounded metaphysical beauty of change. For a change.
Clarke’s “Central Problems of Metaphysics,” offers a definition of change. According to him, “it is the transition from one mode to another.”[2] All the things we know are caught up in an infinite process of change, of “becoming,” not just being. Clarke’s definition is debatable. First, the definition is quite vague and ambiguous. What do transition and modes operationally mean? More importantly, and philosophically, how can we understand the very concept of change if there is subjectivity of meaning?
I have my own understanding of change but I am unsure if such understanding would be acceptable to a larger society. Now, let us analyze various insights regarding the concept of change from the perspective of different philosophers.
Heraclitus is an authority in dealing with such concept. The argument of this paper’s epigraph seemed to tell that change is reality, or to put it aptly, change is synonymous with reality. Change is the most obvious of all our experiences.
Change seems to be everybody’s business- change in personality, attitudes, lifestyle, etc. People want effortless money, to be richer. They go for lottery or gambling joints or con people for money. Vanity does not have an off-trend. Enhancement and “beauty” clinics proliferate doing oddities such as liposuction, nose lift, breast and penal reduction and enlargement, and ‘landscaping’ just to remain, or in most cases, change, and be considered attractive. I’ll call these people Changers.
Are the changes in these changers accidental? Or purely substantial? If so, does it follow the concept of change stipulated by Heraclitus? Or can it be considered as ‘changes’ as we popularly understand it?
These changers somewhat follow Heraclitus’ line of thinking- “change is the very law of life and is radically good, it is better to change than to remain the same.”[3] For them change is reality or is synonymous to reality. But experience will tell us that there are diverse aspects and evidences that there is stability and permanence in this world. We can assume that change is the reality’s other half of truth?
Plato introduced the concept of permanence or stability. He agreed that there is change found in the sensible world, and reality is not change. Plato posits, “…to be real is to be stable, to be permanent, and to be immutable.”[4] We must also remember that Plato believes that what is real is in the world of ideas. So this thing that is stable, permanent and immutable is in the world of ideas and they are apart from the sensible and tangible world. If that would be the case, we will know reality unless we are released from the sensible world to reach the world of ideas.
As a result, problem arises- some things are changing while others are permanent. However, Act and Potency provided by Aristotle will solve this clashing phenomenon. Aristotle pointed out that “every being which undergoes change intrinsically possesses a principle whereby it remains somehow the same and a principle whereby it becomes different.”[5] In a manner of speaking, Aristotle is successful in putting the concepts of Acts and Potency in harmony. Thus, making the concept of change in metaphysics more substantive and sensible.
It becomes substantive and sensible because we are always invited to transcend beyond despite the obviousness of change. Our intellect tries to perceive something that is intelligible. Another thing that we can say about change is that there are real metaphysical compositions of two principles in any kind of change. We say they are beautiful because they are different and they actually work harmoniously as principles of change.
Let us try to see how these principles work in accidental and substantial change. In accidental change wherein the essence of a thing is not affected, it has two principles substance, as the permanent or stable, and accident as the one that is changing. An example of which is my physical appearance. I have said earlier that my hair starts to go thin. This is a kind of accidental change because it does not affect my essence as me. In substantial change, “a change so deep-seated and radical that the very being undergoing change no longer remains intact but is transformed into something essentially different from what it was before.”[6] Example of the above mentioned statement is a piece of wood burned and turned into ashes. Here, change is the primary matter of the wood and what remains is its form. These real metaphysical compositions of two principles in change bring in order. Now we can explain change in an orderly manner that gives beauty on it.
In metaphysics, we can now say that: “change cannot be pure process and pure becoming. At the core of every change, there is an element of perduring, permanence, non-changing.”[7] I compare it with the ship and its anchor. Let us try to imagine a ship on a naval journey. A ship always flows with the water currency that makes it move even when the engine has already stopped. What will it need to stop? The anchor. Let us imagine a ship without an anchor; would you dare to be aboard? The natural answer is of course a no, because it may become tragic. Surely, the ship will not stop because it will go along with the sea current. Same goes on with change, if there will be pure process or becoming we will never understand anything because it does not have any element of permanence.
In order for change to consciously occur, there must remain something. But as our experience would say whenever there is change, there is diversity. The thing must not remain what it is but becomes different. Here the problem lies: How can an individual change and yet remains the same? Is it possible?
I have seen things changed and I can say they are not quite the same as before. Take for example: my experiences, I have seen my hair to lessen in numbers, my tummy starts to bulge and my weight starts to increase. I have seen wood burned to ashes, and the bottled water I placed into the freezer turned ice. In these experiences I could say nothing remained the same, everything changed.
I would wonder about an individual undergoing change yet remained the same. It seems to be in conflict with the meaning of change. It doesn’t fit in with meaning because “change is the transition from one positive mode of being to another.”[8] If an individual undergoing change remained the same, it would be refuting itself. Worst, I could understand that such claim would support the groups who are against change (yes, there are groups of anti-change men!). They would say that change is impossible or absurd despite of its obviousness. It would be best explained in a syllogistic way:
In change that which changes acquires something new, but that which changes enter already is or is not,
But if it already is, then it cannot change because it would already be what it was to have acquired or else it no longer would be what it had been;
But if it had not, then it cannot change because there would be nothing to change; therefore change is impossible.[9]
These claims are only one-dimensional because these are based only on experience. Some groups would deny the possibility of an individual undergoing change but remained the same because they say we cannot experience these metaphysical compositions of two principles or we could not hold them.
I would like to post questions. Why not question some principles of science and mathematics? If science will say that a man becomes fat because of carbohydrates, can we hold, feel or experience carbohydrates? How about quantum mechanics? How about inertia?
Suffice is to say that Aristotle is right in saying that “every being which undergoes change intrinsically possesses a principle whereby it remains somehow the same and a principle whereby it becomes different.” No matter happens, if being changes into something that being will still remains because we will still call that being as being.
[1] W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Central Problems of Metaphysics, ed. Nemesio S. Que, S.J.(
[2] Ibid. p. 53
[3] Ibid., pp. 47-48.
[4] Leo Sweeney, S.J., A Metaphysics of Authentic Existentialism, (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 19__ ), p.26.
[5] Ibid., p 37
[6] Clarke, “Central Problems of Metaphysics”, 59.
[7] Ibid., p. 60
[8] Ibid., 53
[9] Avery R. Dulles, S.J., James M. Demske, S.J. and Robert J. O’Connell, S.J., Introductory Metaphysics: A Course Combining Matter Treated in Ontology, Cosmology and Natural Theology, (New York: Shed and Ward, 1955), p. 43
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