entelechy

LEADING CONCEPT: The aboriginal source-ground of all substance is form, shape, pattern, intentionality.

Aristotle first formalized the idea with the term, 'entelechy.' While philosophic usage defines entelechy as 'actuality distinguished from potentiality,' this fails to convey its fuller, developed meaning. Entelechy has come to suggest the vital force that governs and directs the formative process by which a thing becomes itself. An example would be the guiding, innate quality that drives the unpacking of a seed, thrusting its scouts through cold spring soil pursuing a sun it has never known but natively seeks, the scouting shoots in turn becoming stem, leaf, blossom, fruit and fallen seed again.

This principle has been reframed by modern scientists as diverse as biologist Rupert Sheldrake, with his morphic resonance theory of formative causation, to David Bohm's concept of implicate and explicate orders.

Acquiring a facility to accept evidence that prior to all substance or phenomena is an informing form, or shape and nothing but shape [Bohm] is a prerequisite for those who seek explanations for homeopathy's curative powers or a deeper understanding as to the nature of human, ecological and social pathologies, their evolution, function, and engagement.