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About this quote

What does it mean?
The mind exists as a potentiality before it engages in thinking.
In plain terms
The mind is not a fixed thing until it starts thinking.
What can you take from it?
Thinking defines the mind's actual existence.

Where it applies

  • philosophy classes
  • self-reflection
  • cognitive studies

Putting it to work

  • study cognitive development
  • reflect on mental states

Questions to consider

  • When does the mind truly begin?
  • Is potential the same as existence?

Another view

It ignores non-thinking aspects of the mind like perception.

More from Aristotle

  1. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

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  2. The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

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  3. Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty- excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beauty, or at any rate understandable- should persist after the …

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