This implies a third meaning of 'a knower'
(c), one who is already realizing his knowledge-he is a knower in
actuality and in the most proper sense is knowing, e.g. this A. Both
the former are potential knowers, who realize their respective
potentialities, the one (a) by change of quality, i.e. repeated
transitions from one state to its opposite under instruction, the
other (b) by the transition from the inactive possession of sense or
grammar to their active exercise. The two kinds of transition are
distinct.
Also the expression 'to be acted upon' has more than one meaning; it
may mean either (a) the extinction of one of two contraries by the
other, or (b) the maintenance of what is potential by the agency of
what is actual and already like what is acted upon, with such likeness
as is compatible with one's being actual and the other potential.
For what possesses knowledge becomes an actual knower by a
transition which is either not an alteration of it at all (being in
reality a development into its true self or actuality) or at least
an alteration in a quite different sense from the usual meaning.
Hence it is wrong to speak of a wise man as being 'altered' when
he uses his wisdom, just as it would be absurd to speak of a builder
as being altered when he is using his skill in building a house.
What in the case of knowing or understanding leads from potentiality
to actuality ought not to be called teaching but something else.
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