ABSTRACT
The Danish Virkelighed is a loan word from the German Wirklichkeit. In its primary sense the word denotes the existence of something as a concrete reality, as opposed to something that exists merely in thought or as a theoretical possibility.1 Kierkegaard’s usage is philosophically informed by the account presented by Aristotle and glossed in the commentaries of Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg.2 In Aristotle’s writings, actuality is understood in relation to the concept of potentiality. Generally speaking, potentiality (δύναμις) refers to the possibility a thing has to become something, while actuality (ἐντελέχεια or ἐνέργεια) is the activity or change that represents the realization of that possibility.
