1940 PHYSIS - [PDF Document] (2024)

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MARTIN HEIDEGGER

ON THE ESSENCE AND CONCEPT OFmmmm IN ARISTOTLES PHYSICS B, 1

English translationby

Thomas Sheehan

Published inMartin Heidegger, Pathmarks,

ed. William McNeillCambridge, UK, and New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998pp. 183-230.

[Bracketed page numbers refer to pages in Wegmarken,Gesamtausgabe, Band 9.]

[239] The Romans translated n by the word natura.Natura comesfrom nasci, to be

born, to originate, as in the Greek root g- .Natura means thatwhich lets something originatefrom itself.

Since those times nature has become the basic word designatingessential relations that

Western historical humanity has to beings, both to itself and tobeings other than itself. This fact is

shown by a rough list of dichotomies that have become prevalent:nature and grace (i.e., super-

nature), nature and art, nature and history, nature and spirit.But we likewise speak of the nature

of spirit, the nature of history, and the nature of the humanbeing. By this last phrase we mean

not just ones body or even the species human, but ones wholeessence. Therefore generally when

we speak of the nature of things, we mean whatthings are intheir possibility and how they are,

regardless of whether and to what degree they actually are.

In Christian thought, the human beings natural state means whatis bestowed upon humans

in creation and turned over to their freedom. Left to itself,this nature, through the passions, brings

about the total destruction of the human being. For this reasonnature must be suppressed. It is in

a certain sense what should not be.

In another interpretation, it is precisely the unleashing of thedrives and passions that is

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natural for human beings. According to Nietzsche, hom*o naturaeis someone who makes the body

the key to the interpretation of the world and who thus securesa new and harmonious relation to the

sensible in general, to the elements (fire, water, earth,light), to the passions and drives and

whatever is conditioned by them. And at the same time, in virtueof this new relation these people

bring the elemental into their power [240] and by this powermake themselves capable of the

mastery of the world in the sense of a systematicworld-domination.

And finally nature becomes the word for what is not only aboveeverything elemental

and everything human, but even above the gods. Thus Hlderlinsays in the hymn, As when upon

a feast day... (third verse):

Now breaks the day! I yearned for it and saw it come.

And my word for what I saw shall be the Holy.

For nature herself, more ancient than the ages

And above the gods of East and West,

Has awakened with the clang of a warriors arms.

And from aether on high to abyss below

By unswerving law as once from frightful Chaos born,

She feels herself again renewed,

The Inspirer, the All-creating.

(Here nature becomes the name for what is above the gods andmore ancient than the

ages in which beings always come to be. Nature becomes the wordfor being: being is prior

to all beings, for they owe what they are to being. And the godslikewise: to the degree that they are,

and however they are, they too all stand underbeing.)

Here beings as a whole are not misinterpreted naturalisticallyand reduced to nature in

the sense of matter endowed with force, nor is this wholemystically obscured and dissolved into

indeterminacy.

Whatever range has been attributed to the word nature in thevarious ages of Western

history, in each case the word contains an interpretation ofbeings as a whole, even when natureseems to be meant as only oneterm in a dichotomy. In all such dichotomies, nature is not justone

of two equal terms but essentially holds the position ofpriority, inasmuch as the other terms are

always and primarily differentiated by contrast with S andtherefore are determined bySnature. (For

example, when nature is taken in a one-sided and superficialmanner as stuff, matter,

element, or the unformed, [241] then spirit is takencorrespondingly as the non-material, the

spiritual, the creative, or that which gives form.)

[But the perspective within which the distinction itself is madeis being.]

Therefore in our thinking, even the distinction between natureand history must be pushed

back into the underlying area that sustains the dichotomy, thearea where nature and history are.

Even if we disregard or leave open the question about whetherand how history rests upon

nature, even if we understand history in terms of humansubjectivity and conceive of history as

spirit and therefore let nature be determined by spirit, eventhen we are in essence still and already

thinking about the subiectum, the igg, and therefore about n.The impossibility ofgetting around n is shown in the name thatweuse to designate the kind of knowledge that, upuntil now,Westerners have had about beings as a whole. The systematicarticulation of the truth at

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any given time about beings as a whole is called metaphysics. Itmakes no difference whether

or not this metaphysics is given expression in propositions,whether or not the expressions are

formed into an explicit system. Metaphysics is that knowledgewherein Western historical humanity

preserves the truth of its relations to beings as a whole andthe truth about those beings themselves.

In a quite essential sense, meta-physics is physics, i.e.,knowledge ofn (ni).

At first blush our question about the essence and conceptofnmight seem to be simplyan inquiry, out of curiosity, into theorigin of past and present interpretations of nature. But if we

consider that this fundamental word of Western metaphysicsharbors within itself decisions about

the truth of beings; if we recall that today the truth aboutbeings as a whole has become entirely

questionable; moreover, if we suspect that the essence of truththerefore remains thoroughly in

dispute; and finally if we know that all this is grounded in thehistory of the interpretations of the

essence ofn, then we stand outside the [242] merely historicalinterests that philosophy mighthave in the history of a concept.Then we experience, although from afar, the nearness of future

decisions.

[For the world is shifting out of joint S if indeed it ever wasin joint--and the question arises

whether modern humanitys planning, even if it be world-wide, canever bring about the ordering

of the world.]

The first coherent and thoughtful discussion (first because ofits way of questioning) of theessence ofn comes down to us from thetime when Greek philosophy reached its fulfillment.It stems fromAristotle and is preserved in his niik (Lectures given S orbetter,Lectures heard S on n).

Aristotles Physics is the hidden, and therefore never adequatelythought out, foundational

book of Western philosophy.

Probably the eight books of the Physics were not projected as aunity and did not come into

existence all at once. Such questions have no importance here.In general it makes little sense to say

that the Physics precedes theMetaphysics, because metaphysics isjust as much physics as physics

is metaphysics. For reasons based on the work itself, as well ason historical grounds, we can takeit that around 347 B.C. (Platosdeath) the second book was already composed. (Cf. also Jaeger,

Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, p.296, originally published in 1923. For

all its erudition, this book has the single fault of thinkingthrough Aristotles philosophy in the

modern Scholastic neo-Kantian manner that is entirelyforeign toGreek thought. Much of Jaegers

Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles, 1912, ismore accurate because less

concerned with content.)

But even so, this first thoughtful and unified conceptualizationofn is already the lastecho of the original (and thus supreme)thoughtfulprojection of the essence ofn that we stillhave preservedfor us in the fragments of Anaximander, Heracl*tus, andParmenides.

[243] In Book Two, chapter one, of the eight books of thePhysics (Physics B, 1, 192 b 8 S

193 b 21), Aristotle gives the interpretation of n that sustainsand guides all succeedinginterpretations of the essence of nature.Here too are hidden the roots of that later determination

of the essence ofnature wherein it is distinguished from spiritand determined through the spirit.

In saying this we mean to intimate that the differentiation ofnature and spirit is simply foreign to

the Greeks.

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Before we follow the individual steps of Aristotlesdetermination of the essence ofn,let us look at two sentences thatAristotle pronounces in the first and introductory book (A):

igh ng ig gq i .

But from the outset it should be (a settled issue) for us thatthose beings that are by

n, whether all of them or some of them [those not in rest], aremoving beings(i.e., determined by movedness). But this is evidentfrom an immediate leading

toward (that leads towardthese beings and overand beyond them totheir being).

(A, 2, 185 a 12 ff.)

Here Aristotle explicitly emphasizes what he perceives to bedecisive for the projection of

the essence ofn, namely, i, the state of movedness. Andtherefore the key issue in thequestion about physics becomes one ofdefining the essence of movement. For us today it is

merely a truism to say that the processes of nature areprocesses of movement S in fact, it is a

tautology. We have no inkling of the importance of Aristotlessentences just cited, nor of his

interpretation ofn, unless we know that it was through and forAristotle that what we take fora truism was first brought into theformative essential insight of Western humanity. Certainly the

Greeks before Aristotle had already experienced the fact thatsky and sea, plants and animals are in

movement, and certainly thinkers before him had alreadyattempted to say what movement was. Butit was Aristotle who first[244] attained S and thus first created S that level of questioningwhere

(movement is not considered as something merely given along withother things, but rather where)

being-movedis explicitly questioned and understood as thefundamental mode of being. (But this

means that defining the essence of being is impossible withoutan essential insight into movedness

as such. Of course this is not at all to say that being isunderstood as movement [or as rest], for

such thinking would beforeign to the Greeks and, in fact,absolutely unphilosophical [inasmuch as

movedness is not nothing, and only being, in essence, rules overthe nothing and over beings and

over their modes].)

According to Aristotle, the fact that all beings from n are inmotion or at rest is evident:

i. We usually translate the word as induction and, takenliterally,the translation is almost adequate. But with regard tothe issue, i.e., as an interpretation, it is totally

erroneous. does not mean running through individual facts andseries of facts in order toconclude something common and generalfrom their similar properties. means leadingtoward what comes intoview insofar as we have previously looked away, over and beyond

individual beings. At what? At being. For example, only if wealready have treeness in view can we

identify individual trees. is seeing and making visible whatalready stands in view S forexample, treeness. is constituting inthe double sense of, first, bringing something upinto view and thenlikewise establishing what has been seen. is whatimmediatelybecomes suspect to those caught up in scientificthinking and mostly remains foreign to them. These

people see in it an inadmissiblepetitio principii, i.e., anoffense against empirical thinking,

whereas the petere principium, the reaching out to thesupporting ground, is the only move

philosophy makes. It is the offensive that breaks open theterritory within whose borders science

can first settle down.

[245] If we directly experience and intend ng-beings, we alreadyhave in view both themoved and its movedness. But what stands inview here is not yet constituted as what it is and

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1. das, was es ist und west...

how it is present.1

Therefore the question about nmust inquire into the movedness ofthese beings and tryto see what n is in relation to this movedness.But first, in order to establish clearly the directionof ourinquiry, we must delineate, within the whole of beings, the regionthat we can say comprises

beings that are because they are determined by n, namely,ng.

Physics B, 1 begins with this delimitation. (In the followingpages we give a translation

that is divided into appropriate sections. Since thistranslation is already the interpretation proper,

only an explanation of the translation is called for. This iscertainly not a trans-lation in the sense

of a carrying over of the Greek words into theproper force andweight of our language. It is not

intended to replace the Greek but only to place us into theGreek and in so doing to disappear in it.

This is why it lacks all the character and fullness that comefrom the depths of our own language,

and why it is neither pleasing nor polished.)

I. Of beings (as a whole) some are from n, whereas others are byother `causes. Byn, as we say, are animals as well as their members(parts), likewise plants and the simpleelements of bodies, likeearth and fire and water and air. (192 b 8-11)

The other beings, which are not yet expressly mentioned, are byother causes, but the firstgroup, the ones named, are by n. Thusfrom the outset n is taken as cause (, )in the sense of the origin[Ur-sache]. The word and a concept cause makes us think almost

automatically of causality [Kausalitt], that is, the manner andmode in which one thing acts on

another. , for which Aristotle will soon introduce a moreprecise definition, means in thepresent context: that which isresponsible for the fact that a being is what it is. This [246]

responsibility does not have the character of causation in thesense of a causally efficient

actualizing. Thus, for example, spatiality belongs to the verycharacter of materiality, but space does

not efficiently cause matter. Cause as the origin [Ur-sache],must be understood here literally as the

originary [Ur-tmliche] that which constitutes the thingness of athing. Causality is only a derivative

way of being an origin.

By simply mentioning animals, plants, earth, fire, water, andair, Aristotle points to the region

in which the question about n has to be lodged.

II. But all the aforementioned appear as different from whateverhas notcomposed itself by

n into a stand and a stability. (192 b 12-13)

g is here used for (cf. 193 a 36, ng). From this we inferwhatbeing meant for the Greeks. They address beings as the stable [dasStndige]. The

stable means two things. On the one hand, it means whatever, ofand by itself, stands on its own,

that which stands there; and at the same time the stable meansthe enduring, the lasting. We

would certainly not be thinking like the Greeks if we were toconceive of the stable as what stands

over against in the sense of the objective. Something standingover against [Gegenstand] is the

translation of the word object. But beings can be experienced asobjects only where human

beings have become subjects, those who experience theirfundamental relation to beings as the

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objectification S understood as mastery S of what isencountered. For the Greeks, human beings are

never subjects, and therefore non-human beings can never havethe character of objects (things that

stand-over-against). is what is responsible for the fact thatthe stable has a unique kind ofstanding-on-its-own. is more clearlydelineated in the following sentence.

III. Indeed each of these beings [that are whatthey are and howthey are from n] has initself the originating ordering (k) of itsmovedness and its standing still (rest), wheremovedness and restare meant sometimes with regard to place, [247] sometimes withregard

to growth and diminution, other times with regard to alteration(change). (192 b 13-15).

Here in place of and we find explicitly the word k. The Greeksordinarily hear twomeanings in this word. On the one hand kmeansthat from which something has its origin andbeginning; on the otherhand it means that which, as this origin and beginning, likewisekeeps rein

over, i.e., restrains and therefore dominates, something elsethat emerges from it. k means, atone and the same time, beginningand control. On a broader and therefore lower scale we can say:

origin and ordering. In order to express the unity thatoscillates between the two, we can translate

k as originating ordering and as ordering origin. The unity ofthese two is essential. And thisconcept ofk gives a more definitecontent to the word (cause) used above. (Probably the

conceptk is not an archaic concept, but one that later was readback into the origins of Greekphilosophy, first by Aristotle andthen subsequently by the doxographers.)

is k, i.e., the origin and ordering of movedness and rest,specifically in a movingbeing that has this k in itself. We do notsay in its self because we want to indicate that a beingof thiskind does not have the k for itself by explicitly knowing it,insofar as it does notpossess itself as a self at all. Plants andanimals are in movedness even when they stand still and

rest. Rest is a kind of movement; only that which is able tomove can rest. It is absurd to speak of

the number 3 as resting. Because plants and animals are inmovement regardless of whether they

rest or move, for this reason not only are they in movement;they are in movedness. This means: they

are not, in the first instance, beings for themselves and amongothers, beings that then occasionally

happen to slip into states of movement. Rather, they are beingsonly insofar they have their essentialabode and their ontologicalfooting in movedness. However, their being-moved is such [248]that

the k, the origin and ordering of their movedness, rules fromwithin those beings themselves.

Here where Aristotle defines n as kig, he does not fail to pointout variouskinds of movement: growth and diminution, alteration andchange of place (locomotion). These

kinds are merely enumerated, i.e., they are not differentiatedaccording to any explicit respect, nor

grounded in any such differentiation (cf. Physics E 1, 224 b35S225 b 9). In fact, this mere

enumeration is not even complete. In fact, the kind of movementthat is notmentioned is precisely

the one that will be crucial for determining the essence ofn.Nevertheless, mentioning variouskinds of movement at this point hasits own significance. It indicates that Aristotle understands

i, movedness, in a very broad sense S but not broad in the senseof extended,approximate and superficial, but rather in the sense ofthe essential and of a grounding fullness.

Today, with the predominance of the mechanistic thinking of themodern natural sciences,

we are inclined both to hold that the basic form of movement ismovedness in the sense of motion

from one position in space to another; and then to explaineverything that is moved in terms of it.

That kind of movedness Sii, movedness in terms of place orlocation S is for

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2Cf., for example,Metaphysics XII, 3, 1070 a 1.

3Examples ofdurchschlagen include breaking through an enemyslines or, equally, typing acarbon copy.

Aristotle only one kind of movedness among others, but it in noway counts as movement pure and

simple.

What is more, we should note that in a certain sense whatAristotle means by change of

place is something different from the modern conception of thechange of location of some mass

in space. is the , the place where a specific body belongs. Whatis fiery belongs above,what is earthly belongs below. The placesthemselves S above, below (heaven, earth) S are special:

by way of them are determined distances and relations, i.e.,what we call space, something for

which the Greeks had neither a word nor a concept. For us todayspace is not determined by way of

[249] place; rather, all places, as constellations of points,are determined by infinite space that is

everywhere hom*ogeneous and nowhere distinctive. When movednessis taken as change of place,

there is a corresponding kind of rest, namely, remaining in thesame place. But something that

continues to occupy the same place and thus is notmoved in thesense of change of place, can

nonetheless be in a process of movedness. For example, a plantthat is rooted in place grows

(increases) or withers (decreases) [ -nh]. And conversely,something that moves insofaras it changes its place can still restby remaining as it was constituted. The running fox is at rest

in that it keeps the same color; this is the rest ofnon-alteration, rest without . Orsomething can be moved in thesense of withering and yet at the same time be moved in stillanother

way, namely, by being altered: on the withering tree the leavesdry up, the green becomes yellow.

The tree that is moved in this twofold sense ofnh and issimultaneously at rest

insofar as it is the tree that stands there.

If we perceive all these overlapping appearances as types ofmovedness, we gain an insight

into their fundamental character, which Aristotle fixes in theword and the concept g. Everyinstance of movedness is a change fromsomething (i) into something (g).2 When wespeak of a change in theweather or a change of mood, what we have in mind is an alteration.We

also speak of exchange points where commercial goods changehands in business transactions. But

the essential core of what the Greeks meant in thinking g isattained only by observing thatin a change [Umschlag] somethingheretofore hidden and absent comes into appearance. (In German:

Aus-schlag [the breaking out of, e.g., a blossom], andDurchschlag [breaking through so as to

appear on the other side3].)

(We of today must do two things: first, free ourselves from thenotion that movement is

primarily change of place; and second, learn to see how for theGreeks movement as a mode ofbeing

has the character of emerging into being present.)

[250] is kg, origin and ordering of change, such that each thingthatchanges has this ordering within itself. At the very beginningof the chapter, ng-beings werecontrasted with other beings, but thesecond group were not expressly named and characterized.

There now follows an explicit and definite, and yet curiouslynarrow, delineation:

IV. However, a couch (bedstead) and a robe and any other kind(of such things) that there is

insofar as cited and grasped according to a given way ofaddressing it (e.g., as a robe) and

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4In ordinary German gemachtcan mean artificial or affected.

inasmuch as it comes from a productive know-how, (such a thing)has absolutely no impulse

to change arising from itself.However, insofar as it alsopertains to such things (in a given

instance) to be made of stone or of earth or of a mixture of thetwo, they do have in

themselves an impulse to change, but they have it only to thisextent. (192 b 16-20)

Here, such beings as plants, animals, earth, and air are nowcontrasted with beings like bedsteads,

robes, shields, wagons, ships, and houses. The first group aregrowing things [Gewchse] in the

same broad sense that we employ when we speak of a field undergrowth. The second group are

artifacts (g), in German, Gemchte, although this last term mustbe stripped of anyderogatory connotations.4 The contrast achievesits purpose

Sto further highlight the proper essence

ofng and nS only if it stays within the parameters of theguiding perspective, that ofan inquiry into moving beings and theirmovedness and into the k of that movedness.

But are bedsteads and garments, shields and houses movingthings? Indeed they are, but

usually we encounter them in the kind of movement that typifiesthings at rest and therefore is hard

to perceive. Their rest has the character ofhaving-been-completed, having-been-produced, and,

on the basis ofthese determinations, as standing there and lyingpresent before us. Today we easily

overlook this special kind of rest and so too the movedness thatcorresponds to it, or at [251] least

we do not take it essentially enough as the proper anddistinguishing characteristic of the being of

these beings. And why? Because under the spell of our modern wayof being, we are addicted tothinking of beings as objects andallowing the being of beings to be exhausted in the objectivityof

the object. But for Aristotle, the issue here is to show thatartifacts are whatthey are and how they

are precisely in the movedness of production and thus in therest of having-been-produced. Above

all he wants to show that this movedness has another k and thatbeings that are moved in thisother way are related to their k in adifferent manner. (There is no reason to read k in placeofk in thistext, as Simplicius does, for k, impulse, illustrates well theessence ofk.)

Thek of artifacts is . does not mean technique in the sense ofmethods andacts of production, nor does it mean art in the widersense of an ability to produce something.

Rather, is a form of knowledge; it means: know-how in, i.e.,familiarity with, what grounds

every act of making and producing. It means knowing what theproduction of, e.g., a bedstead mustcome to, where it must achieveits end and be completed. In Greek, this end is called .Thatwhereat an act of producing ceases is the table as finished Sbut finished precisely as table, as what

a table is and how a table looks. The g must stand in viewbeforehand, and this antecedentlyenvisioned appearance, gkkg, isthe end, , that about which has its know-how. Onlyfor this reasondoes also come to be defined as the kind and manner ofprocedurethat we call technique. But again, the essence of is notmovement in the sense of the activityof manipulating things;rather, it is know-how in dealing with things. And does notmeangoal or purpose, but end in the sense of the finiteperfectedness that determines the essence

of something; only for this reason can it be taken as a goal andposited as a purpose. However, the

, the antecedently envisioned appearance of the bedstead, iswhat is known by the person withthe know-how, and it exists in thatperson. Only in this way is it the origin of the idea of thething

and the ordering of its manufacture. [252] The g in itself isnot the k of the artifact. Rather,the gkkg, i.e., the kkg, i.e.,the , is the k of the artifact.

In the case of artifacts, therefore, the k of their movedness Sand thus of the rest that

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characterizes their being-completed and being-made S is not inthe artifacts themselves but in

something else, in the ki, the one who controls the as k. Thiswould seem tocomplete the contrast of artifacts with ng, for theselatter are called ng preciselybecause they have the k of theirmovedness notin another being but in the beings that theythemselvesare (to the degree that they are these beings). But according toAristotles explanation,

the difference between artifacts and growing things is not atall so simple. Even the structure of the

section we are considering gives a hint: S : insofar asartifacts are seen in thisway...insofar as they are seen in anotherway.... We can consider the g from twoperspectives. In thefirstperspective we consider the produced thing insofar as it is citedand grasped

according to a given way of addressing it: ik.

Here we run across a use ofik that goes backprior to itsestablishment as aphilosophical term. It was Aristotle, in fact,who established the term, but he did so on the basis

of the common usage that is operative in the present text. Wetranslate ik as theaddressing of something [Ansprechung], but eventhen we hardly capture the full meaning in the

Greek. -kgg means: to accuse someone to his face in the k, thepublic court, ofbeing the very one who.... From this comes thebroader meaning: to address something as this or

that, so that, in and through our addressing it, the addressedthing is put forth into the public view,

into the open, as manifest.k is the naming of what something is:house, tree, sky, sea, hard,red, healthy. On the other hand,category as a philosophical term means a special kind of

addressing. We are able to address a present thing as a house ora tree only insofar as we havealready beforehand, and withoutwords, addressed what we encounter S i.e., have brought it intoour

open field of vision S as something standing-on-its-own, athing. Likewise, [253] we can address

a garment as red only if from the outset and without words ithas already been addressed in terms

of something like quality. Standing-on-its-own (substance) andquality (of-what-sort-ness) and

the like constitute the being (beingness) of beings. Thereforethe categories are special ways of

addressing things Sik in an emphatic sense S for they sustainall our habitual and everydayways of addressing things; theyunderlie those everyday ways of addressing things, which in turnget

developed into assertions, judgments. Conversely, only for thisreason can one discover the

categories by using the assertion, the o, as a clue. This is whyKant has to derive the tableof categories from the tableofjudgments. Thus, knowledge of categories as determinations ofthe

being of beingsS

what people call metaphysicsS

is, in an essential sense, knowledge ofoS i.e.,logic. Therefore,metaphysics receives this name at the stage where it comes tothefull (as full as

is possible for it) consciousness of itself, inHegel. [TheScience of Logic is absolute knowledge of

the knowable as something known or represented. (In modernphilosophy, the state-of-being-

represented is beingness or being.)]

In the text we are considering, ik is used inapre-terminological sense. Inasmuchas we consider somethingproduced S e.g., a bedstead S within the horizon opened up bythe

everyday way of addressing and naming, we take such a beingaccording to its appearance as

something of use. In this capacity it does nothave the kig initself. But we can considerit from a second perspective: we cantake this very same being, the bedstead, as something made

out of wood, hence as a piece of wood. As wood, it is part of atree trunk, a growing thing. This tree

has the kig in itself. The bedstead, on the other hand, is notwood as such, but merelywooden, made out ofwood. Only what issomething other than wood can be wooden. This is why

we never call a tree trunk wooden, but we do say a personsbearing is wooden, and in German one

can say an apple is wooden. What the bedstead is when takenaccording to the ik, namely,a usable thing that looks thus and so,has no absolutely necessary relation to wood. It could [254]just

as well be made out of stone or steel. Its woodenness is gi,that is to say: in reference to

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what the bed really and properly is, woodenness appears onlyincidentally. Insofar S but only

insofar S as it is just wood, a bedstead certainly does have thekig in itself, for wood isthat which has grown from a growingthing.

On the basis of this contrast between artifacts and growingthings Aristotle can summarize

what he has said up to now and thus establish an initial outlineof the essence ofn:

V. Accordingly, n is something like origin and ordering andtherefore originary [source]of the self-moving and resting ofsomething in which it antecedently () exercisesoriginating andordering power (kg) primarily in itself and from itselfand towarditselfand thus neverin such a way that the k would appear (in thebeing) only incidentally.(192 b 20-23)

Here, simply and almost severely, Aristotle sketches theessential outline:n is not just the originand ordering of themovedness of a moving being, but also belongs to this moving beingitself in

such a way that this being, in itself and from itself and towarditself, orders its own movedness.

Hence the k is not like the starting-point of a push, whichpushes the thing away and leaves itto itself. Rather, somethingdetermined by n not only stays with itself in its movedness but

precisely goes back into itself even as it unfolds in accordancewith the movedness (the change).

We can illustrate the kind of essence that is meant here by theexample of growing things

in the narrower sense (plants). While the plant sprouts,emerges, and expands into the open, it

simultaneously goes back into its roots, insofar as it plantsthem firmly in the closed ground and thus

takes its stand. The act of self-unfolding emergence isinherently a going-back-into-itself. This kind

of becoming present is n. But it must not be thought of as akind of built-in motor that drivessomething, nor as an organizer onhand somewhere, directing the thing. [255] Nonetheless, we

might be tempted to fall back on the notion that ng-determinedbeings could be a kind that makethemselves. So easily andspontaneously does this idea suggest itself that it has becomenormative

for the interpretation of living nature in particular, as isshown by the fact that ever since modern

thinking became dominant, a living being has been understood asan organism. No doubt a gooddeal of time has yet to pass before welearn to see that the idea of organism and of the organic

is a purely modern, mechanistic-technological concept, accordingto which growing things are

interpreted as artifacts that make themselves. Even the word andconcept plant takes what-grows

as something planted, something sown and cultivated. And it ispart of the essential illogicality of

language that in German we nonetheless speak of greenhouses asGewchshusern (houses for what

grows) instead of as Pflanzenhusern (houses for what has beenplanted).

In the case of every artifact, however, the origin of the makingis outside the thing made.

Viewed from the perspective of the artifact, the k always andonly appears as something inaddition. In order to avoidmisunderstanding n as a kind ofself-producing and the ngmerely as aspecial kind of artifact, Aristotle clarifies the ih by addingiigi. The i here has the meaning of and that is to say.... Thisphrase seeks to ward offan error, and Aristotle explains itsmeaning by an example:

VI. But I add the phrase `not like something appearing inaddition because someone, entirely

of and by himself, might become the (originating and ordering)source of `health for

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himself, and could at the same time be a doctor. He has themedical know-how in himself,

but not insofar as he regains his health. Rather in this case,being a doctor and regaining

health happen to have come together in one and the same person.But for this very reason the

two also remain separated from each other, each on its own. (192b 23-27)

Aristotle, a doctors son, likes to use examples drawn frommedical k, and he does so in othercontexts as well. [256] Here hegives us the case of a doctor who treats himself and therebyregains

his health. Two kinds of movedness are interwoven here in apeculiar way: kg, the practicingof medicine as a , and , theregaining of health as n. In the present case, that ofa doctor whotreats himself, both movements are found in one and the same being,in this specific

person. The same holds for the respective k of each of the twomovements. The doctor hasthe k of regaining his health , inhimself, but not ih, not according to himself,not insofar as he isa doctor. The origin and ordering of regaining health is not beinga doctor but

being human, and this only insofar as the human being is a , aliving being that lives onlyinasmuch as it is a body [leibt]. Aseven we say, a healthy nature, capable of resistance, is

the real origin and ordering of regaining health. Without thisk, all medical practice is in vain.But on the other hand, thedoctor has the k of practicing medicine in himself: being a doctoristhe origin and ordering of the treatment. But this k, namely,this know-how and antecedent view() of what health is and whatpertains to keeping and regaining it (the gg) S this

k is not in the human being qua human but is something inaddition, attained by someone onlythrough studying and learning.Consequently, in relation to regaining health, itself isalwaysmerely something that can appear in addition. Doctors and thepractice of medicine do not grow the

way trees do. Of course, we do speak of a born doctor, by whichwe mean that a person brings with

him or her the talent for recognizing diseases and treating thesick. But these talents are never, in the

manner ofn, thek for being a doctor, inasmuch as they do notunfoldfrom out of themselvestoward the end of being a doctor.

Nonetheless, at this point the following objection could beraised. Say two doctors suffer

from the same disease under the same conditions, and each onetreats himself. However, between

the two cases of illness there lies a period of[257] 500 years,during which the progress of modern

medicine has taken place. The doctor of today has at hisdisposal a better technique, and he regainshis health, whereas theone who lived earlier dies of her disease. So apparently the k ofthe cureof todays doctor isprecisely the . However, there issomething further to consider here. Forone thing, the fact of notdying, in the sense of prolonging ones life, is not yet necessarilythe

recovery of health. The fact that people live longer today is noproof that they are healthier; one

might even conclude the contrary. But even supposing that themodern doctor, beneficiary of the

progress of medicine, not only escapes death for a while butalso recovers her health, even then the

art of medicine has only better supported and guided n. canmerely cooperate withn,can more or less expedite the cure; but asit can never replace n and in its stead becomethe k ofhealth assuch. This could happen only if life as such were to become atechnicallyproducible artifact. However, at that very moment therewould also no longer be such a thing as

health, any more than there would be birth and death. Sometimesit seems as if modern humanity is

rushing headlong toward this goal ofproducing itselftechnologically. If humanity achieves this, it

will have exploded itself, i.e., its essence qua subjectivity,into thin air, into a region where the

absolutely meaningless is valued as the one and only meaning andwhere preserving this value

appears as the human domination of the globe. Subjectivity isnot overcome in this way but

merely tranquillized in the eternal progress of a Chinese-likeconstancy [Konstanz]. This

is the most extreme nonessence [Unwesen] in relation to n-.

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Aristotle also uses this example, in which two different kindsof movedness interweave, as

an occasion for determining more clearly the mode and manner inwhich the g (artifacts)stand in relation to their k.

VII. And the same holds for everything else that belongs amongthings made. That is to say,

none of them has in itself the origin and ordering of itsbeing-made. [258] Rather, some have

their k in another being and thus have it from the outside, suchas, for example, a houseand anything else made by hand. Others,however, do indeed have the k in themselves,but not inasmuch asthey are themselves. To this latter group belong all things thatcan be

`causes for themselves in an incidental way. (192 b 27-32)

A house has the origin and ordering of its being a house, i.e.,something constructed, in the

constructors prior intention to build, which is given concreteform in the architects blueprint. This

blueprint S in Greek terms, the houses appearance as envisionedbeforehandor, literally, the S orders each step of the actualconstructing and governs the choice and use of materials. Evenwhen

the house is standing, it stands on the foundation that has beenlaidfor it; however, it never stands

from out ofitself, but always as a mere construction. As long asit stands there S in Greek terms, as

long as it stands forth into the open and unhidden S the house,due to its way of standing, can never

place itself back into its k. It will never take root in theearth but will always remain merelyplaced on the earth, built uponit.

But let us take an example: What if someone were to hit himselfin the eye and injure the eye

by a clumsy movement of his own hand? Certainly both the injuryand the movement of the hand

are , in the same being. However, they do not belong togetherbut have simply happenedtogether, come together gi, incidentally.Therefore, in determining the essence of theng, it is not enoughmerely to say they have the k of their movedness inthemselves.Rather, we are required to add this specialdetermination: in themselves, specifically inasmuch as

they are themselves and are in and with [bei] themselves.

[This word specifically does not restrict matters but requiresus to look into the vastexpanse of the unfathomable essence of amode of being that is denied to all because renounces any claim toknowing and grounding truth as such.]

Aristotle concludes the first stage of his characterization ofthe essence ofn by whatseems to be merely a superficial [259]clarification of the meaning of the concepts and expressions

that gather around the essence and the concept and the wordn:

VIII. , therefore, is what has been said. Everything thatpossesses this kind of origin andordering `has n . And all thesethings are (have being) of the type called beingness. is, in eachcase, such as lies present of and by itself, and is always in athing that liespresent in this way (constituting itslying-present). In accordance with n, however, arethese things aswell as everything that belongs to these things in themselves, ofand by

themselves, as, e.g., it belongs to fire to be borne upwards. Inpoint of fact this (being borne

upwards) is not n, nor does it possess n, but it certainly isfrom n and inaccordance with n. So now it has been settled what nis, as well as what is meantby `from n, and `in accordance with n.(192 b 32 S 193 a 2)

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It may strike the reader that even at this point we continue toleave the basic word nuntranslated. We do not call it natura ornature because these names are too ambiguous and

overburdened and, in general, because they get their validity asnames for n only as aconsequence of a peculiarly orientedinterpretation ofn. In fact, we do not even have a word thatwouldbe appropriate for naming and thinking the essence ofn as we haveexplained it thus far.(We are tempted to say emergence [Aufgang],but without intermediate steps we cannot give this

word the fullness and definiteness it requires.) However, thechief reason for continuing to use the

untranslated and perhaps untranslatable word n lies in the factthat everything said up to thispoint toward the clarification ofits essence is only prologue. In fact, up until now we do noteven

know what kind of reflection and inquiry is already at work whenwe ask about n as we havebeen doing. And these things Aristotletells us only now in the passage we have just read, a text that

establishes with extreme succinctness the horizon within whichthe discussion moves, both the

preceding part and especially what is to follow.

The decisive sentence reads: i, and all these S namely,ng-beings S have being of the type called beingness. Thisexpression beingness, which hardly strikes

the ear as elegant, [260] is the only adequate translation for .Granted, even beingness saysvery little, in fact, almost nothing,but this is precisely its advantage. We avoid the usual andfamiliar

translations (i.e., interpretations) ofas substance and essence.is, beingnessS

that which characterizes a being as such; in a word: being. Theword was not originally aphilosophical term any more than was thewordik, which we have already explained. Theword was first coinedas a technical term by Aristotle. This coining consists in the factthatAristotle thoughtfully draws out of the content of the word acrucial element and then holds on to

it firmly and clearly. Nonetheless, at the time of Aristotle andeven later, the word still retained its

ordinary meaning, whereby it signified house and home, holdings,financial means; we might also

say present assets, property, what lies present. We must thinkin terms of this meaning if we

want to get at the naming-power of as a basic philosophicalword. And then right away wealso see how simple and obvious is theexplanation Aristotle provides for the word in the textabove:iggkiigng, for in each case n is likea lying-present and `in alying-present. One might object that our translation here iswrong.

Aristotles sentence does not say igh k , a lying-present[Vorliegen] but rathersomething that lies present [einVorliegendes]. But here we must pay strict attention to whatthe

sentence is supposed to explain: namely, to what extent n is andthus has the characterof beingness (being). This requires of us (asis so often the case with the philosophical use of the

Greek language, but too little noticed by later thinkers) thatwe understand the participle

igg in a way analogous to our understanding of. can mean abeing, i.e., thisparticular being itself; but it can also mean thatwhich is, that which has being. Analogously

igg can mean that which lies present, but it can also meansomething distinguished bylying-present, and so it can mean thevery lying-present itself. [261] (The unusually rich and

manifold forms of the participle in the Greek language S thetruly philosophical language -- are no

mere accident, but their meaning has hardly yet beenrecognized.)

In accordance with the explanation of by way ofigg, thebeingness of beingsmeans for the Greeks the same as to lie presentthere, i.e., in front of.... In this connection let us

recall that toward the beginning of this chapter, at 192 b 13(and later at 193 a 36), instead ofAristotle says g (the stable:that which has taken a stand). Accordingly, being means thesame asstanding on its own. But to stand is quite the opposite of to lie.Yes, that is true if we

take each of them separately. But if we take to stand and to liein terms of what they share in

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5auerhalb aller Welt. The Greek is .

common, then each manifests itself precisely through itsopposite. Only what stands can fall and thus

lie; and only what lies can be put upright and thus stand. TheGreeks understand being sometimes

as to stand on its own (, substantia) and sometimes as lyingpresent (igg,subjectum), but both have equal weight, for in bothcases the Greeks have one and the same thing

in view: being-present of and by itself, presencing. Thedecisive principle that guides Aristotles

interpretation ofn declares that n must be understood as , as akind and mode ofpresencing.

Now, it has already been established through that ng are ig,thatis to say: ng-beings are beings in the state of movedness.Accordingly, it is now a question ofunderstanding movedness as amanner and mode of being, i.e., of presencing. Only when thisis

accomplished can we understand n in its essence as the originand ordering of the movednessof what moves from out of itselfandtoward itself. Thus it is clear in principle that the questionabout

the n of the ng is not a search for ontic properties to be foundin beings of this sort, butrather an inquiry into the being ofthose beings, from which being it gets determined antecedently

in what way beings of this kind of being can have properties atall.

[262] The next section, which forms the transition to a newattempt at determining the

essence ofn, shows how decisively Aristotles explanation ofnheretofore has, in themeanwhile, broadened explicitly into aprincipled reflection, and it shows how necessary this

reflection is for the task confronting us:

IX. But it is ridiculous to want to prove thatnis, because this(being as n)appears of and by itself, insofar as [not that] beingsof this type show up

everywhere among beings. But to demonstrate something thatappears of and by itself

(and above all) to prove something that refuses to appear Sthese are the actions of

someone who cannot distinguish (from one another) something thatof and by itself

is familiar to all knowledge from something that of and byitself is not. But that such

a thing can happen (i.e., such an inability to make thedistinction) is not outside the

realm of possibility:5 Someone born blind might try, through asequence of

reflections, to acquire some knowledge about colors. Ofnecessity in this case, such

people arrive at an assertion about the nominal meanings of thewords for colors, butby these means they never perceive the leastthing about colors themselves. (193 a

3-9)

But it is ridiculous to try to prove thatnis. But why? Should wenot take seriously some suchprocedure? Without a priorproofthatsomething like n is, all explanations about nremainpointless. So let us attempt such a proof. But in thatcase we haveto suppose that nisnot, or at least that it is not yet proven inits being and as being. Therefore, in the course of our

demonstration we may not permit ourselves to appeal to it. Butif we take this restriction seriously,

how could we ever find or point to something like ng, growingthings S animals, forexample

Sthe very things by means of which the being ofn is supposed tobe proven? Such

a procedure is impossible because it must already appeal to thebeing ofn, [263] and preciselyfor that reason this kind of proof isalways superfluous. Already by its first step it attests of andby

itself that its project is unnecessary. In fact, the wholeundertaking is ridiculous. The being ofnand n as being remainunprovable because n does not need a proof, for wherever a ng-

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6As the species does in the individual person. (Translatorsnote).

being stands in the open, n has already shown itself and standsin view.

Regarding those who demand and attempt such a proof, one can atbest draw their attention

to the fact that they do not see the very thing that theyalready see, that they have no eye for what

already stands in view for them. To be sure, this eye S which isnot just for what one sees but for

what one already has in view when one sees what one sees S thiseye does not belong to everyone.

This eye has the ability to differentiate what appears of and byitself and comes into the open

according to its own essence, from what does not appear of andby itself. What appears antecedentlyS

as n does in the ng, as history does in all historicaloccurrences, as art does in allartworks, as life does in all livingthings6S what already stands in view is seen with the greatest

difficulty, is grasped very seldomly, is almost always falsifiedinto a mere addendum, and for these

reasons simply overlooked. Of course, not everyone needs toexplicitly hold in view what is already

seen in all experience, but only those who make a claim todeciding, or even to asking, about nature,

history, art, human beings, or beings as a whole. Certainly notevery one of us who through action

or thinking dwells in these regions of beings needs to considerexplicitly what is already seen. But

of course neither may we overlook it or toss it off asinsignificant, as something merely abstract

S that is, if we really want to stand where we stand.

What appears in advance, the current being of a being, is notsomething abstracted from

beings later on, something depleted and thinned out, finally nomore than a vapor, [264] nor is it

something that becomes accessible only when we who are thinkingreflect on ourselves. On thecontrary, the way to what is alreadyseen but not yet understood, much less conceptualized, is the

leading-toward that we already mentioned, namely, . This is whatlets us see ahead into thedistance, into what we ourselves are notand least of all could ever be, into something far off that

nevertheless is most near, nearer than everything that lies inour hand or resounds in our ear or lies

before our eyes. In order notto overlook what is nearest yetlikewise farthest, we must stand above

the obvious and the factual. Differentiating between whatappears of and by itself from what does

not appear of and by itself is a ikg in the genuinely Greeksense: separating out what is superiorfrom what is inferior.Through this critical ability for differentiating, which is alwaysdecision, the

human being is lifted out of mere captivation by what pressesupon and preoccupies him or her and

is placed out beyond it, into the relation to being. In the realsense of the word, one becomes ek-

sistent, one ek-sists instead of merely living and snatching atreality in the so-called concernfor real life, where reality isonly a refuge in the long-standing flight from being. Accordingto

Aristotle, those who cannot make such a distinction live likepeople blind from birth who work at

making colors accessible to themselves by reasoning about thenames they have heard them called.

They choose a way that can never bring them to their goal,because the only road leading there is

seeing, and that is precisely what is denied to the blind. Justas there are people blind to colors, so

there are people blind ton. And if we recall that n has beendefined as only one kind of (beingness), then those blind to n aremerely one type of people blind to being.Presumably those blind tobeing far outnumber those blind to color, and what is more, thepower of

their blindness is even stronger and more obstinate, for theyare less obvious and mostly go

unrecognized. As a consequence they even pass for the only oneswho really see. [ 265] But

obviously our relation to that which, of and by itself, appearsantecedently and eludes all plans for

proof must be hard to hold on to in its originality and truth.Otherwise Aristotle would not need to

explicitly remind us of it nor attack this blindness to being.And our relation to being is hard to hold

on to because it seems to be made easy for us by our commoncomportment toward beings -- so easy,

in fact, that our relation to being looks as if it could besupplanted by this comportment and be

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nothing else butthis comportment.

Aristotles remarks on the desire to prove thatn shows up plays aspecial role withinthe whole of his exposition, and we immediatelysee this role from the following passage:

X. But for some (thinkers) n, and so too the beingness of beingsfrom n, appears tobe whatever is already and primarily present inany given thing, but in itself lacking all form.

In this view the n of the bedstead is the wood, the n of thestatue is the bronze.According to Antiphons explanation, this isshown in the following way: If one buries a

bedstead in the earth and if the decay goes so far that a sproutcomes up, then what is

generated (from this sprout) is not a bedstead but wood.Consequently something that has

been brought about in accordance with rules and know-how [e.g.,the bedstead made out of

wood] is certainly something there, but only insofar as it hasappeared incidentally. But its

beingness lies in that (the n) which abides through it all,holding itself togetherthroughout everything it undergoes.Furthermore, if any one of these [wood, bronze] has

already undergone the same process [of having been brought intoa form] with respect to yet

another S as have bronze and gold with respect to water, orbones and wood with respect to

earth, or similarly anything else among all other beings -- thenit is precisely the latter (water,

earth) that aren and that therefore are the beingness of theformer (as beings). (193 a

9 - 21)

[266] From a superficial point of view, it seems Aristotle nowmoves from clarifying the correct

attitude for determining the essence ofn as a manner of beingover to characterizing the opinionof other thinkers with regard ton. But his purpose here is notjustto mention other views forthesake of some sort of scholarly completeness. Nor does he intendsimply to reject those other

views in order to fashion a contrasting background for his owninterpretation. No, Aristotles

intention is to explain Antiphons interpretation ofn in thelight of his own formulation of thequestion, and so to putAntiphons interpretation, for the first time, on the only path thatcan lead to

an adequate determination of the essence ofn as Aristotleenvisions it. Up to now we know only

this much:n is , the being of some beings, specifically of thosebeings that have been seenantecedently to have the character ofig,beings that are in movement. Even more clearly:n is the origin andordering (k) of the movedness of something that moves ofitself.

Ifn is , a manner of being, then the correct determination ofthe essence ofndepends, first, on an adequately original grasp ofthe essence of and, second, on acorresponding interpretation ofwhat it is that we encounter, in the light of a given conceptionof

being, as a ng-being. Now, the Greeks understand as being stablypresent. They give noreasons for this interpretation of being anymore than they question the ground of its truth. For in the

first beginning of thought, the fact that the being of beings isgrasped at all is more essential than the

question of its ground.

But how does the Sophist Antiphon, who comes from the Eleaticschool, interpret n inthe light of being, conceived as stablepresencing? He says: only earth, water, air, and fire truly are

in accordance with n. With this, however, there occurs adecision of the greatest import: whatalways seems to be more thanmere (pure) earth S e.g., the wood formed out of the earth andeven

more so [267] the bedstead fashioned from the wood S all thismore is in fact less being, because

this more has the character of articulating, impressing,fitting, and forming, in short, the character

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7Heideggers periphrastic translation ofhg is based on Aristotlesdefinition of thatword inMetaphysics 19, 1022 b 1ff. (Translatorsnote.)

ofkh. Things of this sort change, are unstable, are withoutstability. From wood one can justas well make a table and a shieldand a ship; what is more, the wood itself is only somethingformed

out of the earth. The earth is what truly perdures throughout,whereas the changes of kh happento it only now and again. Whatproperly is, is kkh k, the primarily andintrinsicallyunformed,which remains stably present throughout the changes of shape andform that

it undergoes. From Antiphons theses it is clear that bedsteads,statues, robes, and gowns are only

inasmuch as they are wood, iron, and the like, i.e., onlyinasmuch as they consist of something more

stable. The most stable, however, are earth, water, fire, andair -- the elements. But if the

elemental is what most is, then this interpretation ofnS as theprimary formless that sustainseverything that is formed S impliesthat a decision has likewise been made about the interpretation

of every being, and that n, as conceived here, is equated withbeing pure and simple. But thismeans the essence of as stablepresencing is given a fixed and very specific direction.Accordingto this definition of its essence, all things, whether growingthings or artifacts, never truly

are S and yet they are not nothing; hence they are non-being,not fully sufficing for beingness. In

contrast with these non-beings, only the elemental qualifies asthe essence of being.

The following section gives an insight into the importance ofthe interpretation ofnpresently under discussion, i.e., as thekkkhih (the primarily andintrinsically unformed):

XI. Therefore different people say that either fire, or earth,or air, or water, or some of these

(elements), or all of them, are nproperand thus are the being ofbeings as a whole.For whatever each of these people [268] has takenantecedently () to be such as liespresent in this way, whether itbe one or many, that he declares to be beingness as such,

whereas all the rest are modifications or states of whatproperly is or that into which a being

is divided (and thus dissolved into relations);7 and each ofthese (that in each case constitute

n) therefore remains the same, staying with itself (i.e., theredoes notaccrue to them anychange by which they might go out ofthemselves), whereas other beings come to be and pass

away `without limit. (193 a 21-28)

Here Aristotle summarizes the distinction between n as theelemental, taken as the only properbeings (the kkkhih), andnon-beings (h , g, hg, kh)by once again introducing the opinions ofother teachers and by making clear reference to

Democritus. [From the viewpoint of the history of being, thebasis of materialism as a

metaphysical stance becomes apparent here.]

But more important is the last sentence of the section, whereAristotle thinks out and defines

this distinction even more precisely by formulating it in termsof the contrast between andggki. We usually think of this contrastas one between the eternal and thetemporal. On those terms, theprimarily-present unformed is the eternal, whereas all kh,aschange, is the temporal. Nothing could be clearer than thisdistinction; yet one does not consider

that this understanding of the distinction between eternity andtemporality erroneously reads back

into the Greek interpretation of beings notions that are merelyHellenistic and Christian and,

in general, modern. The eternal is taken as what endures withoutlimit, with neither beginning

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8Cf. Herdotus IX, 116, . . . because the Persians consider allAsia to belong to them, and totheir king for the time being [ gg]The Persian Wars, trans. GeorgeRawlinson (New York: The ModernLibrary, 1942), p. 712. (Translators note.)

9das Verweilen.

nor end, whereas the temporal is limited duration. The viewpointguiding this distinction is based

on duration. Certainly the Greeks are acquainted also with thisdistinction regarding beings, but they

always think the difference on the basis of their understandingof being. And this is quite distorted

by the Christian distinction. [269] Already just from the Greekwords for these concepts it is clear

that the opposition of and ggki cannot refer to what limitlesslyendures asopposed to what is limited, for in the text the so-calledtemporal means limitless coming-to-be and

passing away. What is opposed to the , the eternal as supposedlylimitless, is alsosomething limitless: gk (cf. k). Now, how is allthis supposed to hit upon the decisivecontrast in terms of whichbeing proper is determined? The so-called eternal is in GreekSg;andgmeans not just all the time and incessantly. Rather, first ofall it means at anygiven time. gg = the one who is ruler at thetimeSnotthe eternal ruler.

8 With the

word g what one has in view is the notion of staying for awhile, 9 specifically in the sense ofpresencing. The somethingpresent of and by itself without other assistance, and forthisreason perhaps something rendered constantly present. Here weare thinking not with regard to

duration but with regard to being present. This is the clue forcorrectly interpreting the opposing

concept, ggki. In Greek thought, what comes to be and passesaway is what issometimes present, sometimes absent S without limit.But k in Greek philosophy is not limitin the sense of the outerboundary, the point where something ends. The limit is always whatlimits,

defines, gives footing and stability, that by which and in whichsomething begins and is. Whatever

becomes present and absent without limit has of and by itselfnopresencing, and it devolves into

instability. The distinction between beings proper andnon-beings does not consist in the fact thatbeings proper perdurewithout restriction whereas non-beings always have their durationbroken off.

With regard to duration both could be either restricted orunrestricted. The decisive factor is rather

that beings proper are present of and by themselves and for thisreason are encountered as what is

always already lying present Siggk. Non-beings, on the otherhand, are sometimespresent, sometimes absent, because they arepresent only on the basis of something already present;

that is, along with it they make their appearance or [270]remain absent. Beings (in the sense of the

elemental) are always `there, non-beings are always gone S wherethere and gone are

understood on the basis of being present and not with regard tomere duration. The later distinction

between aeternitas and sempiternitas would come closest to theGreek distinction we have just

clarified.Aeternitas is the nunc stans, sempiternitas is thenunc fluens. But even here the original

essence of being, as the Greeks experienced it, has alreadyvanished. The distinction refers not to themode of mere durationbut only to that of change. What stays is the unchanging, whatflows is the

fleeting, the changing. But both are equally understood in termsof something continuing without

interruption.

For the Greeks, however, being means:presencing into theunhidden. What is decisive is

not the duration and extent of the presencing but rather whetherthe presencing is dispensed into the

unhidden and simple, and thus withdrawn into the hidden andinexhausted, or whether presencing

is distorted (g) into a mere looks like, into mere appearance,instead of being maintainedin undistortedness (-kig). Only byseeing the opposition of unhiddenness and seeming can weadequatelyknow what the essence of is for the Greeks. Such knowledge is thecondition forunderstanding at all Aristotles interpretation ofn; inparticular it determines whether we can

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1. Antiphons doctrine does not consider the fact that ng-beingsare in movedness, thatis to say, that movedness co-constitutes thebeing of these beings. On the contrary, according to his

understanding ofn, all character of movement, all alteration andchanging circ*mstantiality(kh) devolves into something onlyincidentally attaching to beings. Movement is unstable andthereforea non-being.

2. Beingness is indeed conceived as stability, but one

sidedly in favor of the always-already-underlying. Thus,

3. The other moment of the essence of is omitted:presencing,which is the decisivefactor in the Greek concept of being. We tryto bring out in a word what is most proper to it by

saying presencing [Anwesung] instead of presentness[Anwesenheit]. What we mean here is not

just lying around [Vorhandenheit], and certainly not somethingthat is exhausted merely in stability;

rather:presencing, in the sense of coming forth into theunhidden, placing itself into the open. One

does not get at the meaning of presencing by referring to mereduration.

4. But the interpretation ofn given by Antiphon and the othersunderstands the being ofthe ng via a reference to beings (theelemental). This procedure of explaining beingthrough beingsinstead of understanding beings from being results in theaforementioned

misunderstanding of the character ofi and the one-sidedinterpretation of. Accordingly,

because Antiphons doctrine in no way reaches the proper area forthinking about being, [ 273]Aristotle obviously must reject thisconception ofn as he makes the transition to his ownproperinterpretation ofn. We read:

XII. Consequently, in one way n is spoken of as follows: it iswhat primarily andantecedently underlies each single thing as theorder-able for beings that have in themselves

the origin and ordering of movedness and thus of change. But inthe other way, [n isaddressed] as the placing into the form, i.e.,as the appearance, (namely, that) which shows

itself for our addressing of it. (193 a 28-31)

We read and are astonished, for the sentence begins with ,consequently. The transitionexpresses no rejection of theaforementioned doctrine. On the contrary, the doctrine isobviously

taken over, albeit with the stricture that in it we find only k,one way of understanding theessence ofn, namely as (matter). gk k,the other way, which Aristotledevelops in the following sections,conceives of n as kn (form). In this distinctionbetween and kn(matter and form) we quite easily recognize the distinction thatwepreviously discussed: kkkh, that which is primarily unstructured,and kh,structure. But Aristotle does not simply replace Antiphonsdistinction with that of and kn.Antiphon considered kh (structure)only as something unstable that happens to attachitselfincidentally to what alone is stable, to what is unstructured(matter); but for Aristotle, according to

the thesis we have just read, kn too has the distinction ofdetermining the essence n. Bothinterpretations ofn are given equalrank, and this offers the possibility of constructing adoubleconcept ofn. But in line with this, the first task incumbentupon us is to show that kn is theproper characteristic of theessence ofn.

This is the way it seems at first glance, but in fact everythingshapes up quite differently. The

Skn distinction is not simply another formula for kkhS kh.Rather, it lifts

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the question ofn onto an entirely new level where precisely theunasked question about thei-character of [274] n gets answered, andwhere n for the first time is adequatelyconceived as , a kind ofpresencing. This likewise implies that, despite appearances tothecontrary, the aforementioned theory of Antiphon is rejected withthe sharpest kind of refutation. We

can see all this with sufficient clarity only if we understandthe now emerging distinction between

Skn in an Aristotelian S i.e., GreekS sense and do not lose thisunderstanding again rightaway. We are constantly on the verge oflosing it because the distinction between matter and

form is a common road that Western thinking has traveled forcenturies now. The distinction

between content and form passes for the most obvious of allthings obvious. Therefore, why should

not the Greeks, too, have already thought according to thisschema? mSknwas translatedby the Romans as materia and forma. Withthe interpretation implied in this translation the

distinction was carried over into the Middle Ages and moderntimes. Kant understands it as the

distinction between matter and form, which he explains as thedistinction between the

determinable and its determination. (Cf. The Critique of PureReason, The Amphiboly of

Concepts of Reflection, A 266 = B 322). With this we reach thepoint farthest removed from

Aristotles Greek distinction.

m in the ordinary sense means forest, thicket, the woods inwhich the hunter hunts.But it likewise means the woods that yieldwood as construction material. From this, comes tomean material forany and every kind of building and production. By having recourseto the

original meaning of words (as one likes to do) we are supposedto have demonstrated that means the same as material. Yes, exceptthat on closer inspection it is only that the crucial questionnowobtrudes for the first time. Ifmeans materialforproduction, thenthe determination ofthe essence of this so-called material dependson the interpretation of production. But surely

kn does not mean production. Rather, it means shape, and theshape is precisely the forminto which the material is brought byimprinting and molding, i.e., by the act of forming.

[275] Yes, except that fortunately Aristotle himself tells ushow he thinks kn, and hedoes so in the very sentence thatintroduces this concept that is so crucial for hisn-interpretation: knigi: kn, and this means g that isin accordancewith the o. kn must be understood from g, and g must be

understood in relation to o. But g (which Plato also expressedas ) and o nameconcepts that, under the titles idea and ratio(reason), indicate fundamental positions taken by

Western humanity that are just as equivocal and just as removedfrom the Greek origin as are

matter and form. Nonetheless we must try to reach the original.means the appearance ofa thing and of a being in general, butappearance in the sense of the aspect, the looks, the view,

, that it offers and can offer only because the being has beenput forth into this appearance and,standing in it, is present ofand by itself -- in a word, is. is the seen, but not in the sensethatit becomes such only through our seeing. Rather, is whatsomething visible offers to our seeing;it is what offers a view; itis the sightable. But Plato, overwhelmed as it were by the essenceofg,understood it in turn as something independently present andtherefore as something common

(i) to the individual beings that stand in such an appearance.In this way individuals, assubordinate to the as that whichproperly is, were displaced into the role of non-beings.

As against this, Aristotle demands that we see that theindividual beings in any given instance

(this house here and that mountain there) are not at allnon-beings, but indeed beings insofar as they

put themselves forth into the appearance of house and mountainand so first place this appearance

into presencing. In other words, g is genuinely understood as gonly when it appears withinthe horizon of ones immediate addressingof a being, gi. In each case the

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12Das Jeweilige heit so, weil es als Geeinzeltes im Aussehenverweilt und desse Weile(Anwesung) verwahrt . . . etc. (Translatorsnote.)

statement immediately addresses a this and a that as this andthat, i.e., as having such and such an

appearance. The clue by which we can understand g and so also kn[276] is o.Therefore, in interpreting the ensuing determination ofthe essence ofkn as g, we mustwatch whether and to what extentAristotle himself follows this clue. In anticipation we cansay:

kn is appearance, more precisely, the act of standing in andplacing itself into the appearance;in general, kn means: placinginto the appearance. Therefore, in what follows when we speaksimplyof appearance, we always have in mind the appearance as (andinsofar as) it puts itselfforth

into a given thing that is there for a while (for example, theappearance table that puts itself

forth into this table here). We call an individual thing dasJeweilige, that which is there awhile

because as an individual thing it stays for a while in itsappearance and preserves the while (the

presencing) of this appearance,12 and, by preserving theappearance, stands forth in it and out of it

S which means that it is in the Greek sense of the word.

By translating kn as placing into the appearance, we mean toexpress initially two thingsthat are of equal importance to thesense of the Greek term but that are thoroughly lacking in our

word form. First, placing into the appearance is a mode ofpresencing, . kn is not anontic property present in matter, but away ofbeing. Secondly, placing into the appearance is

movedness, i, which moment is radically lacking in the conceptof form.

But this reference to the Greek way of understanding the meaningofkn in no way

constitutes a demonstration of what Aristotle has undertaken toshow, namely, that n itself,according to a second way of addressingit, is kn. This demonstration, which takes up the restof thechapter, goes through various stages in such a way that each stagelifts the task of the

demonstration one level higher. The demonstration begins in thisway:

XIII. Just as we (loosely) call by the name those thingsproduced according to such a know-how, as well as whatever belongsto those kinds of beings, so too we (loosely) designate as

n whatever is according to n and hence belongs to beings of thiskind. But on theother hand, just as we would [277] never say thatsomething behaves (and is present) in

accordance with , or that is there, when something is a bedsteadmerely in terms

of appropriateness (g) but in fact does not at all have theappearance of the bedstead,so neither would we proceed that way inaddressing something that has composed itself into

a stand by way ofn. Whatever is flesh and bone only in terms ofappropriateness doesnot have the n that appertains to it until itachieves the appearance that we refer to inaddressing the thing andthat we delineate when we say what flesh or bone is; nor is

(something that is merely appropriate) already a being from n.(193 a 31 S b 3)

How are these sentences supposed to prove that kn goes to makeup the essence ofn?Nothing is said about kn at all. On thecontrary, Aristotle begins the demonstration in a whollyextrinsicway with a reference to a way of speaking, one that in fact westill use. For example, we

may say of a painting by Van Gogh, This is art, or, when we seea bird of prey circling above the

forest, That is nature. In such language use we take a beingthat, properly considered, is

something by virtue of and on the basis of art, and we call thisvery thing itself art. For after all,

the painting is not art but a work of art, and the bird of preyis not nature but a natural being. Yet this

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manner of speaking manifests something essential. When do we sayso emphatically, This is art?

Not just when some piece of canvas hangs there smeared with dabsof color, not even when we have

just any old painting there in front of us, but only when abeing that we encounter steps forth

preeminently into the appearance of a work of art, only when abeing is insofar as it places itself into

such an appearance. And the same holds when we say, That isnature Sn. Therefore, this wayof speaking attests to the fact thatwe find what is n-like only where we come upon aplacinginto theappearance, i.e., only where there is kn. Thus kn constitutes theessence ofn,or at least co-constitutes it.

[278] Yet the demonstration that such is the case is supportedonly by our way of speaking.

And here Aristotle gives a splendid, if questionable, examplebefitting a philosophy based simply

on linguistic usage. This is what someone today might say if hewere ignorant of what o andgmean in Greek. However, to find thedirection needed to avoid misreading, and in order thatour thinkinggrasp the essence ofo, we need only recall the Greek definition ofthe essence ofthe human being as . We can S in fact, we must Stranslate hkS as: the human being is the living entity to whom thewordbelongs. Instead of wordwe can even say language, provided wethink the nature of language adequately and originally,

namely, from the essence ofo correctly understood. Thedetermination of the essence of thehuman being that became commonthrough the definitions hom*o: animal rationale and the human

being: the rational animal, does not mean that the human beinghas the faculty of speech as

one property among others, but rather that the distinguishingcharacteristic of the essence of thehuman being consists in thefact that one has, and holds oneself in, o.

What does omean? In the language of Greek mathematics the word omeans thesame as relation and proportion. Or we say analogy, takenas correspondence, and by this

we mean a definite kind of relation, a relation of relations;but with the word correspondence we

do not think of language and speech. Linguistic usage inmathematics, and partially in philosophy,

holds on to something of the original meaning ofo.o belongs tog, which means andis the same as the German word lesen,to collector to gather (as in to gather grapes or grain at

the harvest). But still, nothing is yet gained by establishingthat gmeans to collect. Despitecorrect reference to root meanings,one can still misconstrue the genuine content of the Greekword

and understand the concept ofo incorrectly by adhering to themeaning that has been prevalentup until now.

[279]To collect, to gather, means: to bring various dispersedthings together into a unity,

and at the same time to bring this unityforth and hand itover(k). Into what? Into the unhiddenof presencing [k = ()]. gmeans to bring together into a unity and tobringforth this unity asgathered, i.e., above all as present; thus it means the same as toreveal what

was formerly hidden, to let it be manifest in its presencing.Thus according to Aristotle the essence

of an assertion is n: letting be seen, from the being itself,what and how the being is. Healso calls this , the act ofrevealing. In so doing, Aristotle is not giving a specialtheoryofo, but only preserves what the Greeks always recognized asthe essence ofg. Fragment93 of Heracl*tus shows this magnificently:, ggn, gggikgg. The philologists (e.g., Diels, Snell) translate:The lord whose oracleis at Delphi says nothing, does not speak anddoes not conceal, but gives a sign. This translation

deprives Heracl*tus saying of its basic content and itsauthentic Heracl*tean tension and resistance.

gg, gikg: here the word g is opposed to ikg, to conceal, and forthisreason we must translate it as to unconceal, i.e., to reveal.The oracle does not directly unconceal

nor does it simply conceal, but it points out. This means: itunconceals while it conceals, and it

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conceals while it unconceals. [For how this g is related to oand for what o means toHeracl*tus, cf. fragments 1 and 2 andothers.]

In the Greek definition of the essence of the human being, gandomean the relationon the basis of which what is present gathersitself for the first time as such around and for human

beings. And only because human beings are insofar as they relateto beings as beings, unconcealing

and concealing them, can they and must they have the word, i.e.,speak of the being of beings. But

the words that language uses are only fragments that haveprecipitated out of the word, [280] and

from them humans can never find their way to beings or find thepath back to them, unless it be on

the basis ofg. Of itselfg has nothing to do with saying and withlanguage. Nonetheless,ifthe Greeks conceive of speaking as g, thenthis implies an interpretation of the essence ofword and sayingwhich is so unique that no later philosophy of language can everbegin to imagine

its as yet unplumbed depths. Only when language has been debasedto a means of commerce and

organization, as is the case with us, does thought rooted inlanguage appear to be a mere philosophy

of words, no longer adequate to the pressing realities of life.This judgment is simply an

admission that we ourselves no longer have the power to trustthat the word is the essential

foundation of all relations to beings as such.

But why do we lose ourselves in this wide-ranging digressioninto an explanation of the

essence ofo when our question is about the essence ofn? Answer:in order to make clear

that when Aristotle appeals to gh he is not relying extraneouslyon some linguistic usagebut is thinking out of the original andfundamental relation to beings. Thus this seeminglysuperficialbeginning to the demonstration regains its properimport: if beings having in themselves the origin

and ordering of their movedness are experienced by means ofg,then as a result kn itselfand not just (not to mention kkh) unveilsitself as the n-character of these beings.To be sure, Aristotledoes not show this directly but rather in a way that clarifies theconcept opposed

to kn, a concept that has gone unexplained until now: . We donot say, That is n whenthere are only flesh and bones lying around.They are to a living entity what wood is to a bedstead:

mere matter. Then does mean matter? But let us ask again: Whatdoes matter mean?Does it mean just raw material? No, Aristotlecharacterizes as g. meansthe capacity, or better, theappropriateness for.... The wood present in the workshop [281] isin a state

of appropriateness for a table. But it is not just any wood thathas the character of appropriatenessfor a table; rather, only thiswood, selected and cut to order. But the selection and the cut,i.e., the

very character of appropriateness, is decided in terms of theproduction of what is to be

produced. But to produce means, both in Greek and in theoriginal sense of the German

Herstellen, toplace something, as finished and as looking thusand so,forth, into presencing. mis the appropriate orderable, thatwhich, like flesh and bones, belongs to a being that has in itselfthe

origin and ordering of its movedness. But only in being placedinto the appearance is a being what

and how it is in any given case. Thus Aristotle canconclude:

XIV. For this reason (then), n would be, in another way, theplacing into the appearance inthe case ofthose beings that have inthemselves the origin and ordering of their movedness.

Of course, the placing and the appearance do not stand off bythemselves; rather, it is only

in a given being that they can be pointed out by addressingthem. However, that which takes

its stand from these (i.e., from the orderable and from theplacing) is certainly not nitself, although it is a ng-being S suchas, for example, a human being. (193 b 3-6)

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These sentences do not simply recapitulate the already proventhesis, namely, that n can bespoken of in two ways. Much moreimportant is the emphasis given to the crucial thought thatn,spoken of in two ways, is not a being but a mode ofbeing.Therefore, Aristotle again presses home

the point: the appearance and the placing into the appearan