Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy

CHAPTER TWO Interpretation of the Cultivation of the Concept of κίνησις as a Radical Grasping of the Interpretedness of Being-There

CHAPTER TWO Interpretation of the Cultivation of the Concept of κίνησις as a Radical Grasping of the Interpretedness of Being-There§25. The Aristotelian Physics as ἀρχή-Research: Orientation toward the First Two Books The interpretedness that itself prevails in being-there, where the latter is determined by προαίρεσις, stands under the possibility of being grasped, in the sense that the world is genuinely considered in its being-there, and being-inthe -world can be examined with respect to what it is. In relation to the interpretedness of being-there itself, there is a ἕξις of ἀληθεύειν, a possibility of existing truthfully, implicit in which truthfulness is the interpretedness and transparency of being-there itself. The interpretedness of being-there is conveyed by λόγος: idle chatter, the “way in which one speaks about things,” is authoritative for the world-conception itself. We have attempted to understand why speaking is characterized as διανοεῖσθαι, διαλέγεσθαι: since being-there is determined by ἡδονή, everything is apprehended as this or that, as “conducive to . . . ,” συμφέρον—apprehended in a primary way, not theoretically. The average way of speaking and apprehending is διανοεῖσθαι. Only in contrast to this average speaking (λέγειν τι κατά τινος), can the ἕξις as ἀληθεύειν assert itself. The λόγος καθ’ αὑτό addresses beings “in themselves.” It posits the beings that are there, not in some alien respect, but rather derives from itself the respects in which the beings that are there are to be considered. This λόγος that addresses from itself the beings in their being is the ὁρισμός. According to the basic determinations of being as being-produced and look, it has the following structure: beings are addressed in themselves with respect to that from which they have descended, γένος, and within their descent, they are addressed with respect to what they are, εἶδος. The entire being-context of the γένος and εἶδος is the τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι: τί ἦν = γένος, τὸ εἶναι = εἶδος. Insofar as beings are posited in the respects from which they are determined, research is thereby bound to set forth this from-out-of-which. This from-out-of-which is the ἀρχαί. The ἀρχαί are the basic respects in which concrete being-there is seen in itself and made explicit. Insofar as the ἕξις of ἀληθεύειν is put into effect, this means that 193§25. The Aristotelian Physics as ἀρχή-Research [284–285] λόγος becomes such that it advances to the ἀρχαί. The concrete fulfillment of the ἕξις is ἐπιστήμη, and the “science” that has to do with the ἀρχαί is πρώτη φιλοσοφία, or more concisely: σοφία. A distinctive research that does not scrutinize beings as to their concrete determinations but rather sets forth the basic respects, is guided by the question: τί τὸ ὄν? “What are beings as beings? What is being?” Such an ἀρχή-research as a possibility in being-there itself lies before us in that which we know as the Aristotelian Physics. In Book 3, Aristotle characterizes this research as μέθοδος περὶ φύσεως.1 The investigation is περὶ φύσεως, not περὶ τῶν φύσει ὄντων, not “about those beings that are determined by the way of being of φύσις,” but rather about φύσις itself, about the being of these beings. In order to understand the context of the Physics, by way of Aristotelian ontology, the following must be held to from the outset: research that treats of φύσις is nothing other than the obtaining of the primary categories that Aristotle subsequently develops in his ontology. Φύσις is characterized as ἀρχὴ κινήσεως καὶ μεταβολῆς.2 It is appropriate to make use of the more precise expression, μεταβολή. If φύσις is to be clarified, then that of which it is ἀρχή must itself be clarified. “What movement itself is is not to be concealed.”3 Here Aristotle speaks from the recollection of the preceding books of the Physics, to which we must briefly orient ourselves, and whose context I am supplying. At the moment that Aristotle begins the investigation of φύσις, he is already operating within a determinate interpretedness of nature. During the years of his studying and teaching, there were definite conceptions of nature known to him, which he believed did not hit upon the beings that they interpreted . If these beings are to be interpreted, it depends upon deconstructing the interpretedness that disguises them, exposing them in the way that they are themselves intended, even in earlier conceptions. In other words, the first step of such ἀρχή-research is critique, in the sense that what was always already interpreted, what was already seen in early conceptions, is to be brought to its genuine rightfulness, to transparency. Critique is nothing other than the bringing-to-itself of the past. Thus ἀρχή-research is at once research about access : it opens the path to what is intended. Aristotle carries through this ἀρχή-research itself in Book 1 of his Physics. This critique appears immediately to be pressed into an entirely peculiar...