Whose Metaphysics of Presence - Heidegger's Interpretation of Energeia and Dunamis in Aristotle

The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol.
XLIV
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heideggers Interpretation of Energeia and Dunamis in Aristotle

Francisco J. Gonzalez Skidmore College
Abstract
I n t h e recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe d e r aristotelischen Philosophie, M a r t i n Heidegger offers a d e t a i l e d interpretation of Aristotles definition of kinesis i n t h e Physics. This i n t e r p r e t a t i o n identifies entelecheia w i t h w h a t i s finished a n d present-at-an-end and energeia with being-at-work toward this end. In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts to show t h a t Aristotle interpreted being from t h e perspective of praxis r a t h e r t h a n poiesis a n d t h e r e f o r e did not identify i t w i t h s t a t i c presence. The paper also challenges l a t e r variations of Heideggers i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , i n p a r t i c u l a r h i s account of d u n a m i s i n t h e 1931 course on Metaphysics Theta, which insists t h a t its mode of being is presence-at-hand. By arguing t h a t this reading too is untenable, t h e paper concludes t h a t Aristotles metaphysics is not a metaphysics of presence a n d t h a t h i s t e x t s i n s t e a d point toward a possibility of metaphysics ignored by t h e a t t e m p t s of Heidegger a n d o t h e r s t o overcome it.
j e trouve chez Aristote ... de quoi reengendrer l a metaphysique. Celle-ci n e me p a r a i t donc pas close, j e dirais plut8t quelle me parait inexploree.. .. -Paul Ricoeur
Central to Martin Heideggers interpretation of the Greeks, and therefore to his account of the whole history of metaphysics, is the thesis that for the Greeks being meant presence. This interpretation has been extremely influential, provoking many and diverse attempts to overcome what has come to be called
Francisco J. Gonzalez i s associate professor a n d chair of t h e Department of Philosophy a t Skidmore College. He i s the author of :Dialectic a n d Dialogue: Platos Practice of Philosophical I n q u i r y (Northwestern University Press, 1998) and has recently completed a book entitled A Question o f Dialogue: Heidegger and Plato.
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Francisco J. Gonzalez the metaphysics of presence. Yet I have elsewhere attempted t o show that this thesis is untenable in the case of Plato,2 and my aim in the present paper is to show t h a t i t is equally untenable in t h e case of Aristotle. The crucial text is Heideggers recently published SS 1924 course, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen P h i l o ~ o p h i eI. t~ is here t h a t Heidegger provides the most thorough argument and textual exegesis in support of his thesis t h a t being in Aristotle means presence. This thesis t h e n underlies, and is further defended in, Heideggers reading of Aristotle in later texts, most notably in the 1931 course Aristoteles, Metaphysik 0 1-3: Vom Wesen und Wirklichkeit der K r ~ f tand , ~ i n t h e essay, Vom Wesen und Begriff der @>6ois, written in 1939.5A critical reading of these texts promises nothing less than the recovery of possibilities for metaphysics that the Heideggerian history of Being must ignore and exclude.6
1.
Heidegger often cites the ordinary, pre-philosophical meaning of t h e Greek word for being, oiroia, as a n indication t h a t t h e Greeks understood being as presence. Heidegger expresses this meaning in the 1924 course as follows: means [Vermogenl, possessions and goods [Hub und G u t ] , t h e household [der Hausstand],the estate [dasAnwesen](GA 18, 345). Heidegger emphasizes that the ordinary meaning thus not only intends a specific being as the genuine or exemplary being, that is, ones own goods or possessions, but also expresses the how of this beings being: i t s being available (uerfiigbar), usable (brauchbar),and in this way there for us. Therefore, if we take the ordinary meaning of oiroia as a clue to what being meant for the Greeks, as Heidegger suggests (24), then we can infer that the Greeks understood being as being-there, being-at-hand, being-present. Furthermore, if t h i s ordinary meaning is preserved in the philosophical meaning, if the philosophical meaning only makes explicit and thematic what is connoted (mitgemeint)in the ordinary meaning (25-7, 3461, then we can conclude that Aristotle too in using the word oiroia understood thereby presence. But can we legitimately read a philosophical conception of being into the ordinary use of the word oiroia? Can we assume t h a t this ordinary meaning is retained in the otherwise very different, technical philosophical meaning? After all, when Aristotle analyzes the different meanings of oiroia i n Metaphysics Z, goods or possessions is not among them. Though Heidegger in later texts sometimes invokes the prephilosophical meaning of oiroia as if i t were some kind of evidence for his thesis concerning the conception of being in Greek philosophy, in 1924 he is much more careful. Thus in
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heideggers manuscript for the course we find the following important warning regarding the interpretation of oiroia:The ordinary meaning as guideline. Beware! I t could have disappeared. Only when there is a comprehensive examination of these indications. Otherwise easily dilettante. Mere semblance of depth. Precisely here one must take into consideration t h e fate and historicity of every language (GA 18, 345). Heidegger thus makes it very clear that the technical meaning of oiroia cannot be simply deduced from the ordinary meaning, that the latter can at most serve as a guideline Weitfaden) (345; see also 24 and 26). Heidegger therefore recognizes the need to demonstrate that moments of the ordinary meaning of oiroia, in particular t h e connotations of H a b and A n w e s e n , a r e still present in Aristotles technical use of the term (26). One way in which Heidegger attempts t o demonstrate this is by showing that the different forms of being (Seinscharaktere), or rather the different ways of being (Wie des Seins) Aristotle presents in Metaphysics A 8 all signify, with greater or lesser transparency, a there of beings [Da d e s Seiendenl (350; see 348-50 a n d 29-34). For t h e purpose of t h e present paper, however, I will focus on the sense of being I take to pose the greatest challenge to what Heidegger wishes t o demonstrate: the sense of being t h a t cuts through the senses discussed at Metaphysics A 8, a sense of being expressed in two words that Heidegger himself will come t o consider the most fundamental words for being in A r i ~ t o t l e CvTE)\&Eia :~ and C v i p y E i a . That Heidegger in the 1924 course translates 6vTEhEXEia when i t first makes i t s appearance as Gegenwart, Gegenwartigsein eines Seienden als Ende (296) should not surprise us, since this is precisely the translation he needs to maintain the identification of h T E ? d x E i a with presence. Yet the context is precisely the one best suited to show the untenability of t h i s translation. This context is t h e account of motion ( K ~ V ~ O I in S ) the first three chapters of Physics r, an account to which Heidegger devotes the last part of the 1924 course. He t u r n s t o t h i s account because he believes t h a t K ~ V T ) C S I S constitutes the genuine there-character o f being (287). What this means will become apparent if we t u r n to Heideggers translatiodinterpretation of the definition of motion Aristotle offers i n t h e first chapter of Physics r, 201a10-11: fi TOG 6 V V a p E I dV TO 5 h T E h i X E I U , Ifi TOIOGTOV, KiVQOiS h T I V . Heidegger, adopting the translation of h T E h & E i a already mentioned, initially translates t h e whole sentence thus: motion is t h e being-present [Gegenwart] of what is capable of being-there as such (313; see also 315). An immediately apparent problem with this translation lies precisely in the word Gegenwart. A piece of wood can be present as something capable of being, for example, capable of being made into a table, without thereby being in motion. Yet Heidegger oddly insists that such presence
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is motion. Insofar as it is there, the piece of wood is in motion. Insofar as it is genuinely there as capable-of-being-a-box, it is in motion (313). Essential t o understanding this very strange S significance claim is Heideggers identification of K ~ V ~ C J Iwith or Bedeutsamkeit. This is made especially clear in Heideggers manuscript, where we read: Kivqois is the There of the from ... to ... as such (ist das Da des von ... zu ... als solchen, 376). The piece of wood is there as significant, that is, as something to be used for a house or as something from which a box can be S made: this is its Bedeutsamkeit. But this is also the K ~ V ~ C J Ithat Heidegger sees as constituting the genuine being-there of being. The piece of wood sitting there is in motion in the sense of referring beyond itself, signifying something, and this is the K~V~CJI that S Aristotle is making manifest in his definition. One could of course object t h a t what is significant in Heideggers sense, such as the piece of wood in his example, is a t r e s t , while what Aristotle is trying t o define is not r e s t (ipEDia), which he characterizes as the aKivqoia of what is capable of being moved (202a4-5), but rather the opposite of rest (229b23-26; 264a27-28): K ~ V ~ O Iin S the sense of alteration, growth and decay, generation and destruction, and movement in place (201all-15). Furthermore, K ~ V ~ O Iin S this sense is not simply the being-present of the capable as capable, but t h e actual exercise, a c t i v a t i o n , of t h e capable as capable; for example, it is not simply the presence of the wood as buildable, b u t t h e actual exercise of t h i s potential i n t h e activity of building. Heidegger acknowledges this possible objection (314) but dismisses i t as a n illusion (Tuuschung) by drawing our attention to the phenomenon of rest. When the carpenter goes to lunch and leaves what he is building uncompleted, the wood is at rest. But rest is something that can characterize only what is capable of being in motion: rest thus preserves, rather than eliminates, a things motion as its way of being: Rest is only a Zimit-case of motion (314). The way in which this answers the objection Heidegger faces is apparently this: Bedeutsamkeit can indeed characterize something at rest, something not presently being put t o work, but what is thus at rest still has motion as its way of being. Thus the identification of Bedeutsamkeit and K ~ V ~ C S is I S preserved by way of an identification of both with rest. Thus in Heideggers manuscript we read the following: Rest as the way of being-there [Da-Weisel of what is in motion as a n object of concern in the world [des Besorgten der Welt]. Only thus is significance [Bedeutsamkeitl fully determined (379).8 One can now understand why Heidegger gives such importance to the discovery of the phenomenon of rest as the way of being of most of the beings we encounter and deal with in the world: As far as I know, no one has ever brought into consideration this moment of rest (314). But even if we admit the unity of motion and rest t o which Heidegger draws our attention, is it
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not still important to explain the difference? While the explicit S to explain this purpose of Aristotles definition of K ~ V ~ U I is difference, Heideggers interpretation prevents it from doing so. Specifically-and t h i s is what is crucial-in translating iv-rEhEXEia as Gegenwart and thereby making K ~ V ~ U I a S kind of being-present, Heidegger blocks access to the phenomenon of K ~ V ~ U I as S distinct from rest. Heideggers interpretation is strikingly similar to that of the philosophers whom Aristotle describes as explaining K ~ V ~ U in IS Heidegger ~~). himself suggests the terms of otherness ( i ~ ~ p 6 - r possibility t h a t these philosophers saw ~ T E P ~ T as~ S a characteristic a being has in itself in the sense that a being in itself has the possibility of being from ... t o ..., of being characterized with regard to a certain determination by the absence of this determination. Does not i - r ~ p 6 - r ~ th )e ~n in t h i s case determine the being of being-in-motion? (317). The problem, of course, is t h a t Aristotle rejects this interpretation of K ~ V ~ U I S because, in Heideggers own paraphrase, Wood can be a box and is there as wood-determined in itself through ~ T E ~ ~ T Q S and yet not determined as moving (384). It is as if Heidegger in proceeding through the text has suddenly encountered a resurrected Aristotle telling him his interpretation will not stand. Heidegger nevertheless refuses to see defeat here a n d instead joins Aristotle in rejecting the explanation of motion as C T E P ~ T ~ S .However, he can do so only by suggesting t h a t the problem with t h i s explanation is i t s failure to include t h e moment of being-present (Gegenwartigsein)(318, 384). It is not enough for something to be characterized by otherness or difference in order for it to be in motion: this otherness or difference must be present. Heideggers interpretation is thus saved because i t included presence along with Bedeutsamkeit as essential dimensions of K ~ V ~ U I S Yet . the distance here between Heidegger and Aristotle is made clear by the fact that Aristotles objection to the thesis that K ~ V ~ U I is S ~ T E P ~has T ~nothing S to do with its failure to take presence into account. Instead, his objections are that what is other is not necessarily moved and that movement occurs not from and t o what is other, but rather between contraries (Physics 201b21-24). In other words, Aristotle appeals not to the phenomenon of presence, but to the phenomenon of motion itself. This again shows t h a t i t is Heidegger who is reading presence into t h e text. Furthermore, Aristotles objection explicitly rejects as a characteristic of K ~ V ~ U Iprecisely S what Heidegger wants to identify it with: the structure of being f r o d t o what is other. In other words, what characterizes K ~ V ~ U I S is the relation of contraries and not Bedeutsamkeit. A little later in t h e course Heidegger again appears to S he insists: undermine his own interpretation of K ~ V ~ U I when One should not simply say: Kivquis is simply the ivfpyEia of 537
what is capable. What is capable is not as such moved (320). Yet Heidegger now appears to move towards a different account of motion: What is in possibility comes t o its proper end in being put t o work [In-Arbeit-Sein], it is then genuinely what it is, namely, being-capable. In relation to the Epyov of noiqai~, however, it is not finished [nicht fertig] (321). Why this shift now in Heideggers account from defining motion in terms of Gegenwart t o defining it in terms of In-Arbeit-Sein? The main reason is that Heidegger by this point in the course has come to Aristotles characterization of K ~ V ~ O as I S incomplete (aTiAq$). This is clearly a characteristic of K ~ V ~ O that IS Heideggers earlier interpretation cannot account for: what is at r e s t and gegenwurtig in its significance need not be ax-riAqs but, on the contrary, can be finished a n d complete. If we saw t h a t Heideggers earlier characterization of K ~ V ~ C S was IS unable t o capture what is distinctive of K ~ V ~ C J as I S opposed to rest, we can now say that this is incompleteness, the state of being neither fully potential nor fully actual: and this is precisely the difficult I S Aristotle is trying to explain. indeterminacy of K ~ V ~ Othat But how can Heidegger feel justified in now changing his interpretation, specifically, in replacing Gegenwart with InArbeit-Sein? The reason is t h a t he thinks he finds such a distinction in Aristotle himself, a s he makes clear i n t h e following remark: Insofar as Being ultimately means Being-atits-end, Holding-itself-in-its-end in a final sense, ivTEhiXEia, Aristotle, when he speaks with care, must characterize t h e being [Daseinl of being-in-motion as i v i p y ~ i a (321).9What Heidegger is assuming here is a distinction between ivTE AiXEia as being-present-at-an-end a n d i v i p y E i a as being-at-worktowards-an-end. This distinction then allows him to grant that the definition of motion as ivTEAiXEia is not fully adequate, since motion is CXTEA~S,and that Aristotle would be more careful if he were to characterize motion as ivipyEia in the sense of an incomplete being-at-work. But what grounds are there for this sharp distinction between 2vipyEia and iv-rEAiXEia?O And is InArbeit-Sein an adequate translation of the ivipyEia that defines motion? Let us consider the second question first. This translation of i v i p y E i a is of course suggested by the etymology of the term. Yet, a s Heidegger well knows, etymology by itself can prove nothing. Furthermore, Heideggers etymological account is questionable on two main points. (1) He takes the word Epyov t o mean work, whether in the sense of working, as here, or in the sense of the work, the finished product, which, as we will see, is how Heidegger interprets the word in later texts (these two related meanings, for example, a r e the only ones recognized in the 1931 course [GA 33, 501). But are either or both of these interpretations fully adequate interpretations of Zpyov? To see that they are not, one need only recall the use of 538
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? the word in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics: to say that the Epyov of man is the souls i v i p y e i a in accordance with reason [KaTa A6yovI (1098a7) is not t o say t h a t this is the work man does nor that it is something produced by man; this is why the translation of function is sometimes chosen. Note also how in this part of the Nicomachean Ethics the Epyov is argued to be a n 6vdpyEia with no sense of redundancy. (2) Therefore, the other problem with Heideggers reading is that it tends t o reduce ivdpyEia to Epyov: as being-at-work it is work; as standing in the work produced, it is the work produced.12 Heideggers translation has indeed more than etymology to recommend it: it is certainly better to characterize motion as a putting-to-work of a capability than i t is to characterize it as the mere being-present of this capability. Yet this translation confronts a serious philosophical problem: i t collapses t h e distinction between ivipyEia and Kivqois. Being-at-work towards an unachieved end is itself a motion, so that t o define i v i p y a a thus is necessarily to turn it into a motion. Heidegger indeed characterizes i v i p y E i a , i n distinction from ivTEAiXEia, as U nf e r t ig s e i n ( 3 8 1) , d a s No ch - n i c h t - fe r t i g ( 382 ) , thereby identifying it with motion not only implicitly but at one point in the course explicitly: ivipyEia is KivqoiS, but not ivTEhiXEia (296).13Yet such an identification is untenable for two reasons. (1)Aristotles definition of motion would become viciously circular, since it would amount to saying: motion is t h e putting-in-motion of what is capable qua capable. Of course, as Heidegger would be quick t o point out, in philosophy, circles are not always vicious. But while some circular reasoning can be illuminating, a definition of motion a s the putting-intomotion of what is capable of motion illuminates o r reveals nothing at all.14(2) The second problem is that, in a well-known text from the Metaphysics (0 6, 1048b18-35), Aristotle sharply S because distinguishes between i v i p y a a and K ~ V ~ O Iprecisely the latter is ~ I T E A Iwhile ~S the former is And it is imporS an 6vipyEia tant t o emphasize that the definition of K ~ V ~ O Ias does not at all contradict their distinction. The ivipyEia that defines motion is not itself an incomplete process towards some end but, rather, the full actuality a n d completion of what is capable insofar a s it is capable. It is the qualification insofar as it is capable that explains the incompleteness of motion and not anything in i v i p y E i a itself, as Aristotle explicitly says: K~VTJCJIS, though a kind of ivipyEia, is incomplete [ ~ T E A I ~The S]. cause of i t s being incomplete is the capable [ ~ 6b u v a ~ 6 v lof .which it is the ivipyEia (Phys. 2, 201b31-33).16 This is why the definition is not circular: ivipyEia in itself is not motion17 nor is the capable q u a capable in itself motion: only the ivipyEia of the capable qua capable is motion. This is also why Aristotle a t one point can even, with no h i n t of paradox, AE I j s (257b8-9), a characterize motion a s a n ivTEAiXEia ~ I T 539
characterization t h a t of course defeats t h e whole point of Heideggers distinction between ivTEAiXEia and i v i p y a a . We can now draw an important conclusion: the key term in , it be ivTEAiXEia or i v i p y E i a , the definition of K ~ V Q C J I Twhether can mean neither Gegenwartigsein nor an unfertiges im-ArbeitSein: the former interpretation eliminates the phenomenon of K~VQOIS altogether by substituting for it the mere presence of a capability, while the latter interpretation leaves it completely unexplained by simply defining it as itself. But these inadequate interpretations of ivTEAiXEia or ivipyEia rest on the sharp distinction Heidegger makes between them. Only by being sharply distinguished from ivipyEia can ivTEAiXEia be rid of any connotation of activity and be identified with Gegenwart, Gegenwartigsein eines Seienden als Ende and Fertigsein (296); only by being sharply distinguished from ivTEAiXEia can i v i p y a a be characterized as an incomplete movement towards a T ~ A O S . It is therefore this distinction that fails to make sense of Aristotles account of motion, a n account in which the terms ivTEAiXEia and ivipyEia are used interchangeably. What justification, then, does Heidegger provide for making such a distinction? Before looking at this justification we need to reflect on why Heidegger needs a sharp distinction between ivTEAiXEia and ivipyeia. As already noted, one of Heideggers principle aims in this discussion is to demonstrate that for Aristotle, and for the Greeks in general, Being was understood as presence and, more specifically, as a static presence. To support this interpretation he must argue t h a t Aristotles word for being in the fullest sense, that is, ivTEAiXEia, means being-present-once-and-for-all, being-at-an-end, being-finished. But the only way in which he can interpret ivTEAiXEia in this way is to sharply distinguish it from i v i p y a a and interpret the latter in a way that completely subordinates it t o the former: as movement towards being-atan-end, being-finished. The conclusion t h a t Heidegger t h u s wishes t o arrive a t is clearly stated in the following passage from his manuscript for the course:
T h e How of t h e T h e r e ( D a ) of something: how does being-atwork [In-Arbeit-sein] arrive at this ontological-hermeneutical precedence? Because being=being-produced [Sein=Hergestelltsein], There=being-present [Da=Anwesendsein], being-finished [Fertigsein], having-come-into t h e Now [Hersein i n J e t z t ] , i n t o p r e s e n c e [Gegenwart]; in being-present-before [Gegenwartigsein] , being-inpossession-of-the-there [Da-Habendsein], remaining-there with [Sichaufhalten bei]. ... (381)
But what becomes of this conclusion if ivTEAiXEia and ivipyEia a r e synonyms? I t simply collapses. If i v n A i X E i a means t h e same a s i v i p y E i a , t h e n as activity i t cannot mean w h a t is
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simply present (schlechthin gegenwartig), what is f i n i s h e d , much less what is produced. If i v i p y E i a means the same as iv-rEhiXEia, then as an end-in-itself i t cannot be a process nor therefore work o r production. The synonymous pair iv-rEhiXEia/ ivipyEia would then name a conception of Being t h a t evades and transcends t h e conception to which Heidegger tries t o confine Aristotle and the Greeks. But it is now time t o look at the textual evidence Heidegger provides for the distinction on which his present reading of Aristotles ontology, and Greek ontology in general, depends. The evidence provided on p. 295 is Metaphysics 0 3 1047a30. Here Aristotle, according t o most editions of the text, refers to 4 i v i p y E i a Toijvopa a s G n p o s T ~ V ivTEhiXEiav ouvTi8Evivq: i v i p y E i a ( a s a name) is set down in relation to, o r for, ivTEAiXEia. However, this is not the text Heidegger reads: he follows Diels in substituting O U V T E I V O ~ ~for V ~ ouv-riBEvivq so that he can interpret the text as meaning that ivipyEia spannt sich aus zum Ende, stretches itself towards the end (296). This of course is the interpretation Heidegger needs in order to distinguish between i v i p y a a as an unfinished movement towards an end and ivTEhiXEia as a being-finished-at-an-end. Unfortunately, W. D. Ross already showed in 1924 t h a t the substitution of OUVTEIVO~~ for V ~ mv-ri8Epivq is neither possible nor necessq.
But it is only in t h e active voice t h a t Aristotle uses U W V T E ~ V E W i n t h i s sense. [In other words, t h e r e is no parallel for t h e middle voice U U V T E I V O ~ ~ V Im ~ e a n i n g w h a t Heidegger t a k e s it to m e a n here]. ouvTiOEpivq implies t h a t Aristotle w a s i n t h e h a b i t of connecting t h e words i v i p y E i a a n d ivTEhiXEia t o g e t h e r i n h i s lectures, a n d such phrases as E I S Tab-rbv Pauihia K a i Tbpavvov uwviOEpEv [we have set down the words PaaiAia and Tljpavvov as meaning t h e same] (Pl. Pol. 2763, cf. 259d) form a close enough parallel.18
In short, there is a more plausible reading of the text t h a t makes it mean the exact opposite of what Heidegger needs it to mean: t h e word i v i p y E i a is set down i n relation to iv-rEhiXEia in the sense t h a t Aristotle normally uses the two together, and perhaps even-this is perfectly compatible with the text on this reading-interchangeably. And this of course is Aristotles practice. We have already seen that the two terms appear to be used interchangeably in the account of motion (see especially 201a27-2919 a n d 202a15-18) and t h e r e a r e many more examples of this synonymy in Aristotles texts. Therefore, we can conclude t h a t both t h e most plausible reading of 1047a30 and Aristotles general practice rule out Heideggers interpretation. However, Heidegger does offer a textual parallel for his V ~ ouv-ri8Epivq at 1047a30. He substitution of O U V T E I V O ~ ~for 541
cites Metaphysics 0 8, 1050a21-23 where Aristotle writes: For the Epyov is T ~ A O S and i v i p y E i a is the Epyov; therefore, the name ivipyEia is also said according to the Epyov and stretches towards ((SVVTE~VEI mpbs) iv-rEAiXEia. So in this text Heidegger h a s t h e word h e wants, ( S U V T E ~ V E I ,i n order to interpret t h e relation between i v i p y E i a and iv-rEAiXEia as a movement from one t o the other. But two objections can be made here. First, the present text does not support Heideggers reading of 1047a30 since the word ( S U V T E ~ V E Ihere is in the active voice, not t h e middle voice (Heidegger must attribute the same meaning to both voices, which is not plausible). Secondly, here as in the earlier text it is the word 6vipyEia that is the subject: it is not 6 v i p y E i a itself t h a t stretches towards iv-rEAiXEia, but t h e w o r d . What can i t mean to say t h a t a word tends towards another word? What else besides t h a t i t tends towards the meaning of the other word, tends t o mean something similar or the same? And this is the interpretation clearly suggested by the context of the entire sentence. Here we do well to cite Ross again, this time on 1050a21-23: Because the Epyov is the T ~ A o ~ (1. 21), the word ivipyEia, which is derived from Epyov, tends to mean t h e same a s iv-rEAiXEia (264). In short, r a t h e r t h a n saying t h a t i v f p y E i a itself is a movement towards iv-rEAfXEia, what the sentence says is that the word ivipyEia tends to have t h e m e a n i n g of ivTEAiXEia. This reading would bring t h e passage in line with the most plausible reading of the earlier passage a t 1047a30: Aristotle sets down the word i v i p y E i a together with 6vTEAiXEia. This reading would not only fail t o support but would even contradict Heideggers interpretation of the relation between the two terms. Given its slim, or only apparent, textual basis and, more importantly, its inability to make sense of Aristotles account of motion, Heideggers distinction between iv-rEAiXEia and ivipyEia must be rejected. But to reject this distinction is, a s I have already suggested, to reject Heideggers thesis that being for the Greeks meant being-present a n d being-produced. To t h i n k ivTEAixEia and i v i p y E i a in their synonymy, as Aristotles text d e m a n d s , is to recognize, on the one hand, that ivTEAiXEia is activity, being-active, and not some static presence, that it is in its T ~ A O S by being an activity with its aim in itself and not by being f i n i s h e d o r a t a n e n d ; and, on t h e other h a n d , t h a t ivipyEia is activity but not Arbeit, not something unfinished. In other words, i t is to recognize t h a t the distinction between Fertigsein and Unfertigsein is completely incapable of capturing what is meant by either ivTEAiXEia or i v i p y E i a . What emerges from such reflection as the central characteristic of Being is not presence and not being-produced, but rather act. As is clear from the passage cited above, with its characterization of Being as Hergestelltsein, Heidegger insists on making moiqai~ and T ~ X V the ~ guiding and determining perspective in 542
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Aristotles account of Being. What reflection on the synonymy of ivTEhiXEia and 6vipyEia shows, however, is that it is -rrp6<1~, as sharply distinguished from -rroiqois and T ~ x v that ~ , ~ is ~ Aristotles guideline in the interpretation of Being. In other words, what we find in Aristotle is not a n ontology of production, as Heidegger insists, but rather what Paul Ricaeur has called a n ontology of action.22 Specifically, this means that it is from the perspective of i v i p y E i a understood a s -rrp661s t h a t Aristotle I S -rroiqois a n d not vice uersa. Nothing interprets K ~ V ~ O and demonstrates this better than Heideggers complete failure t o explain Aristotles account of K ~ V ~ O from I S the perspective of a conception of Being derived from production (Being as full presence, being-finished, being-at-an-end). It is only from the perspective of act, or being-in-act,that we can explain Kivqois as the being-in-act of what is capable qua being capable. The understanding of iv-rEhiXEia and i v i p y E i a together as act also has important consequences for the understanding of the relation between being and time. In sharply distinguishing between iv-rEhiXEia and ivipyEia by characterizing the former as meaning being-fully-present-nowand the latter as meaning on-the-way-to-being-fully-present-now, Heidegger is attributing to Aristotle a conception of Being as, in the words cited above, Hersein in J e t z t , i n eine Gegenwart (381). Being is t h u s understood within the horizon of a naive conception of time as a series of nows. But this is precisely the conception of time and being that is shattered by a n understanding of ivTEhiXEIa and i v i p y E i a a s synonyms. As Aristotle explicitly argues, while K ~ V ~ C S is I S in time, ivipyEia is in an important sense not in time (1174a14ff.l This means t h a t while K ~ V ~ U I having S, its T ~ ~ O outside itself, takes time, is stretched out in time so as to be countable with respect to before and after, i v i p y E i a , being its own T ~ ~ O does S , not have a before and a n after since it is T~~EIO in V whatever time ( i v b ~ ~ o i x j pv6 v y , 1174135-6). But is not an ivipyEia then still in time in the sense of being complete in the moment, in the now? Here we need to be very careful. Aristotle indeed, after claiming t h a t t h e activity of pleasure (fi6Eo9ai), unlike being moved (KivEioeai), need not occur in time, adds the following explanation: For it is a whole in the now ( ~ yb a p i v T@ vijv ohov T I , 1174b9). But does this mean-and this is the crucial question-that a n i v i p y E i a is whole and complete in the now in the sense that a house, a t the end of the process of building, is whole and complete in the now? Can we speak in both cases of something f i n i s h e d , completed, and therefore present now? Can we, in short, reduce ivipyEia to the conception of Being that Heidegger attributes to Aristotle, a conception determined by the perspective of the now,the present?23 To see that these questions must be answered negatively, we need only consider the striking way in which Aristotle illus543
trates the temporal difference between ivipyEia and Kivqois in Metaphysics 0 6, 1048b18-35:24 while in the case of a K ~ V ~ C T I S such as building I cannot say simultaneously ( a p a , Met. 1048b23) that I have built the house and that I am building the house, in the case of an ivipyEia such as seeing, I can say simultaneously I ~ , that I am seeing and that I have seen. In short, in a K ~ V ~ O the present tense excludes the past perfect tense and vice versa:25 that something cannot be what it is becoming, this opposition between being and becoming, is precisely what it means to exist in time. But how then can ivEpyEia simultaneously admit both the past perfect and the present tense, how can i t overcome their opposition and thereby not exist in time? Through careful reflection on what Aristotle says here we can avoid the mistake mentioned above: to see i v i p y E i a as differing from KivqaiS only in being finished, completed in the present moment would be t o identify i t with the past perfect tense, thus locating it, like the house t h a t has been built, in time (and, we could add, i n m o t i o n , as t h e completion o r finishing of motion). In this case, i v i p y E i a would differ from K ~ V ~ in O I that, ~ while K ~ V T ~ can I S admit only the present active tense, i v i p y E i a would admit only the past perfect: i v i p y E i a would, like the house that has been built, exclude the present active tense.26But this of course is not what Aristotle says. To claim, as he does, that ivipyEia admits simultaneously both the present a n d t h e past perfect tenses is to p u t i t completely outside the distinction between being-unfinished and beingfinished, a distinction that, after all, has meaning only in time. If the same thing can simultaneously be seeing and have seen (aHa ~b a h 6 , 1048b33-44),27 this is because seeing is always complete without ever being f i n i s h e d . I can of course stop seeing, but this is not to finish seeing.28To describe my seeing, or another ivipyEia, as in itself finished or unfinished, makes no sense at all. To say that seeing, and i v i p y E i a as such, does not exist in time and transcends the opposition between the past perfect and the present tense is to say that it cannot be located in any present, not even in a n eternal present. I have seen and a m seeing cannot be reduced t o I am seeing, I am seeing, I am seeing, ad infinitum. We have here neither a static eternal repetition o f the same nor a process: we have a n activity, a n ivipyEia, which as such is not in time in the sense that it exists neither in a series of moments nor in one moment of this series; if this ivipyEia that simultaneously is and has been exists as a whole in t h e now, t h i s now cannot be a point, b u t must rather be a n uncountable stretch, a time outside of time understood as the counting of motion. In short, ivipyEia differs from K ~ V ~ O Iin S being complete; but i v i p y E i a also differs from the product of K ~ V I - ~ (e.g., I ~ the built house) in never being finished; I have seen but am also s i m ~ l t a n e o u s l y still ~ ~ seeing. This is 544
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? precisely the mystery of ivipyEia that puts it completely beyond the realm of K ~ V ~ and O I ~ I T O I ~ ~ it I ~ is : active without being in motion; it is complete without being finished; it is now and not now, present and not present; temporal a n d yet outside of time.30 What is arguably the key example Aristotle uses in Metaphysics 0 6 is life itself.31While it is not possible simultaneously to be moving and have moved, since these are different ( ~ T E ~ O V , 1048b32-33), i t is t h e same to be l i v i n g a n d have lived (1048b27). Though life is complete, it is never completed; in its very completeness, in i t s very having lived, i t is always a present tense verb: living. Life of course can cease with death, but as Aristotle explicitly says, it can never come to a stop (TOTE TraLjEoOai, 1048b26-27). Also, a dead person cannot strictly be described as having lived (perfect tense), but only as someone who once lived (imperfect tense). Having lived is possible only in living and living is possible only in having lived. In this way life itself is not in time, that is, cannot be located anywhere on the continuum of counted time, neither in any present now nor in any sequence of present nows. As thus characterized, the iv-rE?dXEia of life can be identified neither with being-at-work, which implies working-towards-a-goal and thus not having yet l i v e d , nor with being-at-an-end and being-at-hand, which implies no longer living. In other words, life that is at work has not yet lived, while life that is at hand is dead. These brief reflections on Aristotles fundamental concepts of iv-rEhiXEia and ivipyEia should suffice to show that Heideggers interpretation of these concepts is not only wrong but disastrously wrong.32In being sharply distinguished from each other, both concepts are distorted beyond recognition. It is at this cost t h a t Heidegger reads into Aristotle a conception of Being as Being-present. I t is at this cost t h a t he transforms into a n ontology of Vorhandenheit what is a n ontology of npLi,is in which the highest and most genuine being is, despite being unmoved, or rather because unmoved, characterized as life (<mi) and pleasure CfiSopfi, Met. 10721316 and 26-30), thinking (vdqois) and nothing but thinking (v6qois v o j o ~ m s M , et. 1074b34-35). Though Heidegger does not discuss the unmoved mover in SS 1924, in a n earlier course on Aristotle from SS 1922 he appears, according t o the transcript of Helene WeilJ, to have recognized the problem that the unmoved mover posed for his interpretation: But how can it be pure ivipyEia despite its being ~ ~ K ~ V ~ T Must O V ? there then be an opposition [Gegensatz] between K ~ V ~ C J Iand S ivipyEia? (GA 62, 321). His reply is simply t o assert dogmatically that i v i p y a a is t o be determined from the perspective of motion and is itself a type of motion: 1.The meaning of i v i p y E i a determines itself purely from t h e phenomenon of motion. 2. What it is, what type of motion: that too is a consequence of t h e meaning of pure movedness 545
[Bewegtheitl (321). In a course from SS 1926 a different, and even opposed, solution is suggested: No a-rihqs, no ~ i v q o i sbut , pure i v i p y E i a , pure energy [reine Energiel, t h a t is, pure selfstanding constant presence from out of itself [reine eigenstandige standige Anwesenheit uon i h m selbst her](GA 22, 178; see also 328). The above analysis and critique has shown t h a t everything is lost in the move signaled by the seemingly innocent and inconspicuous that is. Just a little later in the same text ivipyEia is characterized as the highest form of being-at-hand (hochste Art des Vorhandenseins) (180), which would make the unmoved mover something a t h a n d in t h e highest sense because eternally-at-hand. The being of the unmoved mover would thus not essentially differ from the being of a n eternal, indestructible rock. In this reduction of the being of the first being to Vorhandenheit, the life and activity t h a t are both the heart and head of Aristotles ontology are completely lost.33
2.
We can turn now to a consideration of two important later texts on Aristotle already cited above: the 1931 course on Metaphysics 0 1-3 and the 1939 essay Vom Wesen und Begriff der Q3ois. While Heidegger in these texts builds on and further carries out his reading of ivTEAiXEia and i v i p y E i a , we will see t h a t his interpretation undergoes no fundamental transformation. These l a t e r interpretations will instead make even clearer t h e limitations of Heideggers interpretative framework and thus the need t o free Aristotles ontology from this framework. As the above reflections have already suggested, what is at issue here is not primarily the reliability of Heidegger as an interpreter of Greek texts nor even the correct reading of Aristotle; what is a t issue is i v i p y E i a itself, as t h e word for a possibility of thinking that is arguably still unexplored and that, while still alive in Aristotles texts, is suppressed by Heideggers reading of these texts. The 1931 course is primarily devoted to Aristotles concept of 6 3 v a HIS. However, in Heideggers interpretation of chapter three of Metaphysics 0, the chapter in which Aristotle critiques the Megarian identification of 6 3 v a p i S with i v i p y E i a , the latter notion is necessarily at issue. Furthermore, a brief consideration of this p a r t of t h e course will show t h a t Heideggers reading does a s much violence to the notion of Grjvapis as it does t o t h e notion of i v i p y E i a , and again with t h e aim of identifying the Greek conception of being with presence-athand. That this is indeed Heideggers aim can be shown through a brief summary of his overall interpretation of 0 3. The central question at issue i n t h i s chapter, according to Heidegger, is how 60vapiS is at-hand (vorhanden). The thesis of the Megarians is that a 66vapis is present at-hand only when it 546
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? is being exercised, that is, only in 6vipyEia. Heidegger insists repeatedly t h a t this Megarian thesis is t o be taken very seriously and is even a pinnacle of Greek thought. Its powerful justification is that only in 6vipyEia does a WvaviS show itself, offer a look(Anblick), announce its presence (GA 33, 179-80; see also 183). In other words, the Megarians claim that 66vavis is a t hand only in M p y E i a because it is only in the process of production, and especially in the final product, that a G6vaviS comes into full presence. But then the conception of being that comes to expression in the Megarian thesis is the Greek conception of being a s Hergestelltheit and Anwesenheit. Thus the Megarian thesis, Heidegger asserts, is conceived in a good Greek manner [gut griechisch gedachtl; indeed, not only that, but it is-right up t o the new step Aristotle takes-the only possible interpretation of the being-at-hand of a capability (180). If the Megarians are only giving voice, with great consistency and insight, t o the Greek conception of being, then isnt Aristotle, through his critique of the Megarians, bringing this conception into question? As the passage just cited indicates, Heidegger grants Aristotle a modification of this conception of being as presence, but not a radical departure. Indeed, Heidegger asserts emphatically that Aristotle and the Megarians are in complete agreement (sich ganz daruber einig) in understanding being as presence (179). Thus Heidegger even suggests that the Megarian thesis might have been provoked by Aristotles failure t o explain the being-at-hand of 60vaviS (169) or his dogmatic assumption that this question was already resolved (175). What Aristotle does achieve in chapter 3 is t o show a way in which G6vavis can be present without being 6vipyEia: namely, by being had. The having of 66vayiS is still a certain kind of presence of 66vapis. Whether or not Heidegger thought Aristotles response to the Megarians was adequate-the Megarians could, after all, insist that the GrjvapiS is really had only in actual exercise, in WpyEia-is not clear since the course comes t o an abrupt end before Heideggers reading of Metaphysics 0 3 is completed. We can presume, however, t h a t he would not consider fully adequate any response that was still locked within a conception of being as presence, as Aristotles supposedly was. Heidegger can thus maintain that the Megarians, despite the injustice history has done them, were of an equal stature with Plato and Aristotle (hatten ... den gleichen Rang, 163); they were, after all, more consistently Greek! It is not possible here to go into all the details of Heideggers reading of Metaphysics 0 3, a reading that without question offers some rich philosophical rewards. Instead, only one fundamental question will be posed t o this reading: is it really indisputable (unbestreitbar, 170-711, as Heidegger asserts, t h a t the question a t issue in 0 3 is how 6 6 v a v i s can be
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vorhanden and therefore, given the supposedly Greek conception of Being, how it can be present? First, it needs to be noted that Heideggers thesis that Aristotle and the Megarians shared the same conception of being as presence and therefore could disagree only about how 6 3 v a p i s is present is asserted categorically towards the beginning of the reading and is never d e m o n s t r a t e d . I n other words, i t is a presupposition of t h e reading, not its result. However, Heidegger does a number of things to make the text fit this assumption. It is by showing the arbitrariness and untenability of these interpretative moves t h a t I hope t o show t h a t 0 3 h a s nothing t o do with t h e Vorhandenheit or Anwesenheit of Girvapis, and for the simple reason that for Aristotle a 63vapiS is not something present or at hand. The view Aristotle attributes t o the Megarians in the very first line of the chapter, and the view that he spends the rest of t h e chapter challenging, is: o-rav h p y i j p6vov 6 3 v a d a i : when something is active only then is i t capable. I t seems from this t h a t the Megarians a r e making a claim about the capability of capability: a capability is a capability only in its exercise; t o be capable is actively to be capable, t h a t is, t o be acting. Yet consider Heideggers translation of the Greek: When a power is at work, only then is the having-power-for at h a n d [vorhandenl (167). With this translation the question becomes not how a capability is a capability, not how what is capable is capable, but how a capability is vorhanden. But there is i n t h e Greek nothing corresponding to vorhanden! Heidegger takes care of this problem by adding to the text some new Greek, some Greek of his own making. After citing the Greek t h a t is actually i n the text, Heidegger adds: t h a t is, 6 3 v a p i v \jnapxEiv (167). I t is now t h i s added Greek t h a t Heidegger can translate as 66vapis is vorhanden. But does this really make a n important difference? Is not (the being-at-hand of capability just a different way of saying being-capable ( 6 3 v a o e a i ) ? Most certainly not. To substitute the being-at-hand of capability for being-capable is t o subordinate and even reduce being-capable t o a different sense of being: being vorhanden, which is then later transformed, through the alchemy of Heideggers undefended thesis concerning the Greek conception of being, into being present. Heidegger would of course claim that the Greeks are the ones who reduce all senses of being, including being-capable, t o presence. But the irony is t h a t Heidegger can maintain this thesis only by himself introducing presence and being-athand into the text. Neither a t the beginning of Metaphysics 0 3, nor anywhere in the course of 0 3, is the presence or being-athand of 63vapiS at issue, or even mentioned. Furthermore, t h e dispute between the Megarians a n d Aristotle can be naturally interpreted with no reference t o
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Vorhandenheit or Anwesenheit. What t h e Megarians a n d Aristotle do agree on is that GhapiS is not mere possibility, but a positive capability, a power (Kraft in Heideggers defensible translation). The Megarian objection is that power is power only i n being exercised and t h a t therefore 66vapiS and i v i p y E i a cannot be distinguished. That this is a sensible objection-the Megarians, as Heidegger insists, were no fools-is shown by the fact that Aristotle himself in De Anima characterizes knowledge that is possessed without being exercised both as an 6vTEAiXEia (412a21-27) and as a GhapiS (417a26-28): it is an 6v-rEhiXEia in contrast to t h e mere potential for acquiring knowledge possessed by a certain genus or matter; i t is a G h a p i S i n contrast t o the actual exercise of knowledge. Thus, even for Aristotle, G6vapiS in the strongest sense of the word, t h a t is, when understood not as a mere potential (as i n a h u m a n embryo having the potential to learn mathematics) but as a positive capability, is i v i p y ~ i a However, .~~ what he must argue in 0 3 is that despite this unity of GrjvapiS and ivipyEia, their distinctness must be preserved if what only their distinctness can explain is to be preserved: namely, not only motion, but even the independence of the external world in its relation to us (since this requires a distinction between what is perceived and what is perceivable). The argument, thus plausibly interpreted, has nothing to do with the being-at-hand or presence of GitvapiS; what is at issue is only GhapiS as 6 3 v a p i ~ . ~ ~ As already noted, Heidegger argues that Aristotle explains the presence-at-hand of 60vapiS by interpreting the being of 63vapiS as being-had. Aristotle sees the presence of 63vapis as such in EXEIV; what is had, is in possession and as possessed usable, at hand (183). One sees clearly in this sentence why Heidegger is insisting t h a t Aristotle understood the being of GdvapiS as being-had: i t is in this way t h a t Aristotle can be made to conform to the supposedly Greek conception of being as what is produced and thus present for use, a t hand. But what is the evidence that Aristotle understood the being of 66vapis in this way? Heidegger can appeal only t o Aristotles habit, in this text and elsewhere, of using the phrase G h a p i v EXEIV as a synonym for the verb G h a o B a i . But does Aristotles use of the common Greek idiom of having a G h a p i ~ really show that he located the being of 66vapiS in h ~ v i n g ? ~ ~ believe To this one must a t least already be convinced t h a t in 0 3 Aristotle is seeking to explain how G h a p i S is present and at hand-how else t h a n a s had?-and even then one should pause before reading so much into one word. In any case, we have seen that there is no reason to believe this is Aristotles goal in the text. We also need t o note how philosophically questionable Heideggers method of proceeding here is. He is reducing GirvaoBai to Girvapiv EXEIV and then reading out of the verb EXEIV, instead of the verb GhaoBai, the meaning of being that is 549
operative here. Aristotle, who knows better, insists that beingcapable and having are two fundamentally distinct senses of being: the latter is one of the categories ( C a t . lb27, 2a3), while t h e former is distinct from all being i n t h e sense of t h e categories (Met. E 2 1026a33-b2; Met. 0 1 1045b27-35).37 And Aristotle in the present text has been seen t o be faithful t o his principle: he discusses being-capable in terms of being-capable and not in terms of any other sense of being. 61jvapiv EXEW must be interpreted as another and looser way of saying 81jvaoOa1, not vice versa.38 If Heideggers reading can so far be said to have forced the text, this is nothing compared to what he does to the sentence a t 1047a20-24. Here Aristotle, defending the distinctness of b 1 j v a ~ t Sa n d i v i p y E i a , says what anyone except Heidegger would translate as follows: So it can happen that something is capable of being something (61jvaT6v T I Eivai) without being i t , and capable of not being something (bvva-rbv p i Eivai) while being i t . ... This is how Heidegger translates: So it can happen t h a t something a s capable of something indeed really i s [wirklich istl and a t the same time is yet not really t h a t of which this real capability as such is capable, and i t can also happen t h a t something capable as a capability is not really [nicht wirklich ist] and yet precisely is really that of which it is capable (215). Why t h e tortuous and even painful circumlocution? What Heidegger is trying to do is transform t h e capability of being at issue in the text into the being of capability; even more bizarrely, he is paraphrasing the capability of not being as the not-being of a capability as a capability. Here refutation seems superfluous, for why point out what any beginning student of Greek knows: t h a t 6 3 v a T 6 v T I Eivai means capable of being something and not something capable really is; that bvva-rov p i Eivai means capable of not being and not something capable is not really? The important question is why Heidegger, who certainly knows his Greek well enough t o see t h a t , would willfully so distort t h e text. The answer is simple: only through such a distortion can Heidegger force through his thesis that what is at issue in the text is the Vorhandenheit and Anwesenheit of capability. Aristotle speaks of being-capable, b u t Heidegger needs him t o speak of t h e being-present o r being-at-hand of capability. The violence t h a t this requires is especially evident in Heideggers translation of Aristotles example: Being capable of walking and not walking (bvva-rbv PaGiSEiv o v p i PabiSEiv) becomes what is capable-of-walking is really a being (at-hand) and yet does not walk in reality (215)! That Heidegger must resort here to such impossible readings of the Greek only confirms what has been clear from the beginning: there is in Metaphysics 0 3 no t a l k of t h e being-present or being-at-hand of a capability, but only of being-capable (of being x) where this is not 550
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? reduced, and cannot be reduced, to any kind of being-present or being-at-hand. Yet Heidegger tries again when he turns to the definition or characterization of being-capable Aristotle provides at 1047a2426. The meaning of this sentence is unclear and disputed, but the Greek itself is not especially difficult and can be translated thus: Something is capable [EOTI 86 8 u v a T b v TOGTO] if, when the ivipyEia of which it is said to have the GGvaviS occurs in it, there will be nothing incapable [obOiv EoTai a G i r v a ~ o v 1 . The problem this sentence poses for interpretation is its apparent circularity: it appears to be saying that something is capable when it is not incapable. One common expedient for remedying this problem is t o give the defining phrase not aG\jvaTov a completely different meaning from that of the word GuvaTbv t h a t is being defined: GuvaTbv is taken to mean capable, while not aG\jva-rov is taken to mean not logically impossible. The sense would then be that something is capable when there is no logical impossibility in its having t h e corresponding i v i p y ~ i aYet . ~ ~this expedient, which involves giving two occurrences of the same word in the same sentence two radically different meanings, is highly questionable and Heidegger is right to reject it. Furthermore, the expedient is not necessary since sense can be made of the sentence without it, especially when i t is not seen as representing a strict definition. Given the context, the task of the sentence can be taken to be this: to show the inseparability of G h a p i c from ivipyEia, and thus acknowledge what t r u t h there is in the Megarian objection, while nevertheless showing their distinctness and preserving the autonomy and irreducibility of being-capable. We can identify something as capable only when i n exercise o r activity i t proves not incapable. For example, someone cannot be said to be capable of playing chess unless a n actual chess game finds him not incapable of playing chess. This means that a Girvavis indeed cannot be identified o r defined without t h e corresponding i v i p y E i a . S o far the Megarians have a point. But Aristotles statement also maintains t h e distinctness of 6 3 v a p i S a n d i v i p y E i a . I t does not say simply t h a t something is GuvaTov when it is in ivipyEia, but rather when in ivipyEia it proves not aGirva-rov. i v i p y E i a is not G h a v i S , but rather the site where 6 6 v a p i 5 shows itself as GirvapiS. Here being-capable still remains distinct from that in which i t shows itself not incapable. Whatever circularity there is in Aristotles statement is intentional and unavoidable: being-capable can ultimately be explained only in terms of being-capable (or not being incapable) because it cannot be reduced to any other kind of being: neither being in ivipyEia nor, much less, being in any other sense. What has been sketched out here is of course not Heideggers reading. This is because, in order to make the sentence fit his 551
interpretation of 0 3, he must insist that it is not about beingcapable, but rather about the being-present or being-at-hand of capability. To push through this reading, Heidegger must again read the Greek in his own inimitable manner. The word EOTI in the opening phrase ZOTI 86 8 u v a - h TOGTO ... does not mean, Heidegger insists, being-capable Vermogendsein (220). He insists on this because he needs the EOTI to mean is present at hand. Thus, on his reading, ZOTI 86 8uvaTov TOGTO ... means not this is capable, but rather: this capable is present at hand. Heidegger actually expresses surprise that his reading is in all interpretations and translations-as far as I knowcompletely missed, and continues t h a t as a result every prospect of understanding t h e definition is from t h e very beginning pushed aside (220). The phrase EOTI 8i 8uvaTbv must be understood as the capable is present at hand because the task of the entire chapter is to determine in what the being of the capable, its reality-the Eivai of the immediately preceding sentence-consists (220). That this is the task of the chapter, however, has been seen t o be Heideggers own invention and one sustained only at the cost of the kind of rewriting and misreading of the text which we see again here and saw at its most outlandish in t h e reading of Eivai at 1047a20-24 to which Heidegger now refers. I t is perhaps precisely in order t o preempt such criticism that Heidegger states the following a little earlier in the course.
When we in the process go beyond what Aristotle says, this is not in order to make what is said there better and t h e like, but a t first only in order to understand it a t all; here, the manner and form of expression in which Aristotle on his side may have carried out t h e considerations t h a t a r e necessary h e r e is a m a t t e r of complete indifference [ganzlich gleichgiiltig] . (192)
One can certainly agree t h a t a n interpretation needs to go beyond what is said while yet strongly objecting t o the suggestion that Aristotles own manner and form of expression are a m a t t e r of complete indifference! The l a t t e r a r e especially important when what is at issue is Aristotles implicit understanding of being. What has been seen again and again is that while Aristotle speaks only of being-capable in terms of beingcapable, Heidegger repeatedly ignores, changes, o r distorts Aristotles form of expression in order to make him speak of being-present and being-at-hand. The last part of the 1931 course that needs t o be considered in the present context is Heideggers return, immediately before the course abruptly ends, t o 1047a30-32, and thus to the question of the relation between i v i p y E i a a n d ivTEhiXEia. One departure from the reading in 1924 is that Heidegger now does not emend the text but reads auv-riBEpivq, perhaps because he 552
had by this point consulted Rosss ~ o m m e n t a r y However, .~~ his view concerning the distinction between i v i p y a a and ivTEhiXEia does not appear t o change. He translates even the unemended text as follows: Being-at-work [Am-Werke-seinl, a meaning that is i n itself directed at [ausgerichtet i s t aufl ivTEAiXEia. Furthermore, Heideggers comments explain the meaning of ivTEhiXEia thus: the end, possessing perfection as something carried out, holding itself in it-most precisely: being-produced [Hergestelltseinl (224). What remains t h e same here is therefore the interpretation of i v i p y e i a and ivTEhiXEia from the perspective of Herstellen, and therefore from the perspective of ~roiqoisr a t h e r t h a n ~ r p a c i s with , t h e result t h a t t h e one becomes being-at-work ( A m -W e r l ~ e - S e i nand ) ~ ~ t h e other becomes being-produced (Hergestelltheit).What has already been shown to be the main problem with such an interpretation is made clear when Heidegger in this course, after making the perhaps acceptable claim that Girvapis and ivipyEia are essentially related to ~ i v q o i goes ~ , further and claims that they are ways of being-in-motion(Weisen des In-Bewegung-seins,216). This is the fundamental mistake: as argued above, Gfivapis and i v i p y E i a a r e not ways of being i n motion42 and therefore a fortiori certainly cannot be interpreted in terms of producing and being-produced. Aristotle himself makes this clear when at the very beginning of Metaphysics 0 he tells us that, while he will begin with the most common sense of 6irvavis, which is 6fivapiS in relation to motion, this sense is not what he needs for his present aim (oir p i v x p q o i p q y i o ~ mpbs i 6 pouh6pEBa v h , 1045b36-1046a1). Why? Because Gfivavis and i v i p y E i a go beyond, o r a r e more , GirvapiS and i v i p y E i a said according to than ( h i ~ l h i o v ) the motion ( K a T a ~ i v q o i v ,1046a1-2). Predictably, Heideggers reading of this passage does everything possible to reinstate motion as the essential and unsurpassable guiding perspective, despite what Aristotle says. Thus Heidegger asserts: When accordingly in our treatise the theme of investigation should become 6irvapis and i v i p y e i a h i mhiov this does not rule out that ~ i v q o i s nevertheless remains in view; on the contrary: i t must remain i n view, b u t not K a T a ~ i v q o i v (54). Therefore Heidegger resorts to the extraordinary expedient, grounded on nothing in the text, of characterizing 6irvapiS and ivipyEia i d I T ~ ~ O as V KaTa K I V ~ ~ E O Sthat , is, he simply changes the accusative t o the genitive and thus retains motion as the determining perspective for even 6irvapis and ivipyEia h i ~ r h i o v (53). This opens the door to characterizing later in the course the 66vapiS ,and ivipyEia that go beyond what is said according t o motion .as nevertheless ways of motion and moments of production, in flagrant contradiction to what Aristotle himself claims to U~ant.4 In 3 short, what we see in the 1931 course is a n unwarranted and violent reduction not only of i v i p y E i a a n d
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iv-rEhiXEia, but now also of Girvapis, to a conception of being as presence and being-produced which, judging from all t h e evidence, is not Aristotles, but H e i d e g g e r ~ . ~ ~
3 .
The interpretation of ivipyEia and ivTEhiXEia in the 1939 essay, departs from the earlier Vom Wesen und Begriff der Q)iro~s, interpretations of 1924 and 1931 in no longer making a sharp distinction between the two concepts. Is this because Heidegger is now closer t o understanding them both together as a kind of activity or act distinct both from motion and from what is produced, at-an-end, completed? That this is not the case is evident from the fact that his characterization of iv-rEAiXEia has not changed: i t is still Sich-im-Ende-Haben(354). What has happened is only that ivipyEia has now been brought into line with this interpretation, being no longer interpreted as beingat-work ( I n - A rb e i t -S e i n or Am- Werke-Sein) but r a t h e r a s standing-in-the-work:Im-Werk-Stehen; das Werk als das, was voll im Ende steht, where das W e r k is also understood in the sense of what is t o be produced and is produced [im Sinne des Herzustellenden und Her-gestellten] (354). We thus see t h a t nothing essential has changed in Heideggers interpretation: we have t h e same interpretation of i v i p y E i a and ivTEhiXEia in terms of production (Herstellen) and thus the same ignoring of the fundamental distinction between kvipyeia and K ~ V ~ Othe IS; only change is t h a t now both i v i p y E i a and iv-rEhiXEia are identified with the product, the result, the end or completion of this process of production. In other words, t h e only change is a n even greater eclipse of i v i p y E i a a s In a n important passage of the Nicomachean E t h i cs , Aristotle asserts in no ambiguous terms: It is evident t h a t i v i p y E i a becomes [ y i v ~ ~ a and i l is not a t hand like some ~ ~ i j TI] p 6 ( N E 1169b29-30). It possession [oirx ir-rrapx~iB o . r r ~ p is as if Aristotle were here anticipating Heideggers misinterpretation and objecting to it. While Aristotle insists t h a t i v i p y E i a is activity, even a t the cost of giving t h e equally erroneous impression that it is becomingin the sense in which motion is, Heidegger is determined to reduce its way of being to that of something produced and possessed. We can therefore expect t h a t the interpretation Heidegger proceeds to give of Aristotles definition of motion in the 1939 essay, like the account he initially gave in the SS 1924 course, will turn it into a definition of rest. This is indeed not only what happens, but Heidegger makes this consequence of his interpretation quite explicit. So many momentous and questionable moves take place in his brief interpretation of 1939 t h a t , without the preparation provided by a reading of the SS 1924 554
course discussed above, it must leave one completely bewildered. Consider first his translation of Aristotles definition of motion :as stated at Physics 201134-5: The having-itself-in-its-end [Das 1Sich-im-Ende-Habenl by that which is apt [geeignetl insofar as i t is a p t ( t h a t is, in i t s aptness) is clearly ( t h e essence of) rnovedness [Bewegtheitl (355). The obvious objection to this translatiodinterpretation is that an ability that has reached its end, that has itself in its end, is no longer in motion, but rather i3t rest. The unprepared reader must assume t h a t Heidegger cannot possibly mean what he says. How could he be defining motion as a n abilitys fulfillment in its final end o r product when this would instead be the end (in both senses of the word) of motion? That this, however, is exactly what Heidegger is doing is shown not only by the preceding interpretation of i v i p y a a cited above, but by the example with which he grounds and prepares his interpretation of Aristotles definition of motion.
The transformation [Umschlagenl of the apt wood into a table consists in this: t h a t the aptness of the apt emerges more and more fully, fulfilling itself in the look [Aussehen] of the table and thus coming to a stand in the table produced, i.e., brought-intothe-unconcealed. In the resting of this stand (of what has come to a s t a n d ) the emerging aptness ( 6 3 v a v i s ) of t h e a p t ( 6 u v a ~ ~ i ) gathers and has itself as in its end. (355)
It is thus clear that Heidegger means exactly what one otherwise would think h e could not mean: t h a t what Aristotles definition of motion is describing is how the a p t or capable has-itself-as-in-its-end in the sense of having-come-to-a-stand und being-at-rest in what is produced. But this is not motion. As Aristotle insists, motion, far from standing-at-its-end, is essentially ~ T E A ~ s . Indeed, but this is why Heidegger is careful to remove motion as the object of Aristotles definition; on his interpretation1 paraphrase, what is being defined is not motion, but movedness. On the preceding page Heidegger has distinguished between motion (Bewegung) and movedness (Bewegtheit),characterizing the l a t t e r as t h e essence (Wesen) of t h e former (354). Heideggers paraphrase removes Aristotles definition even further from the sphere of motion by making its object not only movedness, but the essence of movedness. Of course, the essence of motion, and a fortiori the essence of the essence of motion, is not motion. Indeed, Heidegger argues, the essence of motion, movedness in the highest and most genuine sense, is rest (Ruhigkeit, 354). And it is precisely this rest, as the essence olf movedness, that Aristotles ostensible definition of motion is dlefining. Therefore, when Heidegger does mention the kind of K ~ V ~ O It S h a t is ~ T E A ~ and S t h a t is distinct from rest, he
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describes it as a narrower sense of K ~ V T ~ I that S , is, narrower I S by Aristotle a t than, and distinct from, the K ~ V ~ O defined 201b4. This interpretation of Aristotles definition is, unfortunately for Heidegger and fortunately for the future of philosophy, completely untenable. The motion that Aristotles definition attempts to define is beyond question the motion that is ~ I T E A ~ s and that is distinct from rest. To show this one need only cite a passage which has already been partly quoted above; it is also a passage out of which Heidegger in the 1939 text cites only one sentence, since citing the context would spell disaster for his interpretation. The passage reads:
Its appearing indefinite [ ~ ~ ~ I O T O isVthe ] reason why motion can be classed among beings neither a s GirvaHiS nor a s i v f p y E i a . For n e i t h e r t h a t which is capable of being of a certain q u a n t i t y [rroaov] nor t h a t which is in actuality of a certain quantity is SI~ on the one hand to be a necessarily moved. And K ~ V T ~ C seems kind of i v f p y E i a and on the other to be ~ T E A I ~the ~ ; cause of its I ~ the ~ capable of which it is the ivCpyEia. And this is being ~ T E A is t h e reason why i t is h a r d t o g r a s p w h a t motion is .... What remains is the way suggested above, i.e., that it [motion] is a kind of i v f p y a a , but the kind we said it was [i.e., the ivipyEia of what is capable qua capable], one indeed hard to see, but nevertheless capable of being. (Phys. 201b27-202a3)
This passage makes clear that the aim of Aristotles definition of K ~ V Q O I S is precisely t o explain its ~ I T E A and ~ ~indefinite character, that is, that which prevents it from being defined either as simply GirvapiS or as simply 6vipyEia. This problem is of course left completely unresolved if Aristotles definition is interpreted as being a definition not of ~ I T E A ~ K s~ V ~ O at I S all, but rather of a rest and standing-in-the-end that are supposed to be the essence of motion. Why does Heidegger misinterpret Aristotles definition of ~ I T E A K ~ ~ V~~ O as I S a definition of rest in the sense of havingcome-to-a-stand-in-the-work (or product)? He must do so because only a t this price can his characterizations of ivTEAiXEia as das Sich-im-Ende-Habenand of 6vipyEia as ImWerkStehen be upheld. In other words, only at this price can he persist in denying 6vipyEia and iv-rEAiXEia the meaning of act or activity as distinct from K ~ V I - ~ I And S. note the significant lesson here: it is precisely the failure t o distinguish i v i p y E i a and 6vTEhiXEia from K ~ V ~ O and I S the product of K ~ V ~ O I th S at undefinable and inexplicable. But there is a renders K ~ V Q O I S further question: why does Heidegger persist in his fundamentally inadequate interpretation of ivipyEia and ivTEAiXEia? The answer has already become apparent: only in this way can Heidegger maintain his thesis that for the Greeks being meant
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producedness (Hergestelltheit) and presence. And it is indeed this thesis that Heidegger pulls out of his interpretation of the definition of motion, in a move that has become a s stale and as predictable as the trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat: The having-itself-in-its-end (ivTEhiXEia) is, however, the essence of movedness (that is, the being of what is moved) because this rest [Ruhigkeit] satisfies most purely the essence of oGcsia, of the self-standing presencing in the look [der in sich standigen Anwesung im Aussehen] ( 3 5 6 ) . Because Aristotle m u s t a priori have had a conception of being a s visible presence ( A u s s e h e n ) , t h e object of Aristotles definition m u s t be T~ ~VS T J O I into S rest46and from sometransformed from ~ X T E ~ K thing hard to see into a stable a n d unchanging object of vision.47But t h a t this thesis regarding the Greek interpretation of Being can once again be maintained only a t the cost of misinterpretation and even inversion of what Aristotle says should be sufficient reason to reject it once and for all in favor of liberating the very different direction in which the texts can guide our thinking. Heidegger could still be correct in maintaining that ordinary Greeks had a n interpretation of being as constant presence born of the anxiety that what is would cease to be present (see GA 18, 289-90, 297, 367; also 353). Since this fear, however, can probably with equal justice be attributed to the ancient Egyptians and Chinese, as well as modern day Americans and Russians, rather than speak of a metaphysics of presence as a historical phenomenon beginning with the Greeks, we should probably instead see such a metaphysics as characterizing any immediate, unreflective experience of t h e world: a fear of insecurity and instability that leads to an identification of what is with what is had in such a way that it cannot be taken away, .what is possessed securely. In contrast, i t may belong to the essence of all philosophy, including t h a t of t h e Greeks, to destroy this security and challenge all naive metaphysics of ,presence, to expose the indeterminate, potential, and kinetic character of being. It is perhaps only in the modern period that ]philosophy ceases t o do that, and then because its essence is determined from without itself, t h a t is, by mathematical science. But whatever interpretation we wish to put in its place, t h e conclusion remains t h a t Heideggers interpretation of ,4ristotle cannot stand. This critique in no way means to deny the great importance of Heidegger for a n understanding of the Greeks: in carrying out a continuous a n d intense dialogue with t h e Greeks, IHeidegger has enabled them to speak t o us to today with extraordinary power, relevance, and immediacy. Through Heidegger we learn to engage the Greek thinkers, not with the self-complacency of the historian who charts their primitive anticipations of contemporary wisdom, but rather with the respect
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of philosophers convinced t h a t we can never escape t h e immense shadow of the Greek beginning and that philosophy can have no future outside of a constant dialogue with this beginning. Yet it is no denial of this debt owed Heidegger to suggest t h a t some, and perhaps the most important, possibilities for future thought locked in the ancient Greek texts can be liberated only against Heidegger; on the contrary, those who simply repeat Heideggers reading of the Greeks are doing both Heidegger and the Greeks the greatest disservice. Since Heideggers interpretation of the Greeks is inseparable from his own path of thinking, we must ask if his misinterpretation of Aristotles fundamental concepts turned him aside too soon from a barely explored road at the beginning of the metaphysical tradition. What possibilities were missed in Heideggers insistent reduction of the Greek conception of being t o presence, a reduction that required interpreting Greek ontology from the perspective of noiqois, instead of from t h e perspective of np&E,is and ivkpyEia? What is lost in reducing K ~ V ~ C S Ito S rest, in failing to preserve its ontological distinctness in contrast to rest?48 The present critique of Heideggers reading of Aristotle gives a special urgency to a question posed by Paul Ricceur: One can in the end ask oneself if Heidegger perceived the hidden resources of a philosophy of being t h a t would replace the transcendental of substance with that of act, as a phenomenology of acting and suffering demands.49I t is difficult at this point to resist the conclusion t h a t this is precisely what Heidegger failed t o perceive.50
Notes
Cited i n Dominique J a n i c a u d , Heidegger en France 1. Recit (Paris: Albin Michel, 20011, 470-1. Confronting Heidegger on Logos and Being in Platos Sophist, in Platon und Aristoteles - sub ratione veritatis: Festschrift fur Wolfgang Wieland zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Gregor Damschen, Rainer Enskat, and Alejandro G. Vigo (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 20031, 102-33. Gesamtausgabe 18 (Frankfurt a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002); hereafter, cited i n t h e t e x t a s G A 18, followed by t h e page number. G e s a m t a u s g a b e 33, 2nd ed. ( F r a n k f u r t a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1990); hereafter, cited in the text a s G A 33, followed by the page number. Wegmarken (Frankfurt a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 19671, 309-71. A discussion of t h e s e t e x t s , w i t h t h e exception of t h e 1924 course then unavailable, is to be found in Franco Volpi, Heidegger e Aristotele (Padova: Daphne Editrice, 1984), 172-203. Volpis quick run-through, however, goes little beyond paraphrase and quotation a n d c e r t a i n l y m a k e s no a t t e m p t to j u d g e critically Heideggers interpretations.
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heidegger is reported in the Brocker Nachschrift of the SS 1926 course, Die Grundbegriffe d e r antiken Philosophie, a s saying: Die ivipyEia stellt die hochste Art des Seins dar, die der oiraia zukommt ( G e s a m t a u s g a b e 22 [Frankfurt a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 19931, 331; hereafter, cited in the text a s G A 22, followed by the page number). Jean Beaufret attributes to Heidegger a t Cerisy in 1955 the claim t h a t i v i p y E i a is la plus h a u t e nomination de l&trequait jamais Osee l a philosophie des Anciens (Dialogue auec Heidegger Philosophie Grecque [Paris: gditions de Minuit, 19731, 120). See also Ruhe konstitutiv fur dieses Da, d.h. Bedeutsamkeit (380); and 387 where Heidegger calls rest uneigentliche Bewegung because it conceals the T I P ~ T E ~ O V - G O T E ~ O inV the Now. Yet Heidegger later in the course returns to a characterization of K ~ V I ~ I a Ss Gegenwart. In Aristotles account of motion from the perspective of ~ ~ o i r pand i s TraOrpis in Physics r 3, Heidegger finds expressed the TIP& T I character of being-in-the-world and therefore t h e genuine definition of K ~ V Q O I S (clearly understood again a s Bedeutsamkeit) (327). The characterization of K ~ V I ~ that S Heidegger is working towards is made clear in the Handschrift: Kivqoir die Gegenwart des Seienden, das ist in dem genannten Mitdasein des einen zum anderen (392). Heidegger therefore now paraphrases Aristotles first definition of motion thus: das Gegenwartigsein eines Seienden in bestimmtem Bezug zu einem anderen, so zwar, daB das erste ist als Seinkonnendes durch das zweite (394). This paraphrase is open t o t h e same objection t h a t was made against Heideggers initial interpretation a s well a s to the objections t h a t follow. lo This distinction appears already suggested in t h e Phanomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation) of 1922: W v a p i s , das j e bestimmte Verfugenkonnen uber, i v i p y a a , das in gen[uine] Verwendung Nehmen der Verfugbarkeit, und ivrEhiXEia, das verwendende in Verwahrung Halten dieser Verfugbarkeit ( G e s a m t a u s g a b e 6 2 [Frankfurt a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 20051, 396; hereafter cited in the text a s G A 62, followed by page number). l 1 In the SS 1926 course, and again in the context of the account of motion, Heidegger defends t h e definition of i v i p y E i a a s Wirklichkeit ( G A 22, 172, 3221, which he i n t e r p r e t s a s Vorhandensein als I m - Werke-Sein (173). An interesting change, however, is his occasional translation of i v i p y a a a s Zuhandenheit, so t h a t the definition of motion can be stated as: Zuhandenheit d e s Bereiten in seiner Bereitheit (173). However, since he can a t the same time interpret the definition as Anwesenheit des Vorhandenen in seiner Bereitheit und hinsichtlich dieser (1741, Zuhandenheit is clearly being treated a s a mode of Anwesenheit and Vorhandenheit (see also 320-21). Walter Brocker, on whose Nachschriften of the SS 1924 a n d SS 1926 courses t h e G e s a m t a u s g a b e editions of these courses partly rely, betrays the influence of Heidegger in his own book on Aristotle when, in explaining t h e account of motion, he .writes: Aber wirklich, gegenwartig anwesend [my emphasis], i s t nicht n u r das Rotsein des Seienden, sondern wirklich ist auch das Anders-Sein-Konnen des Seienden. Dies Seinkonnen dessen, was das ISeiende j e gerade nicht ist, gehort mit zu dem was es j e gerade wirklich i s t ( A r i s t o t e l e s , 3rd. ed. [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
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Francisco J. Gonzalez Klostermann, 19641, 80). l2 Heidegger c a n be s e e n m a k i n g t h e s e q u e s t i o n a b l e i n t e r pretative moves in t h e following texts: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, Gesamtausgabe 3 1 ( F r a n k f u r t a m Main: Vittorio Klosterm a n n , 1982), 69; Die M e t a p h y s i k a l s Geschichte d e s Seins, i n Gesamtausgabe 6.2 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997), 368-9, 375; Wissenschaft und Besinnung, in Vortrage und Aufsatze, Gesamtausgabe 7 (Frankfurt a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, ZOOO), 43-4. At t h e s t a r t of t h e Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle m a k e s a n explicit distinction between i v i p y E i a a n d E p y o v a s one between activities a n d products e x i s t i n g a p a r t from t h e a c t i v i t i e s t h a t produce them (1094a4-5). l3 I n t h e SS 1922 course, Phanomenologische Znterpretationen Ausgewahlter Abhandlungen des Aristoteles z u r Ontologie und Logik, Heidegger identifies i v i p y E i a with reinste Bewegtheit a n d reine Zeitigung, apparently making no distinction between i v i p y E i a and ivTEhiXEia ( G A 62, 102-08). At one point Heidegger i n citing t h e definition of t h e soul i n De A n i m a as t h e f i r s t ivTEhiXEIa simply i n s e r t s K I V ~ O I i~n brackets after ~V-rEhgXEia, t h u s suggesting t h e i r equivalence (229; see also 336). l4 Heidegger r i g h t l y defends a g a i n s t c i r c u l a r i t y Aristotles definition of motion as ivTEhiXEia TOG K I V ~ T O G , fi K I V ~ T O V [of what is movable i n s o f a r as it is movable] (328). B u t h e h e r e t r a n s l a t e s hrrEAgXEia as Gegenwart, a translation t h a t , though creating other problems, at least avoids making t h e definition circular. If, on t h e other h a n d , Aristotle used t h e word i v i p y E i a instead, as Heidegger earlier claims h e should to be more precise, a n d we were to follow Heidegger in characterizing i v i p y a a as KivqaiS, then we would have a circular definition indeed: t h e motion of w h a t i s capable of being moved insofar as it is capable of being moved. l5 The same distinction is implied by t h e argument in t h e Nicomachean Ethics t h a t j S o v i is not a K ~ V ~ O I(1173a31-1174b14). S W. D. Ross comments on 201a10-11: ivTEAiXEia m u s t h e r e m e a n actualization, not actuality: it is t h e passage from potentiality to actuality t h a t is K ~ v I ~(Aristotles ( Physics [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19361, 537). B u t if actualization as t h e passage from potentiality to actuality is K ~ V ~ O I S th , e n t h i s cannot be w h a t iv-rEhiXEia means. In this case, t h e qualification, of what is capable insofar a s capable, would be superfluous, since ivTEhiXEia would a s such be K ~ V ~ O a In ~d , t h e definition would be viciously circular. The problem w i t h Rosss r e a d i n g is therefore much g r e a t e r t h a n t h a t Such a sense of entelecheia is ... unparalleled i n Aristotle: this is t h e objection of Edward Hussey, who himself t r a n s l a t e s actuality (Aristotles Physics Books ZZZ and Z V [Oxford: Clarendon, 19831, 60). See also RBmi Brague: Lacte qui intervient d a n s l a definition d u mouvement est actualit6 e t non actualisation (Aristote et la question d u monde [ P a r i s : PUF, 19881, 500), a n d P i e r r e Aubenque: Le mouvement est moins lactualisation de l a puissance, quil nest lacte de l a puissance, la puissance en t a n t quacte, cest-a-dire en t a n t que son acte est d6tre en puissance (Le probleme de ICtre chez Aristote [Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 20021, 454). B u t Aubenque n e v e r t h e l e s s immediately proceeds to make t h e fatal mistake: Le mouvement, dit ~ ~ S , ailleurs Aristote, est u n acte imparfait, ivipyEia ~ X T E cest-u-dire dont lacte m@meest de nCtre j a m a i s tout a fait e n acte (454, my
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence? emphasis). Brague, on t h e o t h e r h a n d , avoids t h i s error: I1 lest I a ~ ~ h imoins, r] precise ailleurs Aristote, parce quil serait lui-m6me u n acte impar f a i t , q u e p a r c e quil e s t lacte ( e t , en tant que tel, parfait) de quelque chose dimparfait (Ame 111, 7, 431a6 s.) (502, my emphasis). Yet t h e e r r o r remains persistent a n d widespread. I n a recent book we find t h e following: in welchem Sinne Heidegger und Gadamer energeia auffassen: als Sein, d a s n u r im Werden sein Sein h a t . [This is more G a d a me r t h a n Heidegger] Hingegen m e i n t tinergeia bei Aristoteles Werden zum Sein, genesis eis on (Thomas Gutschker, Aristotelische Diskurse: Aristoteles in der politischen Philosophie des 20.Jahrhundert [Stuttgart: J . B. Metzler, 20021, 222). l7 At Rhet. 1412a9 Aristotle does describe CvipyEia as a ~ i v ~ p i s , b u t i n t h e context Aristotle is clearly not u s i n g t h e word i n its strictest sense. The passage therefore does not support W. D. Rosss conclusion t h a t K ~ V I - ~ I S and CvipyEia a r e species of something wider for which Aristotle h a s no name, a n d for which h e u s e s now t h e n a m e of one species, a n d now t h a t of t h e o t h e r (Aristotles Metaphysics, vol. 2 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19241, 251). Ross, Aristotles Metaphysics, vol. 2, 248. l9 In this passage t h e definition of motion includes both terms: whenever something Cv-reAEXeia dv i v ~ p y f l not insofar as it is itself but insofar as it is movable, t h a t is motion. 2o Heidegger presumably found support for his interpretation i n Hermann Bonitzs 1849 commentary on t h e Metaphysics. Bonitz also finds at 1048a30 and 1050a21-23 a distinction between ivipyEia and iVTEh6XEIa, claiming t h a t while t h e two a r e very closely related and therefore often not d i s t i n g u i s h e d , nevertheless t h e former most properly signifies viam while t h e l a t e r most properly signifies finem viae (Metaphysicu Commenturius [Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 3.9601, 387-88). Yet Bonitz can maintain such a distinction only by making t h e same mistake Heidegger makes: collapsing t h e distinction between CvipyEia and Kivrpis. Thus he sees ivEpyEiv as signifying eam actionem e t m u t a t i o n e m, q u a q u i e x m e r a possibilitate a d plenam perducitur essentiam (387). This is obviously a definition of ~ i v q a and i ~ not of i v i p y e i a . Yet this insistence on a s h a r p distinction between iv6pyEia and hrrEhfXEia and the mistake it presupposes have undoubtedly a n impressive pedigree since they can be traced back at l east to Simplicius. After reporting t h a t Alexander, Porphyry a n d Themistios converted evfpyeia into iv-rEhixEia i n t h e definition of motion, as if they were the same for Aristotle (Simplicii in Aristotelis Ihysicorum libros quattuor priores commentaria, ed. H. Diels [Berlin: 18821, 414, 20-211, Simplicius objects t h a t if Aristotle does sometimes use the word ~vTEh&Eia for ivipyEia, he does not mean just any kvipyEia but only t h e complete kind (TEhEia). The name ivTEhiXeia signifies TGV TOG ~ v T E ) \ o ~ auviXEiav ~.s (414, 37), so t h a t it cannot properly be applied to t h e incomplete iv6pyEia t h a t Simplicius sees a s characterizing motion. Simplicius thus insists on reading t h e word CvipyEia in the defintion of motion at 201a9-11: Motion being of the incomplete, however, it is not i n vain t h a t h e [Aristotle] directly called it i v i p y e i a and not CvTeAiXeia (414, 28-9). Behind this distinction is t h e s a m e e r r o r m a d e by t h e contemporary commentators criticized above (note 16): against Porphyrys suggestion t h a t ~ i v ~ p i ~ is a n CVTEhiXEia ~ I T E and ~ ~ S a n CvipyEia TEhEia, Simplicius objects: But if it is the CvipyEia of what exists potentially (TOO WvaMEi) and
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Francisco J. Gonzalez w h a t exists potentially is incomplete ( h ~ ~ h f s th )e , n how could t h e kvipyEia of something incomplete (TOG ~ T E A o G ) be a complete ivfpyEia (TEhEia)? (415, 23-5). 21 I show elsewhere how Heideggers interpretation of Aristotles account of t h e good i n this course assimilates np&Ci< to noiqois: see my Without Good a n d Evil: Heideggers Purification of Aristotles Ethics, i n Heidegger and the Greeks: Interpretative E s s a y s , ed. by Drew A . H y l a n d a n d J o h n P a n t e l e i m o n M a n o u s s a k i s ( I n d i a n a University Press, 2006), 127-56. Especially significant h e r e is t h e is t h e following passage in which Heidegger, asserting t h a t noiqoi~ resource for t h e q u e s t i o n W h a t is being?, does n o t d i s t i n g u i s h between noiqois a n d np&Cis: Die F r a g e n a c h d e m ~i ~b dv ist geschopft a u s den Bestimmungen der noiqai~ und des GegenwurtigDaseins-noiqois als primare In-der-Welt-Sein, IT~&,IS ( G A 18, 329). Robert Bernasconi h a s observed t h a t Heidegger focuses explicitly on praxis only rarely and his sights a r e clearly s e t on poiesis. Futhermore, t h i s is n o t always t h e broad conception of p o i e s i s which includes praxis ... (The Fate of t h e Distinction between Praxis and Poiesis, i n Heidegger in Question: The Art of Existing [New Jersey: H u m a n i t i e s P r e s s , 19931, 12). If Heidegger does n o t s h a r p l y d i s t i n g u i s h p r a x i s from p o i e s i s , t h i s is because, according t o Bernasconi, t h e characterization of praxis in terms of its distinction from poiesis still amounts to a technical interpretation of praxis (21; see also 22). Yet Aristotles definition of motion shows, I suggest, t h a t h e understands poiesislkinesis i n t h e light of energeia l p r a x i s rather t h a n vice versa. Bernasconi sees at Nic. Eth. VI ii 5 , 1139a35b4 a characterization of p r a x i s a s t h e goal of p o i e s i s , a characterization which h e sees as subordinating praxis to poiesis (8). But this p a s s a g e c a n be i n t e r p r e t e d w i t h at l e a s t e q u a l p l a u s i b i l i t y as showing t h a t Aristotle i n t e r p r e t s making from t h e perspective of praxis as a n unfulfilled praxis. 22 S e e P a u l Ricceur, Negativite e t affirmation originaire, i n Aspects de la dialectique (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 19561, 101-24; and Soi-m&mecomme un autre (Paris: fiditions de Seuil, 1990), 364. I n t h e former i m p o r t a n t essay, a f t e r a critique of modern philosophies t h a t privilege negation and t h e nothing, like t h a t of S a r t r e , for presupposing a limited and impoverished conception of being a s thinghood and essence (120), Riccleur concludes: Sous l a pression d u negatif, des experiences e n negatif, nous avons a reconquerir u n e notion de letre qui soit acte plutBt que forme, affirmation vivante, p u i s s a n c e dexister e t d e f a i r e e x i s t e r ( 1 2 4 ) . S e e Dominique Janicauds description of Ricceur as proposing u n e ontologie d e lagir qui a pour fin le bien vivre a u sens dhristote e t pour laquelle letre h i - m e m e se decouvre e t se definit comme agir (471). Janicaud also notes how Ricoeur emphasizes t h e dunamis-energeia s e n s e of being in Aristotle against Heideggers reduction of being to presence (472-3). 23 Heidegger discusses briefly the characterization of j S o v i in the Nicomachean Ethics as not a KivqoiS and not existing in time ( G A 18, 244-45), but he does not reflect on the peculiar relation of kvfpyEia to t i m e a n d concludes: Dieser C h a r a k t e r , dalj sie keine ~ i v j o i s ist, c h a r a k t e r i s i e r t sie a l s eine B e s t i m m u n g d e r Gegenwartigkeit d e s Daseins a l s solchen (245). T h i s inference from keine K I V ~ U I S to Gegenwartigkeit is precisely t h e inference I w a n t to bring i n t o
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence? question. 24 This is understandably a text to which Ricceur attaches much importance: see Soi-m&mecomme un autre, 356 and 364 n. 1. For a n account of the strange history of this texts transmission, see Brague, Aristote et la question du monde, 454-61. Bragues is probably t h e best philosophical interpretation of this text currently available, at least in part because he recognizes the texts crucial importance. 25We do find a t P h y s i c s 249b29 t h e phrase: a u a K i w i K a i K E K ~ V T ~ K E V The . context, however, is t h e continuity of motion as a process, not its relation to its T C A O ~ . T h i s continuity shows t h a t motion is indeed a n CvCpyEia, b u t without collapsing t h e distinction between t h e two. See Wolfgang Wieland, Die aristotelische Physik, 3rd. ed. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 19921, 332. 26 This interpretation is t h e one advanced by Pierre Aubenque: Dans le cas dCvCpyEi, ce qui demeure pens6 9 travers l a formation savante du mot, e s t lactivite artisanale, plus precisement lceuvre (Zpyov). Certes, lacte nest p a s lactivite, e t Aristote prendra bien soin de le distinguer de mouvement, mais il en est le resultat. I1 nest p a s le devenant, mais le devenu, non pas le bgtir, mais lavoir-bgti, non pas le present ou laoriste d u mouvoir, mais le parfait de lavoirm G e t de lavoir-et6-mu (Le probl6me de 16tre chez Aristote, 440). Yet Aubenque mus t admit i n a note (440, n. 4 ) t h a t Aristotle does not actually s a y t h i s . I n s t e a d , Aristotle claims t h a t CvipyEia is simultaneously p a s t perfect a n d p r e s e n t . S o how c a n Aubenque interpret so against t h e grain of t h e text? Because, no m a t t e r w h a t Aristotle might say, his extension of CvCpyEia to .rrp&$i5 en contredit lorigine technologique, selon laquelle l a reference B laeuure e s t immediatement p r e s e n t e (440-41, n . 4). Despite h i s critique of Heidegger i n t h e n e x t n o t e (441, n . 1) Aubenque h e r e follows Heidegger in considering the etymology of a word more important to its interpretation t h a n its actual use and analysis in the Aristotelian text. Some sal u t a r y words of Paul Ricceur a r e worth citing i n t h i s context: E t cette proximite e n t r e LnergLia e t ergon na-t-elle p a s (encourage maints commentateurs B donner u n modele artisanal a l a skrie entiere: entblkcheia, LnergLia, ergon? Ce qui, e n banalisant le propos, r e n d r a i t a peu p r e s i n u t i l e t o u t e e n t e r p r i s e d e r e a p p r o priation de lontologie de lacte-puissance a u benefice de l&tred u soi ( Soi-m&mecomme un autre, 355, n. 2). 21 S e e para l l e l p a s s a g e s a t S o p h . e l . 178a9-11 a n d De s e n s u 446b2. 28 Brague expresses well t h e paradox: Lacte nen finit p a s d e h i r , il cesse sans cesse (470). At one point in his manuscript for the SS 1926 course, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, Heidegger appears to see this crucial point: 6vTEhfxEia: 1. nicht n u r uberhaupt anwesend. 2. nicht n u r beweglich, CITEAI~S, C I ~ ~ I U T O V , 3. sondern von ihm selbst her seinem Wesen nach n u r im Wirken seiend. CvtpyEia . r E A E i a , fertig u n d doch nicht Aufhoren d e r uordranglichen Anwesenheit; mipa5 und doch kein Aufhiiren, sondern gerade i n i h r 1st Sein. Ich h a b e gesehen u n d so s e h e ich. Ich bin glucklich geworden und bin es so gerade. Ich habe es erlebt und lebe jetzt SO ( G A 22, 175). B u t Heidegger does not a p p e a r to see t h e extent to which this challenges a characterization of i v i p y e i a as Zm-Werke-Sein ( 1731, a characterization of CvTEAixEia as Fertig-sein, and, finally, t h e characterization of both as modes of Anwesenheit and Vorhandenheit.
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Francisco J. Gonzalez Similarly, Brocker, while rightly claiming that das Sehen von etwas [ist] auch kein Aufenthalt, kein Stillstand, sondern ruhige Tutigkeit (851, still proceeds to make the mistake of identifying it with the end of motion and t h u s with what Heidegger calls Fertig-sein: die Energie in Gegensatz zur Bewegung sich bestimmt als Ruhe, u. z . nicht als Aufenthalt auf dem Wege zu einem Ende, sondern als Ruhe im Ziel und Ende einer Bewegung: Entelechie (85). In the SS 1922 course, Heidegger, after citing 1048b19-21, interprets i t a s speaking of a Bewegung die selbst in ihrem Ende steht, am Ende gerade ist!die noch oder gerade dann Bewegung ist, wenn sie a n ihrem Ende ist! Am Ende sein und gerade d a n n Bewegung sein (106). But Aristotle in this passage is speaking of .rrp&E,is TEAEia, not of K ~ V Q O I ~ , and for a good reason: i t is precisely the fact that K I V T ~ C J Icomes ~ to an end when i t reaches i t s end t h a t distinguishes i t a s such from ivipyEia. 29 Capturing in a translation the sense of a p a is difficult because, as Brague rightly warns, I1 faut se garder de la reduire trop vite a la contemporanite que suggerait la traduction par en meme temps. ... Dans cet hama, le passe est integre au present non pour y &re aboli, mais en t a n t que tel (473). Does not t h i s a p a t h e n defy t h e conception of time to which Heidegger insists on restricting t h e Greeks? 30 Despite otherwise reiterating Heideggers view t h a t Aristotle sest borne a suivre le Aoyo~ (108) and thus is led t o characterize VOV, appears to go beyond Heidegger in being a s I ~ T I O K E ~ ~ EBeaufret seeing Aristotle a s recognizing t h e limits of language a n d t h e categories in the face of the phenomenon of M p y E i a (118-19). 3 1 As Brague, for example, argues (474-92). 32 Heideggers interpretation, to the extent t h a t it appears in the Einfuhrung in d i e Metaphysik and other l a t e r texts, was already brought into question by Pierre Aubenque in an important note to Le probleme d e lEtre chez Aristote (first published in 1943): Nous ne pouvons accepter linterpretation que M. Heidegger propose du mot ivTEAiXEia. Voulant a juste titre eviter la mesinterpretation moderne de lentelechie comme finalite, il en vient a eliminer du mot T ~ A o ~ toute idee de f i n , a u s e n s dachhvement, daccomplissement de linacheve, pour ne plus retenir que le sens statique daccomplissment toujours deja accompli de pure presence de ce qui est present ... I1 sagit, certes, dune presence, mais dune presence advenue, deuenue. La traduction moderne dacte nest pas un oubli du sens originel, mais lui reste, pour une fois, fidhle (441, n. 1). Two aspects of t h i s critique a r e on t h e mark: ( 1 ) t h e criticism of Heideggers his , insistence t h a t ~ t h 0 5 elimination of all idea of fin from T ~ A O ~ nicht Ziel und nicht Zweck, sondern Ende bedeutet (Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik, 3rd. ed. [Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 19661, 46; for a critique of Heideggers defense of this view in the SS 1924 course, see my Without Good and Evil: Heideggers Purification of Aristotles Ethics, 131-34; (2) and the defense of the translation of ivTEAiXEia as act against Heideggers interpretation of it as das Sich-in-derEndung (Grenze)-halten (wahren) (Einfiihrung, 461, a n interpretation Heidegger uses to support his thesis that for the Greeks being meant Stundigkeit. (In contrast, Jean Beaufret follows Heidegger in the translation of M p y E i a a s actus claiming t h a t it constitutes a wall between us and the Greeks [135].) But Aubenques critique of
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heidegger is not radical enough because it follows Heidegger i n interpreting CvTEhfXEia and ivipyEia as moments within movement (i.e., as results o r aims of movement) and t h u s in ignoring or greatly minimizing Aristotles distinction between ivfpyEia and Kivquis: see the critique of Aubenque on this point in note 5. In this respect, t h e interpretation of ivTEhiXEia as presence having-arrived, havingbecome is no better t h a n t h e interpretation of CvTEAfXEia simply as presence. 33 Christopher P. Longs otherwise very insightful account of t h e ontological significance of 1~ptic15 i n Aristotle seems to fall into this error: h e appears to assume t h a t only potentiality and matter could prevent ivepyEia from being some static actus purus, thereby failing to note t h a t the ivepyeia without matter t h a t is t h e unmoved mover is interpreted by Aristotle as I T P ~ ~to IS the , extent of being described as life, pleasu r e , a n d h a p p i n e s s (The E t h i c a l C u l m i n a t i o n of Aristotles Metaphysics, i n Epoch6 8 [20031: see 128 a n d 133). It is for t h i s reaso n t h a t Long, i n looking for a model of dynamic, nonuniversal knowledge t h a t can do justice to ivEpyEia, t u r n s to qp6vquis instead of to t h e v6qa15 V O ~ U E U Sof t h e unmoved mover. Long provides a d e t a i l e d defense of t h i s t h e s i s i n The Ethics of Ontology: Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004); but see my critique in Form i n Aristotle: Oppressive Univers a l o r Individual Act? Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 26, 2 (2005): 179-98. 34 Ricceur r i g h t l y s t r e s s e s t h e i m p o r t a n c e of p r e s e r v i n g t h e tension between Grjvapis a n d Cvfpyeia a n d from t h i s perspective criticizes the reduction of ivfpyeia to facticity (Soi-m&me comme un autre, 364-5). In contrast, Heidegger in t h e 1930 course insists with regard to ivfpyEia t h a t Unser Fremdwort Energie i m S i n n e von Kraft h a t d a m i t n i c h t s z u t u n . ivfpyEia b e d e u t e t z u m a l a l s philosophischer Ausdruck fur Existenz, Wirklichkeit, Vorhandensein bei Aristoteles alles andere als Kraft (GA 31, 67). 35 Heidegger at one point asserts t h a t according to t h e Megarian position, Nichtvollzug d e s Vermogens gleich Abwesenheit, gleich Nichtvorhandensein desselben (184). Judging from w h a t Aristotle wrote, what the Megarians are claiming instead is t h a t Nichtvollzug fdesVermogens gleich Unvermogen. 36 Heidegger at one point refers to the emphasis [die Betonung] of Grjvapiv EXEIV (188) in the text. What emphasis? What one finds in the text is Aristotle occasionally using this expression without calling a t t e n t i o n t o it a n d w i t h o u t d e r i v i n g from it a n y philosophical #conclusionsfor the argument. The emphasis is all Heideggers. 37 Even if it is legitimate to ask, a s Heidegger does earlier i n t h e Icourse, In welcher Weise i s t d e n n n u n d a s 6 v (ETvai) pohhaX6s ~ E Y ~ ~ E V O dV a s, S e i n a l s vielfach Gesagtes, K O I V ~ VT I , irgendwie gemeinsam f u r die Vielen? ( G A 33, 311, t h i s c e r t a i n l y does not justify t h e conflation of a categorial s e n s e of being w i t h being as
;&hapis.
38 Heidegger d e r i v e s t h e following c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of beingcapable from h i s excellent phenomenological description of t h e runner: Wirklich-vermogend-sein ist d a s bereitschafterfullte ImStande-sein-z u , dem n u r noch die Enthemmung i n d e n Vollzug fehlt ... (218). T h i s c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of being-capable is w i t h o u t question defensible and illuminating. The problem is t h a t Heidegger
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Francisco J. Gonzalez does not stop here. Instead, h e proceeds to bring t h i s definition i n line with the supposedly Greek conception of being by identifying I m Stande-sein-zu with t h e having of a GirvapiS as something present (219). If we a r e to r e m a i n faithful to w h a t Aristotle s a y s even i n going beyond what he says, we must insist t h a t Im-Stande-sein-zu is GiwapiS itself, not the being-present or being-at-hand of a G h a p i S . 39 Bonitz, though not seeing this a s eliminating all t h e problems, s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e viciousness of t h e circle i n t h e definition is minimized if T O Gvva-r6v, quod definit, d e q u a l i t a t e q u a d a m r e i inhaerente, TO aGljvaTov, quod a d definiendum adscisit, de i n t e r n a cogitandi repugnantia intellexerimus.. . (387). Ross takes t h e same way out (245), though his comments appear to go f u r t h e r i n seeing the meaning of logical (im)possibility in both GvvaT6v and aGirvaTov, something t h a t seems h a r d l y possible i n t h e f i r s t case, given t h e context. 40 According to t h e editor of G A 33 (2261, Rosss commentary i s one of the texts Heidegger consulted for the 1931 course. 41 When Heidegger comes upon Aristotles example of aiaOqalS, he is forced to make t h e important concession t h a t EvEpyEiv, ivipyEia haben hier schon nicht mehr die urspriinglich ganz enge Bezogenheit auf Epyov, a b e r immer doch die Bedeutung d e s Vollzugs (204). I n this case one must of course even question t h e translation Vollzug, which suggests a process towards some outcome. Yet this concession does not stop Heidegger from translating i v i p y e i a as Am-Werke-Sein. 42 At one point in t h e course, Heidegger asks how t h e Megarians can appeal to ivEpyEiv when they presumably, as Eleatics, denied t h e existence of motion (171-2). Perhaps t h e solution is t h a t ivEpyEiv is not understood a s motion. Heidegger himself raises t h e possibility, though only in passing and without pursuing it, t h a t i v i p y e i a , which he translate here a s Vollzug, is perhaps something other than motion ([ ... ist vielleicht etwas anderes?], 174). 43 Enrico Berti also makes this objection to Heideggers reading, rightly insisting t h a t for Aristotle the primary meaning of i v i p y a a is not t h a t according to movement, but t h a t of activity (Aristotele nel Novecento [Roma: Laterza, 19921, 103, 110-11). See also Long, who for this reason finds in Aristotle a n undermining of the metaphysics of productive comportment (138, n. 39). 44 At one point in speaking of ivipyE!a, Heidegger writes: Vollzug ist Ausiibung, also Anwesenheit von Ubung u n d Geiibtheit (185). Here, as i n other cases, t h e also expresses not w h a t necessarily follows but, rather, w h a t Heide,gger needs. Why m u s t Ausiibung be interpreted a s t h e presence of Ubung? Only to fit Heideggers thesis concerning t h e Greek conception of being. Heidegger himself sees t h a t t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is not necessary w h e n h e r e m a r k s t h a t Vollzug i s not s i m p l y A n w e s e n h e i t : vielmehr ist d e r Vollzug Ausiibung u n d a l s solche, w e n n iiberhaupt, A n w e s e n h e i t von Einubung (191, my emphasis). This possibility t h a t Vollzug is not Anwesenheit at all is quickly passed over and not allowed to interfere with Heideggers thesis. 46 Beaufret follows Heideggers l a t e r interpretation i n affirming t h e synonymy of ivipyEia and iv-rEAiXEia only a t t h e cost of denying t h a t t h e former m e a n s act a n d identifying b o t h w i t h w h a t is achieved or completed: Cest bien pourquoi LvipyEia, ou lon entend Epyov, e t ivTEhiXEia, ou lon e n t e n d T ~ ~ O sont S , synonymes, ~ i h 0 5
566
Whose Metaphysics of Presence? netant pas plus un but quipyov nest une action ou u n acte, mais les cleux d i s a n t lun e t l a u t r e q u e q u e l q u e chose e s t acheve e t non seulement en cours, ou mBme moins encore, a u sens ou louvrage de la menuiserie ne peut pas mBme encore, dans larbre de la for&, Btre clit en cours (114). Beaufret therefore also follows Heidegger i n claiming t h a t ivipyEia a n d Girvapic a r e understood from t h e perspective of movement (114-5). Heideggers thesis t h a t being for t h e Greeks was presence is accordingly accepted without question: slee page 138. 46 Thus also in t h e Beitruge zur Philosophie Heidegger can claim t h a t Aristoteles begreift erstmals griechisch von Bestandigkeit und Anwesenheit her (oiroia) das Wesen der Bewegung ... (Gesamtausgabe 65, 2nd. ed. [Frankfurt a m Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 19941, 193) only by asserting t h a t ens actu ist gerade das Seiende in der Ruhe, riicht in der Aktion, das Insichgesammelte und in diesem Sinne voll Anwesende (194). 47 Brague rightly sees in t h e phrase X a h m j v iGEiv a surpassing both of t h e conception of knowledge according to t h e paradigm of vision and of a conception of being as what-is-there ( ~ ~ T T ~ ~ as ~ xa EIv) t h i n g (K-rijpa) (502-6). H e even writes: le p a r a d i g m e visuel q u i domine une bonne partie de la pensee grecque y trouve laccroc, peutEatre unique, o u i l commence a s e dkmailler (505). I would deny, however, t h a t this paradigm dominates Greek thought to t h e extent I3rague suggests. Brague argues t h a t our only access to ivipyEia is riot vision, but A i y ~ i v (504-6), which h e however distinguishes from both predication and naming (506). This is presumably because we can speak of ivipyEia only from within, as Brague suggests earlier: NOUS comprenons lacte, non pas d u dehors, mais quand nous nous plaqons linterieur de lui-formule dailleurs provisoire, car il faut comprendre que nous ne nous y sommes jamais mis, que nous y avons toujours Bt6, que lacte e s t ce dont nous ne pouvons j a m a i s sortir (495). 48 One text t h a t demands reflection here is t h e Beitruge (293-4). Heidegger here uses t h e language of Aristotles definition of K ~ V ~ U I S , despite his characterization of it as outlived metaphysical language, to express the essence of Being. What needs to be considered here is what is lost in this appropriation. An answer is perhaps to be found i n Patockas c r i t i q u e of Heidegger from t h e perspective of a phenomenology of movement: for discussion and documentation, see Renaud Barbaras, La phenomenologie d u movement chez Patocka, in Phdnomdnologie: un si6cle de philosophie, eds. Pascal Dupond and Laurent Cournaire (Paris: Ellipses, 2002), 129-37; especially 135. 49 On peut enfin se demander si Heidegger a aperqu les ressources que pouvait receler une philosophie de 1Btre qui mettrait le transcendlantal d e lacte a l a place d e celui d e l a s u b s t a n c e , comme l e comme dlemande une phenomenologie de lagir et du pgtir (Soi-m&me z m autre, 380, my translation). One of t h e resources Ricoeur h a s in mind here is a n ethical one. This is evident not only i n Soi-m&me comme un autre but also in the much earlier essay cited above, where Flicoeur suggests t h a t only a n ontology of t h e act, a s opposed to both t h e privileging of negation i n existentialism a n d a philosophy of essences, can ground respect for t h e o t h e r a n d t h u s ethics: si lexistentialisme privilegie l e moment d u refus, d u dkfi, d e larrachment a u donne, d u desengluement, cest q u e dune p a r t le
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Francisco J. Gonzalez moment de nbantisation d u donnk e s t toujours obscurci p a r u n e volonte coupable dannihilation dautrui. ... Mais l a position de lexistence par lexistence, de lexistence de lautre comme condition de mon existence pleine e t entihre, ne me condamne p a s a u n e philosophie des essences mais moriente vers une philosophie de lacte dexister. Lillusion de lexistentialisme est double: il confond la denegation avec les passions qui lenferment dans le negatif, il croit que lautre alternative a la liberth-nBant cest letre petrifie d a n s lessence (NBgativite e t affirmation originaire, 119). One m u s t wonder to what a n extent such a criticism applies to Heidegger. 5 0 T h i s paper was w r i t t e n with t h e support of t h e National Endowment for t h e Humanities and t h e Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
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Whose Metaphysics of Presence - Heidegger's Interpretation of Energeia and Dunamis in Aristotle

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Whose Metaphysics of Presence - Heidegger's Interpretation of Energeia and Dunamis in Aristotle

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The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol.