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Whose Metaphysics of Presence?

The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol. XLIV

Abstract

In the recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe deraristotelischen Philosophie, Martin Heidegger offers a detailed

interpretation of Aristotles definition ofkinesis in the Physics. Thisinterpretation identifies entelecheia with what is finished andpresent-at-an-end and energeia with being-at-work toward this end.In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts toshow that Aristotle interpreted being from the perspective ofpraxisrather than po iesis and therefore did not identify it with staticpresence. The paper also challenges later variations of Heideggersinterpretation, in particular his account ofdunamis in the 1931course on Metaphysics Theta , which insists that its mode of being ispresence-at-hand. By arguing that this reading too is untenable, thepaper concludes that Aristotles metaphysics is not a metaphysics ofpresence and that his texts instead point toward a possibility of

metaphysics ignored by the attempts of Heidegger and others toovercome it.

je trouve chez Aristote de quoi rengendrer la mtaphysique.Celle-ci ne me parat donc pas close, je dirais plutt quelle meparat inexplore.

Paul Ricur1

Central to Martin Heideggers interpretation of the Greeks, andtherefore to his account of the whole history of metaphysics, isthe thesis that for the Greeks being meant presence. Thisinterpretation has been extremely influential, provoking manyand diverse attempts to overcome what has come to be called


Heideggers Interpretation ofEnergeiaandDunamis in Aristotle

Francisco J. GonzalezSkidmore College

Francisco J. Gonzalez is associate professor and chair of theDepartment of Philosophy at Skidmore College. He is the author ofDialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry(Northwestern University Press, 1998) and has recently completed abook entitledA Question of Dialogue: Heidegger and Plato.

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Francisco J. Gonzalez

the metaphysics of presence. Yet I have elsewhere attemptedto show that this thesis is untenable in the case of Plato,2 andmy aim in the present paper is to show that it is equallyuntenable in the case of Aristotle. The crucial text isHeideggers recently published SS 1924 course, Grundbegriffe

der aristotelischen Philosophie.3 It is here that Heideggerprovides the most thorough argument and textual exegesis insupport of his thesis that being in Aristotle means presence.This thesis then underlies, and is further defended in,Heideggers reading of Aristotle in later texts, most notably inthe 1931 course Aristoteles, Metaphysik 13: Vom Wesen undWirklichkeit der Kraft,4 and in the essay, Vom Wesen undBegriff der , written in 1939.5 A critical reading of thesetexts promises nothing less than the recovery of possibilities formetaphysics that the Heideggerian history of Being must ignoreand exclude.6

1.

Heidegger often cites the ordinary, pre-philosophical meaning ofthe Greek word for being, , as an indication that theGreeks understood being as presence. Heidegger expresses thismeaning in the 1924 course as follows: means [Vermgen],possessions and goods [Hab und Gut], the household [der

Hausstand], the estate [das Anwesen] (GA 18, 345). Heideggeremphasizes that the ordinary meaning thus not only intends a

specific being as the genuine or exemplary being, that is, onesown goods or possessions, but also expresses the how of thisbeings being: its being available (verfgbar), usable(brauchbar), and in this way there for us. Therefore, if we takethe ordinary meaning of as a clue to what being meantfor the Greeks, as Heidegger suggests (24), then we can inferthat the Greeks understood being as being-there, being-at-hand,being-present. Furthermore, if this ordinary meaning ispreserved in the philosophical meaning, if the philosophicalmeaning only makes explicit and thematic what is connoted(mitgemeint) in the ordinary meaning (257, 346), then we can

conclude that Aristotle too in using the word understoodthereby presence.But can we legitimately read a philosophical conception of

being into the ordinary use of the word ? Can we assumethat this ordinary meaning is retained in the otherwise verydifferent, technical philosophical meaning? After all, whenAristot le analyzes the dif ferent meanings of inMetaphysics , goods or possessions is not among them.Though Heidegger in later texts sometimes invokes the pre-philosophical meaning of as if it were some kind ofevidence for his thesis concerning the conception of being inGreek philosophy, in 1924 he is much more careful. Thus in

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Heideggers manuscript for the course we find the followingimportant warning regarding the interpretation of: Theordinary meaning as guideline. Beware! It could havedisappeared. Only when there is a comprehensive examinationof these indications. Otherwise easily dilettante. Mere sem-

blance of depth. Precisely here one must take into considerationthe fate and historicity of every language (GA 18, 345).Heidegger thus makes it very clear that the technical meaningof cannot be simply deduced from the ordinary meaning,that the latter can at most serve as aguideline (Leitfaden) (345;see also 24 and 26). Heidegger therefore recognizes the need todemonstrate that moments of the ordinary meaning of, inparticular the connotations ofHab and Anwesen, are stillpresent in Aristotles technical use of the term (26).

One way in which Heidegger attempts to demonstrate this isby showing that the different forms of being (Seinscharaktere),or rather the different ways of being (Wie des Seins) Aristotlepresents in Metaphysics 8 all signify, with greater or lessertransparency, a there of beings [Da des Seienden] (350; see34850 and 2934). For the purpose of the present paper,however, I will focus on the sense of being I take to pose thegreatest challenge to what Heidegger wishes to demonstrate:the sense of being that cuts through the senses discussed at

Metaphysics 8, a sense of being expressed in two words thatHeidegger himself will come to consider the most fundamentalwords for being in Aristotle:7 and .

That Heidegger in the 1924 course translates when it first makes its appearance as Gegenwart,Gegenwrtigsein eines Seienden als Ende (296) should notsurprise us, since this is precisely the translation he needs tomaintain the identification of with presence. Yet thecontext is precisely the one best suited to show the untenabilityof this translation. This context is the account of motion() in the first three chapters ofPhysics , an account towhich Heidegger devotes the last part of the 1924 course. Heturns to this account because he believes that constitutes the genuine there-character of being (287). What

this means will become apparent if we turn to Heideggerstranslation/interpretation of the definition of motion Aristotleoffers in the first chapter ofPhysics , 201a1011: , , . Heidegger,adopting the translation of already mentioned,initially translates the whole sentence thus: motion is thebeing-present [Gegenwart] of what is capable of being-there assuch (313; see also 315). An immediately apparent problemwith this translation lies precisely in the word Gegenwart. Apiece of wood can be present as something capable of being, forexample, capable of being made into a table, without therebybeing 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 inmotion (313). Essential to understanding this very strangeclaim is Heideggers identification of with significanceor Bedeutsamkeit. This is made especially clear in Heideggers

manuscript, where we read: 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 somethingto be used for a house or as something from which a box can bemade: this is itsBedeutsamkeit. But this is also the thatHeidegger sees as constituting the genuine being-there ofbeing. The piece of wood sitting there is in motion in the senseof referring beyond itself, signifying something, and this is the that Aristotle is making manifest in his definition.

One could of course object that what is significant inHeideggers sense, such as the piece of wood in his example, isat rest, while what Aristotle is trying to define is not rest(), which he characterizes as the of what iscapable of being moved (202a45), but rather the opposite ofrest (229b2326; 264a2728): in the sense of alteration,growth and decay, generation and destruction, and movement inplace (201a1115). Furthermore, in this sense is notsimply the being-present of the capable as capable, but theactual exercise, activation , of the capable as capable; forexample, it is not simply the presence of the wood as buildable,but the actual exercise of this potential in the activity of

building. Heidegger acknowledges this possible objection (314)but dismisses it as an illusion (Tuschung) by drawing ourattention to the phenomenon of rest. When the carpenter goesto lunch and leaves what he is building uncompleted, the woodis at rest. But rest is something that can characterize only whatis capable of being in motion: rest thus preserves, rather thaneliminates, a things motion as its way of being: Rest is only alimit-case of motion (314). The way in which this answers theobjection Heidegger faces is apparently this:Bedeutsamkeit canindeed characterize something at rest, something not presentlybeing put to work, but what is thus at rest still has motion as

its way of being. Thus the identification ofBedeutsamkeit and is preserved by way of an identification of both with rest.Thus in Heideggers manuscript we read the following: Rest asthe way of being-there [Da-Weise] of what is in motion as anobject of concern in the world [des Besorgten der Welt]. Onlythus is significance [Bedeutsamkeit] fully determined (379).8

One can now understand why Heidegger gives such impor-tance to the discovery of the phenomenon of rest as the way ofbeing of most of the beings we encounter and deal with in theworld: As far as I know, no one has ever brought into consider-ation this moment of rest (314). But even if we admit the unityof motion and rest to which Heidegger draws our attention, is it

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not still important to explain the difference? While the explicitpurpose of Aristotles definition of is to explain thisdifference, Heideggers interpretation prevents it from doing so.Specificallyand this is what is crucialin translating as Gegenwart and thereby making a kind of

being-present, Heidegger blocks access to the phenomenon of as distinct from rest.Heideggers interpretation is strikingly similar to that of the

philosophers whom Aristotle describes as explaining interms of otherness (). Heidegger himself suggests thepossibility that these philosophers saw as acharacteristic a being has in itself in the sense that a being initself has the possibility of being from to , of being charac-terized with regard to a certain determination by the absence ofthis determination. Does not then in this casedetermine the being of being-in-motion? (317). The problem, ofcourse, is that Aristotle rejects this interpretation ofbecause, in Heideggers own paraphrase, Wood can be a boxand is there as wooddetermined in itself through and yet not determined as moving (384). It is as if Heideggerin proceeding through the text has suddenly encountered aresurrected Aristotle telling him his interpretation will notstand.

Heidegger nevertheless refuses to see defeat here andinstead joins Aristotle in rejecting the explanation of motion as . However, he can do so only by suggesting that the

problem with this explanation is its failure to include themoment ofbeing-present (Gegenwrtigsein) (318, 384). It is notenough for something to be characterized by otherness or differ-ence in order for it to be in motion: this otherness or differencemust bepresent. Heideggers interpretation is thus saved becauseit included presence along with Bedeutsamkeit as essentialdimensions of. Yet the distance here between Heideggerand Aristotle is made clear by the fact that Aristotles objectionto the thesis that is has nothing to do with itsfailure to take presence into account. Instead, his objections arethat what is other is not necessarily moved and that movement

occurs not from and to what is other, but rather between con-traries (Physics 201b2124). In other words, Aristotle appealsnot to the phenomenon of presence, but to the phenomenon ofmotion itself. This again shows that it is Heidegger who isreading presence into the text. Furthermore, Aristotlesobjection explicitly rejects as a characteristic of preciselywhat Heidegger wants to identify it with: the structure of beingfrom/to what is other. In other words, what characterizes is the relation of contraries and not Bedeutsamkeit.

A li tt le later in the course Heidegger again appears toundermine his own interpretation of

when he insists:

One should not simply say: is simply the of

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what is capable. What is capable is not as such moved (320).Yet Heidegger now appears to move towards a different accountof motion: What is in possibility comes to its proper end inbeing put to work [In-Arbeit-Sein], it is then genuinely what itis, namely, being-capable. In relation to the of ,

however, it is not finished [nicht fertig] (321). Why this shiftnow in Heideggers account from defining motion in terms ofGegenwart to defining it in terms ofIn-Arbeit-Sein? The mainreason is that Heidegger by this point in the course has come toAristotles characterization of as incomplete ().This is clearly a characteristic of that Heideggers earlierinterpretation cannot account for: what is at rest and

gegenwrtig in its significance need not be but, on thecontrary, can be finished and complete. If we saw thatHeideggers earlier characterization of was unable tocapture what is distinctive of as opposed to rest, we cannow say that this is incompleteness, the state of being neitherfully potential nor fully actual: and this is precisely the difficultindeterminacy of that Aristotle is trying to explain.

But how can Heidegger feel justified in now changing hisinterpretation, specifically, in replacing Gegenwart with In-

Arbeit-Sein? The reason is that he thinks he finds such adistinction in Aristotle himself, as he makes clear in thefollowing remark: Insofar as Being ultimately means Being-at-its-end, Holding-itself-in-its-end in a final sense, ,Aristotle, when he speaks with care, must characterize the

being [Dasein] of being-in-motion as (321).9

WhatHeidegger is assuming here is a distinction between as being-present-at-an-end and as being-at-work-towards-an-end. This distinction then allows him to grant thatthe definition of motion as is not fully adequate,since motion is , and that Aristotle would be more carefulif he were to characterize motion as in the sense of anincomplete being-at-work. But what grounds are there for thissharp distinction between and ?10 And isIn-

Arbeit-Sein an adequate translation of the that definesmotion?11

Let us consider the second question first. This translation of is of course suggested by the etymology of the term.Yet, as Heidegger well knows, etymology by itself can provenothing. Furthermore, Heideggers etymological account isquestionable on two main points. (1) He takes the word to mean work, whether in the sense of working, as here, orin the sense of the work, the finished product, which, as wewill see, is how Heidegger interprets the word in later texts(these two related meanings, for example, are the only onesrecognized in the 1931 course [GA 33, 50]). But are either orboth of these interpretations fully adequate interpretations of? To see that they are not, one need only recall the use of

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the word in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics : to saythat the of man is the souls in accordance withreason [ ] (1098a7) is not to say that this is thework 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 theNicomachean Ethics the is argued to be an with no sense of redundancy. (2)Therefore, the other problem with Heideggers reading is that ittends to reduce to : 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 torecommend it: it is certainly better to characterize motion as aputting-to-work of a capability than it is to characterize it asthe mere being-present of this capability. Yet this translationconfronts a serious philosophical problem: it collapses thedistinction between and . Being-at-work towardsan unachieved end is itself a motion, so that to define thus is necessarily to turn it into a motion. Heidegger indeedcharacterizes , in distinction from , asUnfertigsein (381), das Noch-nicht-fertig (382), therebyidentifying it with motion not only implicitly but at one point inthe course explicitly: is , but not (296).13 Yet such an identification is untenable for two reasons.(1) Aristotles definition of motion would become viciouslycircular, since it would amount to saying: motion is theputting-in-motion of what is capable qua capable. Of course,

as Heidegger would be quick to point out, in philosophy, circlesare not always vicious. But while some circular reasoning canbe illuminating, a definition of motion as the putting-into-motion of what is capable of motion illuminates or revealsnothing at all.14 (2) The second problem is that, in a well-knowntext from theMetaphysics ( 6, 1048b1835), Aristotle sharplydistinguishes between and precisely becausethe latter is while the former is not.15 And it is impor-tant to emphasize that the definition of as an does not at all contradict their distinction. The thatdefines motion is not itself an incomplete process towards some

end but, rather, the full actuality and completion of what iscapable insofar as it is capable. It is the qualification insofar asit is capable that explains the incompleteness of motion andnot anything in itself, as Aristotle explicitly says:, though a kind of, is incomplete []. Thecause of its being incomplete is the capable [ ] ofwhich it is the (Phys. 2, 201b3133).16 This is whythe definition is not circular: in itself is not motion17nor is the capable qua capable in itself motion: only theofthe capable qua capable is motion. This is also whyAristot le at one point can even, with no hint of paradox,characterize motion as an (257b89), a

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characterization that of course defeats the whole point ofHeideggers distinction between and .

We can now draw an important conclusion: the key term inthe definition of, whether it be or ,can mean neither Gegenwrtigsein nor an unfertiges im-Arbeit-

Sein: the former interpretation eliminates the phenomenon of altogether by substituting for it the mere presence of acapability, while the latter interpretation leaves it completelyunexplained by simply defining it as itself. But these inade-quate interpretations of or rest on the sharpdistinction Heidegger makes between them. Only by beingsharply distinguished from can be rid of anyconnotation of activity and be identified with Gegenwart,Gegenwrtigsein eines Seienden als Ende and Fertigsein(296); only by being sharply distinguished from can be characterized as an incomplete movement towards a. It is therefore this distinction that fails to make sense ofAristotles account of motion, an account in which the terms and are used interchangeably. What justi-fication, then, does Heidegger provide for making such adistinction?

Before looking at this justification we need to reflect on whyHeidegger needs a sharp distinction between and. As already noted, one of Heideggers principle aims inthis discussion is to demonstrate that for Aristotle, and for theGreeks in general, Being was understood aspresence and, more

specifically, as a static presence. To support this interpretationhe must argue that Aristotles word for being in the fullestsense, that is, , means being-present-once-and-for-all,being-at-an-end, being-finished. But the only way in which hecan interpret in this way is to sharply distinguish itfrom and interpret the latter in a way that completelysubordinates it to the former: as movement towards being-at-an-end, being-finished. The conclusion that Heidegger thuswishes to arrive at is clearly stated in the following passagefrom his manuscript for the course:

The How of the There (Da) of something: how does being-at-work [In-Arbeit-sein] arrive at this ontological-hermeneuticalprecedence? Because being=being-produced [Sein=Hergestelltsein],There=being-present [Da=Anwesendsein], being-finished [Fertigsein],having-come-into the Now [Hersein in Jetzt], into presence[Gegenwart]; in being-present-before [Gegenwrtigsein], being-in-possession-of-the-there [Da-Habendsein], remaining-there with[Sichaufhalten bei]. (381)

But what becomes of this conclusion if and are synonyms? It simply collapses. If

means the

same as , then as activity it cannot mean what is

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simply present (schlechthin gegenwrtig), what is finished,much less what is produced. If means the same as, then as an end-in-itself it cannot be a process northerefore work or production. The synonymous pair / would then name a conception of Being that evades

and transcends the conception to which Heidegger tries toconfine Aristotle and the Greeks.But it is now time to look at the textual evidence Heidegger

provides for the distinction on which his present reading ofAristotles ontology, and Greek ontology in general, depends. Theevidence provided on p. 295 is Metaphysics 3 1047a30. HereAristotle, according to most editions of the text, refers to as : (as a name) is set down in relation to, or for,. However, this is not the text Heidegger reads: hefollows Diels in substituting for so thathe can interpret the text as meaning that spannt sichaus zum Ende, stretches itself towards the end (296). This ofcourse is the interpretation Heidegger needs in order to distin-guish between as an unfinished movement towards anend and as a being-finished-at-an-end. Unfortunately,W. D. Ross already showed in 1924 that the substitution of for is neither possible nor necessary.

But it is only in the active voice that Aristotle uses inthis sense. [In other words, there is no parallel for the middlevoice

meaning what Heidegger takes it to mean

here]. implies that Aristotle was in the habit ofconnecting the words and together in hislectures, and such phrases as [we have set down the words and asmeaning the same] (Pl. Pol. 276E, cf. 259d) form a close enoughparallel.18

In short, there is a more plausible reading of the text thatmakes it mean the exact opposite of what Heidegger needs itto mean: the word is set down in relation to

in the sense that Aristotle normally uses the twotogether, and perhaps eventhis is perfectly compatible withthe text on this readinginterchangeably. And this of course isAristotles practice. We have already seen that the two termsappear to be used interchangeably in the account of motion(see especially 201a272919 and 202a1518) and there aremany more examples of this synonymy in Aristotles texts.Therefore, we can conclude that both the most plausiblereading of 1047a30 and Aristotles general practice rule outHeideggers interpretation.

However, Heidegger does offer a textual parallel for hissubstitution of for at 1047a30. He

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citesMetaphysics 8, 1050a2123 where Aristotle writes: Forthe is and is the ; therefore, thename is also said according to the and stretchestowards ( ) . So in this text Heideggerhas the word he wants, , in order to interpret the

relation between and as a movement fromone to the other. But two objections can be made here. First, thepresent text does not support Heideggers reading of 1047a30since the word here is in the active voice, not themiddle voice (Heidegger must attribute the same meaning toboth voices, which is not plausible). Secondly, here as in theearlier text it is the word that is the subject: it is not itself that stretches towards , but theword. What can it mean to say that a word tends towardsanother word? What else besides that it tends towards themeaning of the other word, tends to mean something similar orthe same? And this is the interpretation clearly suggested bythe context of the entire sentence. Here we do well to cite Rossagain, this time on 1050a2123: Because the is the (l. 21), the word , which is derived from , tends tomean the same as (264). In short, rather thansaying that itself is a movement towards ,what the sentence says is that the word tends to havethe meaning of . This reading would bring thepassage in line with the most plausible reading of the earlierpassage at 1047a30: Aristotle sets down the word

together with . This reading would not only fail tosupport but would even contradict Heideggers interpretation ofthe relation between the two terms.

Given its slim, or only apparent, textual basis and, moreimportantly, its inability to make sense of Aristotles account ofmotion, Heideggers distinction between and must be rejected. But to reject this distinction is, as I havealready suggested, to reject Heideggers thesis that being for theGreeks meant being-present and being-produced. To think and in their synonymy, as Aristotles textdemands, is to recognize, on the one hand, that is

activity, being-active, and not some static presence, that it is inits by being an activity with its aim in itself and not bybeing finished or at an end; and, on the other hand, that is activity but notArbeit, not something unfinished. Inother words, it is to recognize that the distinction between

Fertigsein and Unfertigsein is completely incapable of capturingwhat is meant by either or . What emergesfrom 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 character-

ization of Being as Hergestelltsein, Heidegger insists on making and the guiding and determining perspective in

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Aristotles account of Being. What reflection on the synonymy of and shows, however, is that it is , assharply distinguished from and ,21 that is Aristotlesguideline in the interpretation of Being. In other words, whatwe find in Aristotle is not an ontology of production, as

Heidegger insists, but rather what Paul Ricur has called anontology of action.22 Specifically, this means that it is from theperspective of understood as that Aristotleinterprets and and not vice versa. Nothingdemonstrates this better than Heideggers complete failure toexplain Aristotles account of from the perspective of aconception of Being derived from production (Being as fullpresence, being-finished, being-at-an-end). It is only from theperspective ofact, or being-in-act, that we can explain asthe being-in-act of what is capable qua being capable.

The understanding of and together asact also has important consequences for the understanding ofthe relation between being and time. In sharply distinguishingbetween and by characterizing the formeras meaning being-fully-present-now and the latter as meaningon-the-way-to-being-fully-present-now, Heidegger is attributingto Aristotle a conception of Being as, in the words cited above,Hersein in Jetzt, in eine Gegenwart (381). Being is thusunderstood within the horizon of a naive conception of time as aseries of nows. But this is precisely the conception of time andbeing that is shattered by an understanding of and

as synonyms. As Aristotle explicitly argues, while is in time, is in an important sense not in time(1174a14ff.) This means that while , having its outside itself, takes time, is stretched out in time so as to becountable with respect to before and after, , being itsown , does not have a before and an after since it is in whatever time ( , 1174b56).

But is not an then still in time in the sense of beingcomplete in the moment, in the now? Here we need to be verycareful. Aristotle indeed, after claiming that the activity ofpleasure (), unlike being moved (), need not

occur in time, adds the following explanation: For it is a wholein the now ( , 1174b9). But does thismeanand this is the crucial questionthat an iswhole and complete in the now in the sense that a house, atthe end of the process of building, is whole and complete in thenow? Can we speak in both cases of something finished,completed, and therefore present now? Can we, in short, reduce to the conception of Being that Heidegger attributes toAristotle, a conception determined by the perspective of thenow, the present?23

To see that these questions must be answered negatively, weneed only consider the striking way in which Aristotle illus-

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trates the temporal difference between and inMetaphysics 6, 1048b1835:24 while in the case of a such as building I cannot say simultaneously (,Met. 1048b23)that I have built the house and that I am building the house, inthe case of an such as seeing, I can say simultaneously

that I am seeing and that I have seen. In short, in a , thepresent tense excludes the past perfect tense and vice versa:25that something cannot be what it is becoming, this oppositionbetween being and becoming, is precisely what it means to existin time. But how then can simultaneously admit boththe past perfect and the present tense, how can it overcometheir opposition and thereby not exist in time?

Through careful reflection on what Aristotle says here wecan avoid the mistake mentioned above: to see asdiffering from only in being finished, completed in the

present moment would be to identify it with the past perfecttense, thus locating it, like the house that has been built, intime (and, we could add, in motion, as the completion orfinishing of motion). In this case, would differ from in that, while can admit only the present activetense, would admit only the past perfect: would, like the house that has been built, exclude the presentactive tense.26 But this of course is not what Aristotle says. Toclaim, as he does, that admits simultaneously both thepresent and the past perfect tenses is to put it completelyoutside the distinction between being-unfinished and being-

finished, a distinction that, after all, has meaning only in time.If the same thing can simultaneously be seeing and have seen( , 1048b3344),27 this is because seeing is alwayscomplete without ever being finished. I can of course stopseeing, but this is not to finish seeing.28 To describe my seeing,or another , as in itself finished or unfinished, makesno sense at all.

To say that seeing, and as such, does not exist intime and transcends the opposition between the past perfectand the present tense is to say that it cannot be located in any

present, not even in an eternal present. I have seen and am

seeing cannot be reduced to I am seeing, I am seeing, I amseeing, ad infinitum. We have here neither a static eternalrepetition of the same nor a process: we have an activity, an, which as such is not in time in the sense that it existsneither in a series of moments nor in one moment of this series;if this that simultaneously is and has been exists as awhole in the now, this now cannot be a point, but mustrather be an uncountable stretch, a time outside of time under-stood as the counting of motion. In short, differs from in being complete; but also differs from theproduct of

(e.g., the built house) in never being finished;

I have seen but am also simultaneously29still seeing. This is

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precisely the mystery of that puts it completely beyondthe realm of and : it is active without being inmotion; it is complete without beingfinished; it is now and notnow, present and not present; temporal and yet outside oftime.30

What is arguably the key example Aristotle uses in Meta-physics 6 is life itself.31 While it is not possible simultaneouslyto be moving and have moved, since these are different (,1048b3233), it is the same to be living and have lived(1048b27). Though life is complete, it is never completed; in itsvery completeness, in its very having lived, it is always apresent tense verb: living. Life of course can cease with death,but as Aristotle explicitly says, it can never come to a stop (, 1048b2627). Also, a dead person cannot strictly bedescribed as having lived (perfect tense), but only as someonewho once lived (imperfect tense). Having lived is possible onlyin living and living is possible only in having lived. In this waylife itself is not in time, that is, cannot be located anywhere onthe continuum of counted time, neither in any present now norin any sequence of present nows. As thus characterized, the of life can be identified neither with being-at-work,which implies working-towards-a-goal and thus not having yetlived, nor with being-at-an-end and being-at-hand, whichimplies no longer living. In other words, life that is at work hasnot yet lived, while life that is at hand is dead.

These brief reflections on Aristotles fundamental concepts of

and should suffice to show that Heideggersinterpretation of these concepts is not only wrong but disas-trously wrong.32 In being sharply distinguished from each other,both concepts are distorted beyond recognition. It is at this costthat Heidegger reads into Aristotle a conception of Being asBeing-present. It is at this cost that he transforms into anontology ofVorhandenheit what is an ontology of inwhich the highest and most genuine being is, despite beingunmoved, or rather because unmoved, characterized as life() and pleasure (,Met. 1072b16 and 2630), thinking( ) and nothing but thinking ( , Met.

1074b3435). Though Heidegger does not discuss the unmovedmover in SS 1924, in an earlier course on Aristotle from SS1922 he appears, according to the transcript of Helene Wei, tohave recognized the problem that the unmoved mover posed forhis interpretation: But how can it be pure despite itsbeing ? Must there then be an opposition [Gegensatz]between and ? (GA 62, 321). His reply is simplyto assert dogmatically that is to be determined fromthe perspective of motion and is itself a type of motion: 1. Themeaning of determines itself purely from thephenomenon of motion. 2. What it is, what type of motion: thattoo is a consequence of the meaning of pure movedness

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[Bewegtheit] (321). In a course from SS 1926 a different, andeven opposed, solution is suggested: No , no , butpure , pure energy [reine Energie], that is, pure self-standing constant presence from out of itself[reine eigenstndigestndige Anwesenheit von ihm selbst her] (GA 22, 178; see also

328). The above analysis and critique has shown that every-thing is lost in the move signaled by the seemingly innocentand inconspicuous that is. Just a little later in the same text is characterized as the highest form of being-at-hand(hchste Art des Vorhandenseins) (180), which would make theunmoved mover something at hand in the highest sensebecause eternally-at-hand. The being of the unmoved moverwould thus not essentially differ from the being of an eternal,indestructible rock. In this reduction of the being of the firstbeing to Vorhandenheit, the life and activity that are both theheart and head of Aristotles ontology are completely lost.33

2.

We can turn now to a consideration of two important later textson Aristotle already cited above: the 1931 course on Metaphysics 13 and the 1939 essay Vom Wesen und Begriff der .While Heidegger in these texts builds on and further carries outhis reading of and , we will see that hisinterpretation undergoes no fundamental transformation. Theselater interpretations will instead make even clearer the

limitations of Heideggers interpretative framework and thusthe need to free Aristotles ontology from this framework. As theabove reflections have already suggested, what is at issue hereis not primarily the reliability of Heidegger as an interpreter ofGreek texts nor even the correct reading of Aristotle; what isat issue is itself, as the word for a possibility ofthinking that is arguably still unexplored and that, while stillalive in Aristotles texts, is suppressed by Heideggers reading ofthese texts.

The 1931 course is primarily devoted to Aristotles concept of. However, in Heideggers interpretation of chapter three

ofMetaphysics , the chapter in which Aristotle critiques theMegarian identification of with , the latternotion is necessarily at issue. Furthermore, a brief considera-tion of this part of the course will show that Heideggersreading does as much violence to the notion of as itdoes to the notion of , and again with the aim ofidentifying the Greek conception of being with presence-at-hand. That this is indeed Heideggers aim can be shownthrough a brief summary of his overall interpretation of 3.The central question at issue in this chapter, according toHeidegger, is how

is at-hand (vorhanden). The thesis of

the Megarians is that a is present at-hand only when it

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is being exercised, that is, only in . Heidegger insistsrepeatedly that this Megarian thesis is to be taken veryseriously and is even a pinnacle of Greek thought. Its powerfuljustification is that only in does a show itself,offer a look (Anblick), announce its presence (GA 33, 17980;

see also 183). In other words, the Megarians claim that is at hand only in because it is only in the process ofproduction, and especially in the final product, that a comes into full presence. But then the conception of being thatcomes to expression in the Megarian thesis is the Greek concep-tion of being as Hergestelltheit and Anwesenhei t. Thus theMegarian thesis, Heidegger asserts, is conceived in a goodGreek manner [gut griechisch gedacht]; indeed, not only that,but it isright up to the new step Aristotle takesthe onlypossible interpretation of the being-at-hand of a capability(180).

If the Megarians are only giving voice, with great consis-tency and insight, to the Greek conception of being, then isntAristotle, through his critique of the Megarians, bringing thisconception into question? As the passage just cited indicates,Heidegger grants Aristotle a modification of this conception ofbeing as presence, but not a radical departure. Indeed, Heideggerasserts emphatically that Aristotle and the Megarians are incomplete agreement (sich ganz darber einig) in understandingbeing as presence (179). Thus Heidegger even suggests that theMegarian thesis might have been provoked by Aristotles failure

to explain the being-at-hand of (169) or his dogmaticassumption that this question was already resolved (175). WhatAristotle does achieve in chapter 3 is to show a way in which can be present without being : namely, by beinghad. The having of is still a certain kind ofpresence of. Whether or not Heidegger thought Aristotles responseto the Megarians was adequatethe Megarians could, after all,insist that the is really had only in actual exercise, inis not clear since the course comes to an abrupt endbefore Heideggers reading ofMetaphysics 3 is completed. Wecan presume, however, that he would not consider fully

adequate any response that was still locked within a conceptionof being as presence, as Aristotles supposedly was. Heideggercan thus maintain that the Megarians, despite the injusticehistory has done them, were of an equal stature with Plato andAristotle (hatten den gleichen Rang, 163); they were, afterall, more consistently Greek!

It is not possible here to go into all the details of Heideggersreading ofMetaphysics 3, a reading that without questionoffers some rich philosophical rewards. Instead, only one funda-mental question will be posed to this reading: is it reallyindisputable (unbestreitbar, 17071), as Heidegger asserts,that the question at issue in 3 is how can be

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vorhanden and therefore, given the supposedly Greek concep-tion of Being, how it can be present? First, it needs to be notedthat Heideggers thesis that Aristotle and the Megarians sharedthe same conception of being as presence and therefore coulddisagree only about how is present is asserted

categorically towards the beginning of the reading and is neverdemonstrated. In other words, it is a presupposition of thereading, not its result. However, Heidegger does a number ofthings to make the text fit this assumption. It is by showing thearbitrariness and untenability of these interpretative movesthat I hope to show that 3 has nothing to do with theVorhandenheit or Anwesenheit of , and for the simplereason that for Aristotle a is not something present orat hand.

The view Aristotle attributes to the Megarians in the veryfirst line of the chapter, and the view that he spends the rest ofthe chapter challenging, is: :when something is active only then is it capable. It seemsfrom this that the Megarians are making a claim about thecapability of capability: a capability is a capability only in itsexercise; to be capable is actively to be capable, that is, to beacting. Yet consider Heideggers translation of the Greek:When a power is at work, only then is the having-power-for athand [vorhanden] (167). With this translation the questionbecomes not how a capability is a capability, not how what iscapable is capable, but how a capability is vorhanden. But there

is in the Greek nothing corresponding to vorhanden!Heidegger takes care of this problem by adding to the text somenew Greek, some Greek of his own making. After citing theGreek that is actually in the text, Heidegger adds: that is, (167). It is now this added Greek thatHeidegger can translate as is vorhanden.

But does this really make an important difference? Is notthe being-at-hand of capability just a different way of sayingbeing-capable ()? Most certainly not. To substitutethe being-at-hand of capability for being-capable is tosubordinate and even reduce being-capable to a different

sense of being: being vorhanden, which is then later trans-formed, through the alchemy of Heideggers undefended thesisconcerning the Greek conception of being, into being present.Heidegger would of course claim that the Greeks are the oneswho reduce all senses of being, including being-capable, topresence. But the irony is that Heidegger can maintain thisthesis only by himself introducing presence and being-at-hand into the text. Neither at the beginning ofMetaphysics 3, nor anywhere in the course of 3, is thepresence or being-at-hand of at issue, or even mentioned.

Furthermore, the dispute between the Megarians andAristotle can be naturally interpreted with no reference to

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Vorhandenheit or Anwesenheit. What the Megarians andAristotle do agree on is that is not mere possibility, buta positive capability, a power (Kraft in Heideggers defensibletranslation). The Megarian objection is that power is power onlyin being exercised and that therefore and

cannot be distinguished. That this is a sensible objectiontheMegarians, as Heidegger insists, were no foolsis shown by thefact that Aristotle himself inDe Anima characterizes knowledgethat is possessed without being exercised both as an (412a2127) and as a (417a2628): it is an in contrast to the mere potential for acquiring knowledgepossessed by a certain genus or matter; it is a incontrast to the actual exercise of knowledge. Thus, even forAristotle, in the strongest sense of the word, that is,when understood not as a mere potential (as in a humanembryo having the potential to learn mathematics) but as apositive capability, is .34 However, what he must arguein 3 is that despite this unity of and , theirdistinctness must be preserved if what only their distinctnesscan explain is to be preserved: namely, not only motion, buteven the independence of the external world in its relation to us(since this requires a distinction between what is perceived andwhat is perceivable). The argument, thus plausibly interpreted,has nothing to do with the being-at-hand orpresence of;what is at issue is only as .35

As already noted, Heidegger argues that Aristotle explains

the presence-at-hand of by interpreting the being of as being-had. Aristotle sees the presence of assuch in ; what is had, is in possession and as possessedusable, at hand (183). One sees clearly in this sentence whyHeidegger is insisting that Aristotle understood the being of as being-had: it is in this way that Aristotle can bemade to conform to the supposedly Greek conception of being aswhat is produced and thuspresent for use, at hand. But what isthe evidence that Aristotle understood the being of inthis way? Heidegger can appeal only to Aristotles habit, in thistext and elsewhere, of using the phrase as a

synonym for the verb . But does Aristotles use of thecommon Greek idiom of having a really show that helocated the being of in having?36 To believe this onemust at least already be convinced that in 3 Aristotle isseeking to explain how is present and at handhowelse than as had?and even then one should pause beforereading so much into one word. In any case, we have seen thatthere is no reason to believe this is Aristotles goal in the text.

We also need to note how philosophically questionableHeideggers method of proceeding here is. He is reducing

to

and then reading out of the verb, instead of the verb , the meaning of being that is

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operative here. Aristotle, who knows better, insists that being-capable and having are two fundamentally distinct senses ofbeing: the latter is one of the categories (Cat. 1b27, 2a3), whilethe former is distinct from all being in the sense of thecategories (Met. E 2 1026a33b2;Met. 1 1045b2735).37 And

Aristotle in the present text has been seen to be faithful to hisprinciple: he discusses being-capable in terms of being-capableand not in terms of any other sense of being. mustbe interpreted as another and looser way of saying ,not vice versa.38

If Heideggers reading can so far be said to have forced thetext, this is nothing compared to what he does to the sentenceat 1047a2024. Here Aristotle, defending the distinctness of and , says what anyone except Heideggerwould translate as follows: So it can happen that something iscapable of being something ( ) without being it,and capable of not being something ( ) whilebeing it. This is how Heidegger translates: So it can happenthat something as capable of something indeed really is[wirklich ist] and at the same time is yet not really that ofwhich this real capability as such is capable, and it can alsohappen that something capable as a capability is not really[nicht wirklich ist] and yet precisely is really that of which it iscapable (215). Why the tortuous and even painful circum-locution? What Heidegger is trying to do is transform thecapability of being at issue in the text into the being of capa-

bility; even more bizarrely, he is paraphrasing the capabilityof not being as the not-being of a capability as a capability.Here refutation seems superfluous, for why point out what anybeginning student of Greek knows: that means capable of being something and not something capablereally is; that means capable of not beingand not something capable is not really? The importantquestion is why Heidegger, who certainly knows his Greek wellenough to see that, would willfully so distort the text. Theanswer is simple: only through such a distortion can Heideggerforce through his thesis that what is at issue in the text is the

Vorhandenheit and Anwesenheit of capability. Aristotle speaksof being-capable, but Heidegger needs him to speak of thebeing-present or being-at-hand of capability. The violencethat this requires is especially evident in Heideggers trans-lation of Aristotles example: Being capable of walking andnot walking ( ) becomes whatis capable-of-walking is really a being (at-hand) and yet doesnot walk in reality (215)! That Heidegger must resort hereto such impossible readings of the Greek only confirms whathas been clear from the beginning: there is in Metaphysics 3 no talk of the being-present or being-at-hand of a capa-bility, but only of being-capable (of being x) where this is not

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reduced, and cannot be reduced, to any kind of being-present orbeing-at-hand.

Yet Heidegger tries again when he turns to the definition orcharacterization 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 translatedthus: Something is capable [ ] if, whenthe of which it is said to have the occurs in it,there will be nothing incapable [ ]. Theproblem this sentence poses for interpretation is its apparentcircularity: it appears to be saying that something is capablewhen it is not incapable. One common expedient for remedyingthis problem is to give the defining phrase not acompletely different meaning from that of the word that is being defined: is taken to mean capable,while not is taken to mean not logically impossible.The sense would then be that something is capable when thereis no logical impossibility in its having the corresponding.39 Yet this expedient, which involves giving two occur-rences of the same word in the same sentence two radicallydifferent meanings, is highly questionable and Heidegger isright to reject it.

Furthermore, the expedient is not necessary since sense canbe made of the sentence without it, especially when it is notseen as representing a strict definition. Given the context, thetask of the sentence can be taken to be this: to show the insep-

arability of from , and thus acknowledge whattruth there is in the Megarian objection, while neverthelessshowing their distinctness and preserving the autonomy andirreducibility of being-capable. We can identify something ascapable only when in exercise or activity it proves notincapable. For example, someone cannot be said to be capable ofplaying chess unless an actual chess game finds him notincapable of playing chess. This means that a indeedcannot be identified or defined without the corresponding. So far the Megarians have a point. But Aristotlesstatement also maintains the distinctness of and

. It does not say simply that something is when it is in , but rather when in it proves not. is not , but rather the site where shows itself as . Here being-capable stillremains distinct from that in which it shows itself not incap-able. Whatever circularity there is in Aristotles statement isintentional and unavoidable: being-capable can ultimately beexplained only in terms of being-capable (or not being incap-able) because it cannot be reduced to any other kind of being:neither being in nor, much less, being in any other sense.

What has been sketched out here is of course not Heideggersreading. This is because, in order to make the sentence fit his

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interpretation of 3, he must insist that it is not about being-capable, but rather about the being-present or being-at-hand ofcapability. To push through this reading, Heidegger must againread the Greek in his own inimitable manner. The word inthe opening phrase does not mean,

Heidegger insists, being-capable Vermgendsein (220). Heinsists on this because he needs the to mean is present athand. Thus, on his reading, meansnot this is capable, but rather: this capable is present athand. Heidegger actually expresses surprise that his readingis in all interpretations and translationsas far as I knowcompletely missed, and continues that as a result everyprospect of understanding the definition is from the verybeginning pushed aside (220). The phrase must be understood as the capable is present at hand becausethe task of the entire chapter is to determine in what the beingof the capable, its realitythe of the immediately precedingsentenceconsists (220). That this is the task of the chapter,however, has been seen to be Heideggers own invention and onesustained only at the cost of the kind of rewriting and mis-reading of the text which we see again here and saw at its mostoutlandish in the reading of at 1047a2024 to whichHeidegger now refers.

It is perhaps precisely in order to preempt such criticismthat Heidegger states the following a little earlier in the course.

When we in the process go beyond what Aristotle says, this is notin order to make what is said there better and the like, but atfirst only in order to understand it at all; here, the manner andform of expression in which Aristotle on his side may have carriedout the considerations that are necessary here is a matter ofcomplete indifference [gnzlich gleichgltig]. (192)

One can certainly agree that an interpretation needs to gobeyond what is said while yet strongly objecting to the sugges-tion that Aristotles own manner and form of expression are amatter of complete indifference! The latter are especially

important when what is at issue is Aristotles implicit under-standing of being. What has been seen again and again is thatwhile Aristotle speaks only of being-capable in terms of being-capable, Heidegger repeatedly ignores, changes, or distortsAristotles form of expression in order to make him speak ofbeing-present and being-at-hand.

The last part of the 1931 course that needs to be consideredin the present context is Heideggers return, immediately beforethe course abruptly ends, to 1047a3032, and thus to the ques-tion of the relation between and . Onedeparture from the reading in 1924 is that Heidegger now doesnot emend the text but reads , perhaps because he

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had by this point consulted Rosss commentary.40 However, hisview concerning the distinction between and does not appear to change. He translates even the unemendedtext as follows: Being-at-work [Am-Werke-sein], a meaning thatis in itself directed at [ausgerichtet ist auf] .

Furthermore, Heideggers comments explain the meaning of thus: the end, possessing perfection as somethingcarried out, holding itself in itmost precisely: being-produced[Hergestelltsein] (224). What remains the same here istherefore the interpretation of and from theperspective ofHerstellen, and therefore from the perspective of rather than , with the result that the onebecomes being-at-work (Am-Werke-Sein)41 and the otherbecomes being-produced (Hergestelltheit). What has alreadybeen shown to be the main problem with such an interpretationis made clear when Heidegger in this course, after making theperhaps acceptable claim that and are essen-tially related to , goes further and claims that they areways of being-in-motion (Weisen des In-Bewegung-seins, 216).This is the fundamental mistake: as argued above, and are not ways of being in motion42 and therefore afortiori certainly cannot be interpreted in terms of producingand being-produced.

Aristotle himself makes this clear when at the very beginningofMetaphysics he tells us that, while he will begin with themost common sense of, which is in relation to

motion, this sense is not what he needs for his present aim ( , 1045b361046a1).Why? Because and go beyond, or are morethan ( ), the and said according tomotion ( , 1046a12). Predictably, Heideggersreading of this passage does everything possible to reinstatemotion as the essential and unsurpassable guiding perspective,despite what Aristotle says. Thus Heidegger asserts: Whenaccordingly in our treatise the theme of investigation shouldbecome and this does not rule outthat nevertheless remains in view; on the contrary: it

must remain in view, but not (54). ThereforeHeidegger resorts to the extraordinary expedient, grounded onnothing in the text, of characterizing and as , that is, he simply changes the accusa-tive to the genitive and thus retains motion as the determiningperspective for even and (53). Thisopens the door to characterizing later in the course the and that go beyond what is said according to motionas nevertheless ways of motion and moments of production, inflagrant contradiction to what Aristotle himself claims towant.43 In short, what we see in the 1931 course is an un-warranted and violent reduction not only of and

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, but now also of, to a conception of being aspresence and being-produced which, judging from all theevidence, is not Aristotles, but Heideggers.44

3.

The interpretation of and in the 1939 essay,Vom Wesen und Begriff der , departs from the earlierinterpretations of 1924 and 1931 in no longer making a sharpdistinction between the two concepts. Is this because Heideggeris now closer to understanding them both together as a kind ofactivity or act distinct both from motion and from what isproduced, at-an-end, completed? That this is not the case isevident from the fact that his characterization of hasnot changed: it is still Sich-im-Ende-Haben (354). What hashappened is only that has now been brought into linewith this interpretation, being no longer interpreted as being-at-work (In-Arbeit-Sein or Am-Werke-Sein) but rather asstanding-in-the-work : Im-Werk-Stehen; das Werk als das, wasvoll im Ende steht, where das Werk is also understood inthe sense of what is to be produced and is produced [im Sinnedes Herzustellenden und Her-gestellten] (354). We thus seethat nothing essential has changed in Heideggers interpre-tation: we have the same interpretation of and in terms of production (Herstellen) and thus thesame ignoring of the fundamental distinction between

and ; the only change is that now both and are identified with the product, the result, the endor completion of this process of production. In other words,the only change is an even greater eclipse of asactivity.45

In an important passage of the Nicomachean Ethics,Aristotle asserts in no ambiguous terms: It is evident that becomes [ ] and is not at hand like somepossession [ ] (NE 1169b2930). Itis as if Aristotle were here anticipating Heideggers misinter-pretation and objecting to it. While Aristotle insists that

is activity, even at the cost of giving the equallyerroneous impression that it is becoming in the sense in whichmotion is, Heidegger is determined to reduce its way of being tothat of something produced and possessed.

We can therefore expect that the interpretation Heideggerproceeds to give of Aristotles definition of motion in the 1939essay, like the account he initially gave in the SS 1924 course,will turn it into a definition ofrest. This is indeed not only whathappens, but Heidegger makes this consequence of his interpre-tation quite explicit. So many momentous and questionablemoves take place in his brief interpretation of 1939 that,without the preparation provided by a reading of the SS 1924

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course discussed above, it must leave one completely bewildered.Consider first his translation of Aristotles definition of motionas stated atPhysics 201b45: The having-itself-in-its-end [DasSich-im-Ende-Haben] by that which is apt [geeignet] insofar asit is apt (that is, in its aptness) is clearly (the essence of)

movedness [Bewegtheit] (355). The obvious objection to thistranslation/interpretation is that an ability that has reached itsend, that has itself in its end, is no longer in motion, but ratherat rest. The unprepared reader must assume that Heideggercannot possibly mean what he says. How could he be definingmotion as an abilitys fulfillment in its final end or productwhen this would instead be the end (in both senses of the word)of motion?

That this, however, is exactly what Heidegger is doing isshown not only by the preceding interpretation of citedabove, but by the example with which he grounds and prepareshis interpretation of Aristotles definition of motion.

The transformation [Umschlagen] of the apt wood into a tableconsists in this: that the aptness of the apt emerges more andmore fully, fulfilling itself in the look [Aussehen] of the table andthus coming to a stand in the table produced, i.e., brought-into-the-unconcealed. In the resting of this stand (of what has come toa stand) the emerging aptness () of the apt ()gathers and has itself as in its end. (355)

It is thus clear that Heidegger means exactly what one other-wise would think he could not mean: that what Aristotlesdefinition of motion is describing is how the apt or capablehas-itself-as-in-its-end in the sense of having-come-to-a-standand being-at-rest in what is produced. But this is not motion.As Aristotle insists, motion, far from standing-at-its-end, isessentially .

Indeed, but this is why Heidegger is careful to remove motionas the object of Aristotles definition; on his interpretation/paraphrase, what is being defined is not motion, but movedness.On the preceding page Heidegger has distinguished between

motion (Bewegung) and movedness (Bewegtheit), characterizingthe latter as the essence (Wesen) of the former (354).Heideggers paraphrase removes Aristotles definition evenfurther from the sphere of motion by making its object not onlymovedness, but the essence ofmovedness. Of course, theessence of motion, and a fortiori the essence of the essence ofmotion, is not motion. Indeed, Heidegger argues, the essence ofmotion, movedness in the highest and most genuine sense, isrest (Ruhigkeit, 354). And it is precisely this rest, as the essenceof movedness, that Aristotles ostensible definition of motion isdefining. Therefore, when Heidegger does mention the kind of that is and that is distinct from rest, he

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describes it as a narrower sense of, that is, narrowerthan, and distinct from, the defined by Aristotle at201b4.

This interpretation of Aristotles definition is, unfortunatelyfor Heidegger and fortunately for the future of philosophy,

completely untenable. The motion that Aristotles definitionattempts to define is beyond question the motion that is and that is distinct from rest. To show this one need only cite apassage which has already been partly quoted above; it is also apassage out of which Heidegger in the 1939 text cites only onesentence, since citing the context would spell disaster for hisinterpretation. The passage reads:

Its appearing indefinite [] is the reason why motion canbe classed among beings neither as nor as . Forneither that which is capable of being of a certain quantity

[] nor that which is in actuality of a certain quantity isnecessarily moved. And seems on the one hand to be akind of and on the other to be ; the cause of itsbeing is the capable of which it is the . And this isthe reason why it is hard to grasp what motion is. Whatremains is the way suggested above, i.e., that it [motion] is a kindof , but the kind we said it was [i.e., the of whatis capable qua capable], one indeed hard to see, but neverthelesscapable of being. (Phys. 201b27202a3)

This passage makes clear that the aim of Aristotles definitionof is precisely to explain its and indefinitecharacter, that is, that which prevents it from being definedeither as simply or as simply . This problem isof course left completely unresolved if Aristotles definition isinterpreted as being a definition not of at all, butrather of a rest and standing-in-the-end that are supposed to bethe essence of motion.

Why does Heidegger misinterpret Aristotles definition of as a definition of rest in the sense of having-come-to-a-stand-in-the-work (or product)? He must do so

because only at this price can his characterizations of as das Sich-im-Ende-Haben and of as Im-Werk-Stehen be upheld. In other words, only at this price can hepersist in denying and the meaning of actor activity as distinct from . And note the significantlesson here: it is precisely the failure to distinguish and from and the product of thatrenders undefinable and inexplicable. But there is afurther question: why does Heidegger persist in his funda-mentally inadequate interpretation of and ?The answer has already become apparent: only in this way canHeidegger maintain his thesis that for the Greeks being meant

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producedness (Hergestelltheit) and presence. And it is indeedthis thesis that Heidegger pulls out of his interpretation of thedefinition of motion, in a move that has become as stale andas predictable as the trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat: Thehaving-itself-in-its-end () is, however, the essence of

movedness (that is, the being of what is moved) because thisrest [Ruhigkeit] satisfies most purely the essence of, ofthe self-standing presencing in the look [der in sich stndigenAnwesung im Aussehen] (356). Because Aristotle must apriori have had a conception of being as visible presence(Aussehen), the object of Aristotles definition must betransformed from into rest46 and from some-thing hard to see into a stable and unchanging object ofvision.47 But that this thesis regarding the Greek interpre-tation of Being can once again be maintained only at the costof misinterpretation and even inversion of what Aristotle saysshould be sufficient reason to reject it once and for all in favorof liberating the very different direction in which the texts canguide our thinking.

Heidegger could still be correct in maintaining that ordinaryGreeks had an interpretation of being as constant presenceborn of the anxiety that what is would cease to be present (seeGA 18, 28990, 297, 367; also 353). Since this fear, however,can probably with equal justice be attributed to the ancientEgyptians and Chinese, as well as modern day Americans andRussians, rather than speak of a metaphysics of presence as a

historical phenomenon beginning with the Greeks, we shouldprobably instead see such a metaphysics as characterizing anyimmediate, unreflective experience of the world: a fear ofinsecurity and instability that leads to an identification of whatis with what is had in such a way that it cannot be taken away,what is possessed securely. In contrast, it may belong to theessence of all philosophy, including that of the Greeks, todestroy this security and challenge all naive metaphysics ofpresence, to expose the indeterminate, potential, and kineticcharacter of being. It is perhaps only in the modern period thatphilosophy ceases to do that, and then because its essence is

determined from without itself, that is, by mathematicalscience. But whatever interpretation we wish to put in its place,the conclusion remains that Heideggers interpretation ofAristotle cannot stand.

This critique in no way means to deny the great importanceof Heidegger for an understanding of the Greeks: in carryingout a continuous and intense dialogue with the Greeks,Heidegger has enabled them to speak to us to today with extra-ordinary power, relevance, and immediacy. Through Heideggerwe learn to engage the Greek thinkers, not with the self-com-placency of the historian who charts their primitive antici-pations of contemporary wisdom, but rather with the respect

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of philosophers convinced that we can never escape theimmense shadow of the Greek beginning and that philosophycan have no future outside of a constant dialogue with thisbeginning. Yet it is no denial of this debt owed Heidegger tosuggest that some, and perhaps the most important, possi-

bilities for future thought locked in the ancient Greek textscan be liberated only against Heidegger; on the contrary, thosewho simply repeat Heideggers reading of the Greeks are doingboth Heidegger and the Greeks the greatest disservice. SinceHeideggers interpretation of the Greeks is inseparable fromhis own path of thinking, we must ask if his misinterpretationof Aristotles fundamental concepts turned him aside too soonfrom a barely explored road at the beginning of the metaphysi-cal tradition. What possibilities were missed in Heideggersinsistent reduction of the Greek conception of being to presence,a reduction that required interpreting Greek ontology from theperspective of , instead of from the perspective of and ? What is lost in reducing to rest,in failing to preserve its ontological distinctness in contrast torest?48 The present critique of Heideggers reading of Aristotlegives a special urgency to a question posed by Paul Ricur:One can in the end ask oneself if Heidegger perceived thehidden resources of a philosophy of being that would replacethe transcendental of substance with that of act, as a phenom-enology of acting and suffering demands.49 It is difficult atthis point to resist the conclusion that this is precisely what

Heidegger failed to perceive.50

Notes

1 Cited in Dominique Janicaud, Heidegger en FranceI. Rcit(Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), 4701.

2 Confronting Heidegger on Logos and Being in Platos Sophist,inPlaton und Aristoteles - sub ratione veritatis: Festschrift fr WolfgangWieland zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Gregor Damschen, Rainer Enskat,and Alejandro G. Vigo (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2003),10233.

3 Gesamtausgabe 18 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,

2002); hereafter, cited in the text as GA 18, followed by the pagenumber.

4 Gesamtausgabe 33, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: VittorioKlostermann, 1990); hereafter, cited in the text as GA 33, followed bythe page number.

5 Wegmarken (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967),30971.

6 A discussion of these texts, with the exception of the 1924course then unavailable, is to be found in Franco Volpi, Heidegger eAristotele (Padova: Daphne Editrice, 1984), 172203. Volpis quickrun-through, however, goes little beyond paraphrase and quotationand certainly makes no attempt to judge critically Heideggersinterpretations.

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7 Heidegger is reported in the Brcker Nachschrift of the SS 1926course,Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, as saying: Die stellt die hchste Art des Seins dar, die der zukommt(Gesamtausgabe 22 [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,1993], 331; hereafter, cited in the text as GA 22, followed by the pagenumber). Jean Beaufret attributes to Heidegger at Cerisy in 1955 theclaim that is la plus haute nomination de ltre quaitjamais ose la philosophie des Anciens (Dialogue avec Heidegger -Philosophie Grecque [Paris: ditions de Minuit, 1973], 120).

8 See also Ruhe konstitutiv fr dieses Da, d.h. Bedeutsamkeit(380); and 387 where Heidegger calls rest uneigentliche Bewegungbecause it conceals the - in the Now.

9 Yet Heidegger later in the course returns to a characterizationof as Gegenwart. In Aristotles account of motion from theperspective of and in Physics 3, Heidegger findsexpressed the character of being-in-the-world and thereforethe genuine definition of (clearly understood again as

Bedeutsamkeit) (327). The characterization of that Heideggeris working towards is made clear in the Handschrift: dieGegenwart des Seienden, das ist in dem genannten Mitdasein deseinen zum anderen (392). Heidegger therefore now paraphrasesAristotles first definition of motion thus: das Gegenwrtigsein einesSeienden in bestimmtem Bezug zu einem anderen, so zwar, da daserste ist als Seinknnendes durch das zweite (394). This para-phrase is open to the same objection that was made againstHeideggers initial interpretation as well as to the objections thatfollow.

10 This distinction appears already suggested in thePhnomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der

hermeneutischen Situation) of 1922: , das je bestimmteVerfgenknnen ber, , das in gen[uine] Verwendung Nehmender Verfgbarkeit, und , das verwendende in VerwahrungHalten dieser Verfgbarkeit (Gesamtausgabe 62 [Frankfurt amMain: Vittorio Klostermann, 2005], 396; hereafter cited in the text asGA 62, followed by page number).

11 In the SS 1926 course, and again in the context of the accountof motion, Heidegger defends the definition of asWirklichkeit (GA 22, 172, 322), which he interprets asVorhandensein als Im-Werke-Sein (173). An interesting change,however, is his occasional translation of as Zuhandenheit, sothat the definition of motion can be stated as: Zuhandenheit desBereiten in se iner Bereitheit (173). However, since he can at thesame time interpret the definition as Anwesenheit des Vorhandenenin seiner Bereitheit und hinsichtlich dieser (174), Zuhandenheit isclearly being treated as a mode ofAnwesenheit and Vorhandenheit(see also 32021). Walter Brcker, on whose Nachschriften of the SS1924 and SS 1926 courses the Gesamtausgabe editions of thesecourses partly rely, betrays the influence of Heidegger in his ownbook on Aristotle when, in explaining the account of motion, hewrites: Aber wirklich, gegenwrtig anwesend [my emphasis], istnicht nur das Rotsein des Seienden, sondern wirklich ist auch dasAnders-Sein-Knnen des Seienden. Dies Seinknnen dessen, was das

Seiende je gerade nicht ist, gehrt mit zu dem was es je geradewirklich ist (Aristoteles,3rd. ed. [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio

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Klostermann, 1964], 80).12 Heidegger can be seen making these questionable inter-

pretative moves in the following texts: Vom Wesen der menschlichenFreiheit, Gesamtausgabe 31 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Kloster-mann, 1982), 69; Die Metaphysik als Geschichte des Seins, inGesamtausgabe 6.2 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997),3689, 375; Wissenschaft und Besinnung, in Vortrge und Aufstze,Gesamtausgabe 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000),434. At the start of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes anexplicit distinction between and as one betweenactivities and products existing apart from the activities thatproduce them (1094a45).

13 In the SS 1922 course, Phnomenologische Interpretat ionenAusgewhlter Abhandlungen des Aristoteles zur Ontologie und Logik,Heidegger identifies with reinste Bewegtheit and reineZeitigung, apparently making no distinction between and (GA 62, 10208). At one point Heidegger in citing the

definition of the soul in De Anima as the first simplyinserts in brackets after , thus suggesting theirequivalence (229; see also 336).

14 Heidegger rightly defends against circularity Aristotlesdefinition of motion as , [of what ismovable insofar as it is movable] (328). But he here translates as Gegenwart, a translation that, though creating otherproblems, at least avoids making the definition circular. If, on theother hand, Aristotle used the word instead, as Heideggerearlier claims he should to be more precise, and we were to followHeidegger in characterizing as , then we would have acircular definition indeed: the motion of what is capable of being

moved insofar as it is capable of being moved.15 The same distinction is implied by the argument in the Nico-machean Ethics that is not a (1173a311174b14).

16 W. D. Ross comments on 201a1011: must heremean actualization, not actuality: it is the passage frompotentiality to actuality that is (Aristotles Physics [Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1936], 537). But if actualization as the passagefrom potentiality to actuality is , then this cannot be what means. In this case, the qualification, of what is capableinsofar as capable, would be superfluous, since would assuch be , and the definition would be viciously circular. Theproblem with Rosss reading is therefore much greater than that

Such a sense ofentelecheia is unparalleled in Aristotle: this isthe objection of Edward Hussey, who himself translates actuality(Aristotles Physics Books III and IV [Oxford: Clarendon, 1983], 60).See also Rmi Brague: Lacte qui intervient dans la dfinition dumouvement est actualit et non actualisation (Aristote et la questiondu monde [Paris: PUF, 1988], 500), and Pierre Aubenque: Lemouvement est moins lactualisation de la puissance, quil nest lactede la puissance, la puissance en tant quacte, cest--dire en tant queson acte est dtre en puissance (Le problme de ltre chez Aristote[Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 2002], 454). But Aubenque neverthelessimmediately proceeds to make the fatal mistake: Le mouvement, ditailleurs Aristote, est un acte imparfait,

, cest--diredont lacte mme est de ntre jamais tout fait en acte (454, my

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emphasis). Brague, on the other hand, avoids this error: Il lest[] moins, prcise ailleurs Aristote, parce quil serait lui-mmeun acte imparfait, que parce quil est lacte (et, en tant que tel,parfait) de quelque chose dimparfait (Ame III, 7, 431a6 s.) (502, myemphasis). Yet the error remains persistent and widespread. In arecent book we find the following: in welchem Sinne Heidegger undGadamer energeia auffassen: als Sein, das nur im Werden sein Seinhat. [This is more Gadamer than Heidegger] Hingegen meintenergeia bei Aristoteles Werden zum Sein,genesis eis on (ThomasGutschker, Ar istot el ische Diskurse: Ar istot el es in der politi schenPhilosophie des 20. Jahrhundert [Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2002], 222).

17At Rhet. 1412a9 Aristotle does describe as a ,but in the context Aristotle is clearly not using the word in itsstrictest sense. The passage therefore does not support W. D. Rosssconclusion that and are species of something widerfor which Aristotle has no name, and for which he uses now thename of one species, and now that of the other (Aristotles

Metaphysics, vol. 2 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924], 251).18 Ross,Aristotles Metaphysics, vol. 2, 248.19 In this passage the definition of motion includes both terms:

whenever something not insofar as it is itselfbut insofar as it is movable, that is motion.

20 Heidegger presumably found support for his interpretation inHermann Bonitzs 1849 commentary on the Metaphysics. Bonitz alsofinds at 1048a30 and 1050a2123 a distinction between and, claiming that while the two are very closely related andtherefore often not distinguished, nevertheless the former mostproperly signifies viam while the later most properly signifiesfinem viae (Metaphysica Commentarius [Hildesheim: Georg Olms,

1960], 38788). Yet Bonitz can maintain such a distinction only bymaking the same mistake Heidegger makes: collapsing the distinc-tion between and . Thus he sees as signifyingeam actionem et mutationem, qua qui ex mera possibilitate adplenam perducitur essentiam (387). This is obviously a definition of and not of. Yet this insistence on a sharp distinctionbetween and and the mistake it presupposes haveundoubtedly an impressive pedigree since they can be traced back atleast to Simplicius. After reporting that Alexander, Porphyry andThemistios converted into in the definition ofmotion, as if they were the same for Aristotle (Simplicii in AristotelisPhysicorum libros quattuor priores commentaria, ed. H. Diels [Berlin:

1882], 414, 2021), Simplicius objects that if Aristotle does some-times use the word for , he does not mean just any but only the complete kind (). The name signifies (414, 37), so that it cannotproperly be applied to the incomplete that Simplicius seesas characterizing motion. Simplicius thus insists on reading the word in the defintion of motion at 201a911: Motion being of theincomplete, however, it is not in vain that he [Aristotle] directlycalled it and not (414, 289). Behind this distinc-tion is the same error made by the contemporary commentatorscriticized above (note 16): against Porphyrys suggestion that is an

and an

, Simplicius objects:But if it is the of what exists potentially ( ) and

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what exists potentially is incomplete (), then how could the of something incomplete () be a complete ()? (415, 235).

21 I show elsewhere how Heideggers interpretation of Aristotlesaccount of the good in this course assimilates to : seemy Without Good and Evil: Heideggers Purification of AristotlesEthics, in Heidegger and the Greeks: Interpretative Essays , ed. byDrew A. Hyland and John Panteleimon Manoussakis (IndianaUniversity Press, 2006), 12756. Especially significant here is thefollowing passage in which Heidegger, asserting that is theresource for the question What is being?, does not distinguishbetween and : Die Frage nach dem istgeschpft aus den Bestimmungen der und des Gegenwrtig-Daseins als primre In-der-Welt-Sein, (GA 18, 329).Robert Bernasconi has observed that Heidegger focuses explicitly onpraxis only rarely and his sights are clearly set on poiesis. Futher-more, this is not always the broad conception ofpoiesis which

includes praxis (The Fate of the Distinction between Praxis andPoiesis, in Heidegger in Question: The Art of Existing [New Jersey:Humanities Press, 1993], 12). If Heidegger does not sharplydistinguish praxis from poiesis, this is because, according toBernasconi, the characterization ofpraxis in terms of its distinctionfrom poiesis still amounts to a technical interpretation ofpraxis(21; see also 22). Yet Aristotles definition of motion shows, I suggest,that he understands poiesis/kinesis in the light ofenergeia/praxisrather than vice versa. Bernasconi sees at Nic. Eth. VI ii 5, 1139a35b4 a characterization ofpraxis as the goal ofpoiesis, a character-ization which he sees as subordinating praxis to poiesis (8). But thispassage can be interpreted with at least equal plausibility as

showing that Aristotle interprets making from the perspective ofpraxis as an unfulfilled praxis.22 See Paul Ricur, Ngativit et affirmation originaire, in

Aspects de la dialectique (Paris: Descle de Brouwer, 1956), 10124;and Soi-mme comme un autre (Paris: ditions de Seuil, 1990), 364.In the former important essay, after a critique of modern philos-ophies that privilege negation and the nothing, like that of Sartre,for presupposing a limited and impoverished conception of being asthinghood and essence (120), Ricur concludes: Sous la pression dungatif, des expriences en ngatif, nous avons reconqurir unenotion de ltre qui soit acte plutt que forme, affirmation vivante,puissance dexister et de faire exister (124). See Dominique

Janicauds description of Ricur as proposing une ontologie delagir qui a pour fin le bien vivre au sens dAristote et pour laquelleltre lui-mme se dcouvre et se dfinit comme agir (471). Janicaudalso notes how Ricur emphasizes the dunamis-energeia sense ofbeing in Aristotle against Heideggers reduction of being to presence(4723).

23 Heidegger discusses briefly the characterization of in theNicomachean Ethics as not a and not existing in time (GA 18,244-45), but he does not reflect on the peculiar relation of totime and concludes: Dieser Charakter, da sie keine ist,charakterisiert sie als eine Best immung der Gegenwrt igkeit desDaseins als solchen (245). This inference from keine

to

Gegenwrtigkeit is precisely the inference I want to bring into

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question.24 This is understandably a text to which Ricur attaches much

importance: see Soi-mme comme un autre, 356 and 364 n. 1. For anaccount of the strange history of this texts transmission, see Brague,

Aristote et la question du monde,45461. Bragues is probably the bestphilosophical interpretation of this text currently available, at leastin part because he recognizes the texts crucial importance.

25 We do find at Physics 249b29 the phrase: . The context, however, is the continuity of motion as aprocess, not its relation to its . This continuity shows thatmotion is indeed an , but without collapsing the distinctionbetween the two. See Wolfgang Wieland, Die aristotelische Physik,3rd. ed.(Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 332.

26 This interpretation is the one advanced by Pierre Aubenque:Dans le cas d, ce qui demeure pens travers la formationsavante du mot, est lactivit artisanale, plus prcisment luvre(). Certes, lacte nest pas lactivit, et Aristote prendra bien

soin de le distinguer de mouvement, mais il en est le rsultat. Il nestpas le devenant, mais le devenu, non pas le btir, mais lavoir-bti,non pas le prsent ou laoriste du mouvoir, mais le parfait de lavoir-m et de lavoir-t-mu (Le problme de ltre chez Aristote, 440). YetAubenque must admit in a note (440, n. 4) that Aristotle does notactually say this. Instead, Aristotle claims that issimultaneously past perfect andpresent. So how can Aubenqueinterpret so against the grain of the text? Because, no matter whatAristotle might say, his extension of to en contreditlorigine technologique, selon laquelle la rfrence luvre estimmdiatement presente (44041, n. 4). Despite his critique ofHeidegger in the next note (441, n. 1) Aubenque here follows

Heidegger in considering the etymology of a word more important toits interpretation than its actual use and analysis in the Aristoteliantext. Some salutary words of Paul Ricur are worth citing in thiscontext: Et cette proximit entre nergia et ergon na-t-elle pasencourag maints commentateurs donner un modle artisanal lasrie entire: entlcheia, nergia, ergon? Ce qui, en banalisant lepropos, rendrait peu prs inutile toute enterprise de rappro-priation de lontologie de lacte-puissance au bnfice de ltre du soi(Soi-mme comme un autre, 355, n. 2).

27 See parallel passages at Soph. el. 178a911 and De sensu446b2.

28 Brague expresses well the paradox: Lacte nen finit pas de

finir, il cesse sans cesse (470). At one point in his manuscript for theSS 1926 course,Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, Heideggerappears to see this crucial point: : 1. nicht nur berhauptanwesend. 2. nicht nur beweglich, , , 3. sondern vonihm selbst her seinem Wesen nach nur im Wirken seiend. , fertig und doch nicht Aufhren der vordrnglichenAnwesenheit; und doch kein Aufhren, sondern gerade in ihrist Sein. Ich habe gesehen und so sehe ich. Ich bin glcklichgeworden und bin es so gerade. Ich habe es erlebt und lebe jetzt so(GA 22, 175). But Heidegger does not appear to see the extent towhich this challenges a characterization of as Im-Werke-Sein(173), a characterization of

as Fertig-sein, and, finally, the

characterization of both as modes ofAnwesenheit and Vorhandenheit.

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Similarly, Brcker, while rightly claiming that das Sehen von etwas[ist] auch kein Aufenthalt, kein Stillstand, sondern ruhige Ttigkeit(85), still proceeds to make the mistake of identifying it with the endof motion and thus with what Heidegger calls Fertig-sein: dieEnergie in Gegensatz zur Bewegung sich bestimmt als Ruhe, u. z.nicht als Aufenthalt auf dem Wege zu einem Ende, sondern als Ruheim Ziel und Ende einer Bewegung: Entelechie (85). In the SS 1922course, Heidegger, after citing 1048b1921, interprets it as speakingof a Bewegung die selbst in ihrem Ende steht, am Ende gerade ist!die noch oder gerade dann Bewegung ist, wenn sie an ihrem Endeist! Am Ende sein und gerade dann Bewegung sein (106). ButAristotle in th

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