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§26. Movement as ἐντελέχεια τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος [287–288]


basic conception of being: presumably the being-character of movement will also have to be interpreted on the basis of this basic sense of being.10



§26. Movement as ἐντελέχεια τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος (Physics, Γ1)


a) Outline of the Chapter

We proceed to Book 3. Outline of Chapter 1:

200 b 12–25: Basic topic of μέθοδος,11 at the same time, what is given along with this topic.

200 b 25–32: Reference to the various modes of being, from which movement is to be apprehended, so to speak, as a definite type of being: (1) ὂν δυνάμει—ὂν ἐντελέχεια,12 (2) ὄν of the categories,13 (3) a definite category is discussed, the πρός τι,14 since movement, apparently, belongs in this category.

200 b 32–201 a 3: Evidence that κίνησις is not something παρὰ τὰ πράγματα,15 not something “alongside the beings that are there” of the world, of nature. This ‘not παρά’ means, in a positive sense: κίνησις is a mode of the being of beings that are themselves there. This determination is directed against Plato, who even in the Sophist says that a thing moved is characterized in its being by the fact that we apprehend it as taking part in κίνησις; κίνησις itself is an idea like all others—it is παρά and, through the μέθεξις in it, the moved thing must be made intelligible in its being. In this way, the movement of moved things occurs.16

201 a 3–9: In having recourse to the categories, it is shown how there is an entirely determinate “two-foldness,” which admits of a διχῶς.17 This “ability-to-be-thus-and-so” is the ontological condition of the fact that the beings that are determined by these categories are possible beings in movement. Διχῶς: referring back to the multiplicity of ἀρχαί.

201 a 9–15: genuine definition of movement.

201 a 15–19: concrete illustration of this definition in definite types of movement.

201 a 19–27: Reference to the peculiar fact of the matter, that one and the same being can be determined both as δυνάμει ὄν and ἐνεργείᾳ ὄν: 18 a definite being is at the same time a present being, ‘cold,’ and as a being present in this



10. See Hs. p. 365 f.

11. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 13.

12. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 26 sq.: τὸ μὲν ἐντελεχείᾳ μόνον, [. . .] τὸ δὲ δυνάμει καὶ ἐντελεχείᾳ.

13. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 28: τῶν τοῦ ὄντος κατηγοριῶν.

14. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 28 sq.

15. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 32 sq.

16. Cf. Plato, Sophist 248 e sqq.

17. Phys. Γ 1, 201 a 3.

18. Phys. Γ 1, 201 a 19 sq.: ἔνια ταὐτὰ καὶ δυνάμει καὶ ἐντελεχείᾳ ἐστίν.


Martin Heidegger (GA 18) Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy

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