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PHENOMENOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS

the going is fundamentally different from this having-gone: ἕτερον καὶ κινεῖ καὶ κεκίνηκεν [what is moving is different from what has moved] (Met. Θ 6, 1048b32). In contrast, having-seen is at the same time as and along with the seeing. He has seen—in sight—only insofar as he is seeing just now. He has perceived just now precisely in his act of perceiving (νοεῖ καὶ νενόηκεν [is perceiving and has perceived]) (ibid.). Such movement is a kind of being that consists in both a temporalizing and unfolding of itself that takes itself in true safekeeping and a taking itself into true safekeeping that temporalizes and unfolds itself (ἄμα τὸ αὐτό [the same thing at the same time] (ibid., 1048b33). It is only νόησις as pure θεωρεῖν [contemplation] that satisfies the highest idea of pure movement. The authentic being of human beings temporalizes and unfolds itself in the pure actualization of sofiva as a tarrying alongside and pure perceiving of the ἀρχαί of those beings that always are, a tarrying that is unworried and always has time to spare (σχολή [leisure]). The basic character of the being of ἕξις and thus also of ἀρετή, i.e., the ontological structure of human being, is understood on the basis of an ontology of beings in the how of a particular kind of movement and on the basis of an ontological radicalization of the idea of this kind of movement.


Met. Α 1-2


Our interpretation of these two chapters brings to light three things regarding our guiding problem of facticity:

1. The phenomenal structure of the intentional toward-which and relation found in going about those dealings (ἐπιστήμη) that simply look at . . . and define contexts having to do with the question of “why,” as well as the phenomenal structure of the highest possible kind of temporalizing and unfolding of these dealings, namely, authentic understanding (σοφία), which looks at the ἀρχαί and brings them into true safekeeping. It is on the basis of this that concrete ἀρχή-research, which “physics” is understood to be, will be clarified in advance with regard to the demarcation of its objects that is drawn from the idea of pure understanding in its starting point (its specifically critical basis) and with regard to its method of categorial explication.

2. The path on which Aristotle gains all access to the phenomenon of pure understanding and the kind of interpretation he employs for this phenomenon. Both of these are characteristics of the fundamental meaning of “philosophy.”

3. The basic character of the being of σοφία as such and its constitutive achievement for the being of human life.

These three points of view of our examination are intrinsically related, so that the structure of pure understanding will become intelligible simply on the basis of the fact that with regard to its being it is rooted in factical life and has a particular mode of genesis in it. This is why the real emphasis of our interpretation consists in bringing to light what was mentioned in point two above.


Martin Heidegger - Supplements: From the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond