meaning in Aristotle. One must see whether the ambiguity in fact comes from the matters.
Οὐσία belongs among these ambiguous basic concepts. Thus we will examine that from which its various meanings take their bearings. I already said that οὐσία is the basic concept of Aristotelian research. Such expressions, which have the character of emphasized expressions, are also designated as “terms.” And the meaning that expressly accrues to them within a scientific context of questioning is the “terminological” meaning of the expression. There are different possibilities regarding the coming to be of terms.
1. A determinate concrete context is discovered, seen anew for the first time—the word is missing, the word is coined together with the matter. An expression that was not at hand may immediately become a term, which later dissipates by entering into the general currency and ordinariness of speaking.
2. Second, education can proceed in such a way that the term is fixed to a word that is already at hand, and such that an aspect of meaning that was co-intended with the ordinary meaning, though not explicitly, now becomes thematic in the terminological meaning.21
b) The Customary Meaning of Οὐσία
The expression οὐσία, as the fundamental term of Aristotelian research, stems from an expression that has a customary meaning in natural language. The customary meaning is that which a word has in natural speaking. Natural speaking means speaking as it always takes place initially and for the most part, and where another mode of speaking with the world is at hand, namely, the scientific mode. The customariness of meaning and of expressing means, further, that it operates in the averageness of understanding. It is suitable for being circulated as self-evident; it is understood “without qualification.” “People” understand an expression that has the character of the customary without qualification; it exists in the common store of language into which every person is brought up from the start.
However, with οὐσία it is not the case that the terminological meaning has arisen out of the customary meaning while the customary disappeared. Rather, for Aristotle, the customary meaning exists constantly and simultaneously alongside the terminological meaning. And, according to its customary meaning, οὐσία means property, possession, possessions and goods, estate. It is noteworthy that definite beings—matters such as possessions and household goods—are addressed by the Greeks as genuine things. Thus if we examine this customary meaning, we may discover what the Greeks meant in general by “being.” Still, we must be careful not to arbitrarily deduce the terminological meaning from the customary. Rather, the customary meaning must be understood
21. See Hs. p. 342 ff.