accessible to everyone), but is there in its being-at-hand in an explicit mode. It can see, do, move itself. The two aspects of this οὐσία are κρίνειν, “separating” from something other, orienting itself in a world; and κινεῖν, “moving itself therein,” being-involved-therein, going-around-and-knowing-its-way-around-therein.” Thus, when one speaks of Greek philosophy, one must be careful with the famous “substantiality” of the soul. Οὐσία means a mode of being, and if the soul is called οὐσία, it refers to a distinctive mode of being, namely the being of the living.
3. Μόριον ἐνυπάρχον:34 This character is represented, for example, by the surface of a body. If I remove the surface of a body from the there, the body is thereby taken away. It is no longer there. The surface, then, constitutes the being-there and possible being-there of a body, just as the line constitutes the possible being-there of a surface. Accordingly, the surface, as an aspect of a body, is the type of being-character that Aristotle also designated ὁρίζον,35 “the circumscribed.” Body is circumscribed by the being-character of μόριον ἐνυπάρχον, that is, beings are determined in their being. This is possible only because limit, for the Greeks, is a completely fundamental character of the being-there of beings. Limitation is a fundamental character of the there. This aspect of ὁρίζον is σημαῖνον τόδε τι.36 It “designates” the being, insofar as it is at hand, as a “that there” such that this “that there” is visible, determinable, apprehensible, in its beingness. Since circumscription plays the peculiar role of determining beings in their being, it follows that some had the idea to describe as the οὐσία, the limit “in general,” or “number” in the broadest sense.37 The Pythagoreans, as well as the Platonists, saw in number the genuine οὐσία, numbers as οὐσίαι. Something numerical, or quantitative, circumscribes beings as such; they are not substances, daimons that exist around us.
4. τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι:38 Aristotle did not invent this term; rather, it was handed down to him by tradition. Τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι is a character of being, specifically that character on the basis of which λόγος as ὁρισμός addresses beings.39 The τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι is in particular the topic of ὁρισμός. An extensive understanding of this being-character is not to be expected here, but perhaps it will appear to us at the end of the lecture. I will only characterize the meaning of this being-character and its context in an entirely superficial way with the following. It refers to “being,” that is, the “what-being as it was already.” It means a being in itself, that is, with respect to what it was already, from which it stems in its being, with respect to its descent, its having come into being there. Therefore,
34. Met. Δ 8, 1017 b 17: μόρια ἐνυπάρχοντα.
35. Ibid.
36. Met. Δ 8, 1017 b 18.
37. Met. Δ 8, 1017 b 20: καὶ ὅλως ὁ ἀριθμὸς δοκεῖ τισι τοιοῦτος εἶναι.
38. Met. Δ 8, 1017 b 21 sq.
39. Met. Δ 8, 1017 b 22.