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the τελειότερον among these τέλη καθ᾿ αὑτά⁹⁸—that which has the character of end more genuinely and to a greater extent. From this, arises the question of the τελειότερον and of the τελειότατον, since there is presumably a manifoldness of τέλη καθ᾿ αὑτά.

What belongs to a ἁπλῶς τέλειον?⁹⁹ At first, Aristotle gives the definition of the τελειότερον: τελειότερον δὲ λέγομεν τὸ καθ᾿ αὑτὸ διωκτὸν τοῦ δι᾽ ἕτερον.¹⁰⁰ “The τελειότερον is that καθ᾿ αὑτό, which διωκτὸν τοῦ δι᾽ ἕτερον, which is pursued, taken hold of, by something that is on account of another (i.e., on its account).” This definition of the τελειότερον with repect to a δι᾽ ἕτερον, “something that is for the sake of another,” is indeed a necessary but not a sufficient definition.

With respect to the καθ᾿ αὑτό, that τελειότερον which μηδέποτε δι’ ἄλλο¹⁰¹ and αἰεὶ καθ᾿ αὑτὸ αἱρετόν,¹⁰² is such a δι’ αὑτό that “constantly,” “always,” is what it is. The τέλη καθ᾿ αὑτά: ἡδονή, τιμή, ἀρετή, “can in the end and for the most part be appropriated for the sake of εὐδαιμονία”: τιμὴν δὲ καὶ ἡδονὴν καὶ [ . . . ] ἀρετὴν αἱρούμεθα μὲν καὶ δι’ αὐτά [ . . . ], αἱρούμεθα δὲ καὶ τῆς εὐδαιμονίας χάριν.¹⁰³ These τέλη can also have a different τέλος in the background, whereby it genuinely depends on human beings. In the end, this τέλος is being-there itself. That is to say, should the ἁπλῶς τέλειον be something that is constantly and always καθ᾿ αὑτό, then there is the possibility, for the beingthere of human beings, of something that applies to this being-there as such. The ἀεί is not meant in the Platonic sense, but is related to the being of human beings. The being on which it ultimately depends can, for being-there, only be its way of being, so that here a fundamental determination of being-there shows itself: such a being that, in its being, depends upon its being, explicitly or inexplicitly. Consequently, the ἁπλῶς τέλειον is that which constitutes, per se, the being-completed of being-there, the very being-possibility of beingthere itself. If being-there as being-in-the-world were determined by the τέλη (ἡδονή, τιμή) as a disposition, then the being-possibility would be designated as a disposition, the way of being-there as διαγωγή,¹⁰⁴ as “whiling” in a world. This being-there in the most genuine sense has its possibility of fulfillment in θεωρεῖν.

This determination, that ultimately the being of being-there is that which constitutes per se being-there in its there, is echoed in the Kantian definition of the human being: the rational essence exists as an end in itself. This definition is, at the same time, the ontological condition of the possibility of the categorical

98. Eth. Nic. Α 5, 1097 a 30.

99. Eth. Nic. Α 5, 1097 a 33.

100. Eth. Nic. Α 5, 1097 a 30 sq.

101. Eth. Nic. Α 5, 1097 a 31 sq.

102. Eth. Nic. Α 5, 1097 a 33: καθ’ αὑτὸ αἱρετὸν αἰεί.

103. Eth. Nic. Α 5, 1097 b 2 sqq.

104. Eth. Nic. Κ 7, 1177 a 27.