other πάθη are determinate dispositions in which the hearer finds himself, or should find himself. The one discoursing must notice that he might frighten others through his discoursing. He must be oriented toward the phenomenon so that he can correctly captivate others, in order to be able to frighten others.
b) The Topic, the First Definition, and the First Determinations
First of all, Aristotle offers the topic and first determinations: ποῖα δὲ φοβοῦνται καὶ τίνας καὶ πῶς ἔχοντες,350 “how something of a given type is feared, which human beings, and the how of having-oneself,” the disposition of fearing. You see the basic orientation toward the sense of πάθος as being-in-the-world, standing-toward-others and finding oneself with them. Those are the relations in which every πάθος stands.
On that basis, Aristotle seeks to give the first definition. Fear, however, is only genuinely intelligible when Aristotle supplies the πῶς ἔχοντες. In the first definition, only a formal structure of fear is offered; it is not explicitly set forth that such a finding-oneself is a fearing. Aristotle characterizes φόβος as λύπη τις ἢ ταραχὴ ἐκ φαντασίας μέλλοντος κακοῦ φθαρτικοῦ ἢ λυπηροῦ.351 It is not so much a ἕπεται, but directly φόβος λύπη τις: “fearing is something like a being-toned-down,” a disposition that is characterized as φυγή, “fleeing,” so to speak from my being-there. It is a αἵρεσις, not an elevated beingthere, but instead it recoils from it. . . . ἢ ταραχή, “confusion”: λύπη more precisely characterized as “being-led-by-another,” “being-through-another.” This being-through-another is more clearly determined when I stand toward myself in the mode of recoiling from myself, namely, from my being-there. . . . ἐκ φαντασίας, “from something that shows itself”; φαντασία (in the fully original sense): “that which shows itself,” “the self-showing”; ἐκ φαντασίας = ἐκ τοῦ φαίνεσθαι. What is expressed in this way is that what shows itself is not yet genuinely there; it is not there in αἴσθησις. It is there in such a way that it is not yet there in a certain mode. A being-led-by-another on the basis of the seeing-before-oneself of a being that is not yet there, not yet there so that it has the character of that which wants to arrive or should arrive. . . . μέλλοντος, “not yet there” in the sense of standing-before, coming-toward-me. Such a μέλλον as κακόν, φθαρτικόν: what comes toward me “in the mode of harmfulness,” comes toward me in the sense of that which could be “harmful” to my being-there, that which could “do damage to it,” “something harmful” to me. In short, a disposition that is set before an approaching possibility that pertains to me, comes toward me, and as such announces itself, specifically through the announcement.
It is to be noted, from the outset, that that before which I am afraid, that by which I am characterized in my being-in-fear, is determined so that it matters
350. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 a 20.
351. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 a 21 sq.