At this pont, it could be said that the ἑτερότης is not at all intended in this way, but rather ἑτερότης as a determination of beings themselves, such that being-otherwise lies in beings themselves, that beings have in themselves the possibility of being from . . . to . . . , of being characterized in relation to a determination through the absence of this determination. But then is it not the case that the ἑτερότης determines being as being-in-movement? In a being that has various determinations, these determinations are distinct from one another without the being needing to be in movement. One can say in Aristotle’s sense, a being is at once determined as ἐντελέχεια—the wood is present as wood—and yet it is something else insofar as it is δυνάμει—namely, that it can be a chest. This is a positive determination of itself, and although this otherness lies in the wood itself, it is not necessarily in movement, but rather it is moved only when this δυνάμει ὄν is present. The ἑτερότης is not sufficient. And one can even interpret the ἑτερότης in the active sense: perhaps the ancients meant this being-otherwise as ἑτεροίωσις, “becoming-otherwise.” In this case, then, κίνησις is ἑτεροίωσις, ἀλλοίωσις, defined by a determinate movement, and therefore this movement is already presupposed.
In no sense, then, does the ἑτερότης suffice for the task of genuinely defining beings-in-movement. This determination of the ἑτερότης does not include the fundamental ontological respect of presence, of being-present, and of disappearing-from-presence. Yet, this ability-not-to-approach the phenomenon of movement means, at the same time, that this theory virtually obstructs the possibility of seeing movement. One can always say, in a formal manner, that a movement, μεταβολή, is in becoming. This aspect is the ground for determining the way of being of movement as ἑτερότης. But it is a rash determination that does not take into account precisely the fundamental meaning.103
c) The Ground of This Determination: The ἀόριστον of Movement
The ancients arrived at this peculiar determination only because they said: movement is an ἀόριστον.104 I determine an “indeterminateness” appropriately only if I determine it through a category that touches on indeterminateness. “If I determine, ὁρίζω, movement, movement ceases.”105 Being-there is beingthere-completed in its place, limit. If it is moved, it is something that changes its site; it is such a thing that is in no determinate place. If I determine such a thing that constantly changes site, and therefore does not remain in its πέρας, then it stands still; it no longer is the indeterminate thing that is not in its place. I cannot determine it through a πέρας; instead, I must take the categories pertaining to it from among those categories that define the indeterminate. Of course, Plato and the Pythagoreans specified such a group (διάγραμμα) of categories.
103. See Hs. p. 383 f.
104. Phys. Γ 2, 201 b 24.
105. Themistii in Aristotelis Physica paraphrases. Consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae ed. H. Schenkl. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Voluminis V pars II. Berlin 1900. 211, 12: ὅταν γὰρ ὁρισθῇ, παύεται.