παθητικὸν, καὶ ὅλως κινητικόν τε καὶ κινητόν.129 “The one is addressed with respect to the going-beyond-it and the falling-short . . ., the other as ποιητικόν and παθητικόν [the ποιεῖν is a ποιεῖν τι], beings in the sense of making-themselves- produce something, and that with which a making-themselves-produce makes produce [which is in itself a παθητικόν.]” If a being in its being-there is characterized by ποίησις, there is a being there with it that has the determination of πάθησις.
Earlier, we pointed out that there are given in the world itself beings with which we have to do, but also human beings, in the sense that we directly experience, that this one appearing lives in a world.130 The being-at-hand of a living thing is a being-in-the-world of the living thing. I am myself something that appears in the world, that occupies itself with something—we can also say of an animal that it flees from a threat, and so on. Beings with the character of living are at hand in the world, and this is at the same time a way of being-in- the-world. An animal is there, an ant crawls up the trunk so that it has the trunk in a certain way as its obstacle, so that the trunk with which it is there is nonetheless there for it as διακείμενον, ἀντικείμενον for the animal through ἁφή, through “contact.” This being, as animal, has that with which it is still there; the πρός τι is characterized by the ἀντί . . . such that what the living thing is related to is there as uncovered, perceived, seen, or thought. The πρὸς ἄλληλα has a distinctive possibility that is characterized by δέχεσθαι, “ability-to- take-in,” having-it-there-explicitly-in-uncoveredness. Such a being is the living thing that is characterized by this determinability, a finding-oneself: not merely being-at-hand with others, but rather maintaining oneself with it, being open to the world of itself as living thing, through the keeping-oneself.
The primary openness of human beings is grounded in νοῦς. Νοεῖν, “supposing,” is not limited to determinate regions of being as is αἴσθησις. However, νοεῖν is also possible for that which is not corporeally present. In this thinking-of-it, I am with it. Supposing can suppose everything; it is the mode of openness to everything. The uncoveredness of the being of human beings as being-in-the-world is characterized by νοῦς. This νοῦς is always a νοῦς τῆς ψυχῆς, a διανοεῖσθαι, supposing something as something. Just as αἴσθησις is, for the Greeks, a being approached by the world—something comes toward— so also is διανοεῖσθαι a δέχεσθαι, a “perceiving”—the world is encountered by me. Νοεῖν is, in a certain sense, a πάθος, a being-approached by the world. This being-thus-in-the-world, characterized by the uncoveredness of νοῦς, is possible only because the world is generally open, that νοῦς is determined by a νοῦς that uncovers the world in general. I can suppose only if this that is thinkable is opened up in general. The νοῦς παθητικός is possible only through the νοῦς ποιητικός,131 through a νοεῖν that uncovers the world. The determinations
129. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 28 sqq.
130. See S. 241
131. Cf. De an. Γ 5, 430 a 10 sqq.