of language as the basic how, being through it, cf. ψεῦδος, WS 23/4).15
B. At the same as what is spoken in this way, this intelligibility become public, available, able to be appropriated, able to be obscured: τὰ δὲ κείμενα [ὀνόματα] κοινὰ πᾶσιν,16 “the fixed words [available, once spoken forth] belong to all”—in the belongingness of “one”—intelligibility.
This λόγος the basic characteristic of human beings, specifically with respect to the mode of their being. Human being: ζῷον, “living thing” (ζῷον unspecified, before the concretion of modern biology, before humanistic [or]17 natural-scientific psychology. Ζωή, “living”: mode of being as being-in, being-in in the sense of exhibitive-interpretive speaking.
Ἔχον, ἔχειν in the sense of: τὸ ἄγειν κατὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ φύσιν ἢ κατὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ ὁρμήν,18 conducting oneself, comporting oneself in the sense of “managing,” “completing,” emerging therein “from out of the ownmost drive.” The being-there, qua human being, is speaking from out of itself in the special, full sense!
On §7a
II. Ὁρισμός as λόγος οὐσίας:
The ὁρισμός is λόγος οὐσίας, the “addressing exhibition of beings in the how of their being.” Beings are addressed in themselves with respect to their being. With the translation of οὐσία in “beings in the how of their genuine being,” an entirely determinate—even still, a determinately multiple—meaning is assigned to the word. If the multiplicity of meanings of the word οὐσία is to be able to obtain a grounded orientation, then the λόγος οὐσίας would also have to receive a proper clarification. Furthermore, the word is the title for Aristotelian fundamental research—or, more precisely, for Greek fundamental research as such—the basic concept per se, the term. The question as to the τί τὸ ὄν is the question, τίς ἡ οὐσία. In this way the question of being is first brought about.19 That precisely a fundamental word like οὐσία and others like it are afflicted with an ambiguity should not diminish its appropriateness as the title of the investigation. On the contrary. Everything depends on the multiplicity of meaning as such being understood.
Ambiguity of words, basic words, can be a sort of entanglement: that the ambiguity be used indiscriminately for various matters, without knowledge of the matter and familiarity with the application of meaning. It can therefore prevail, and precisely in this case, where it need not prevail, where the ambiguity
15. Cf. Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, GA 17: 31ff.
16. Met. Ζ 15, 1040 a 11.
17. Insertion by the editor.
18. Met. Δ 23, 1023 a 8 sq.
19. Met. Ζ 1, 1028 b 22 sq.