depends on the depth and power of the people who speak the language and exist within it. Only our German language has a deep and creative philosophical character to compare with the Greek.2
c) Everyday Speech and the Fundamental Meaning of οὐσία: Presence
If we wish to hearken to the fundamental meaning of this basic word οὐσία, we must pay attention to everyday speech. We soon see that in everyday linguistic usage there is no sharp distinction between beings and being. So also in Greek, οὐσία means beings. To be sure, not just any beings, but such as are, in a certain way, exemplary in their being, namely the beings that belong to one, one's possessions, house and home, the beings over which one has disposal. These beings stand at one's disposal because they are fixed and stable, because they are constantly attainable and at hand in the immediate or proximate environment. Why do the Greeks use the same word for beings as such that they use for house and home, possessions? Why is precisely this kind of being exemplary? Clearly, only because this being corresponds in an exemplary sense to that which, in everyday understanding of being, one implicitly understands by the beingness of a being (its being). And what does one understand by being? We shall be able to comprehend this if we succeed in determining what is exemplary about house and home.
What is this exemplary character? House and home, possessions, are constantly attainable. As constantly attainable they lie close at hand, presented on a plate as it were, constantly presenting themselves. They are what is closest and in this constant closeness they are present and at hand in a definite sense. Because they are present and at hand in an exemplary sense, we call possessions, house and home, etc. (what the Greeks call
2 Cf. Meister Eckhart and Hegel.
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