speaking, ἐνέργεια is attributed to that which is proximally grasped through παρουσία.
μεταβολή
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ἀπουσία | παρουσία
δυνάμει | ἐνέργεια
These concepts of actuality and possibility, which following the long tradition of philosophy (including Kant) we so routinely employ today, these fundamental concepts of being arise for the first time in Aristotle's treatment of the problem of movement. To show what occurs there, and to what degree the connection between ἐνέργεια and παρουσία is there demonstrated, would lead us too far afield. I choose a shorter way of clarifying the fundamental meaning of ἐνέργεια, which simultaneously clarifies the connection between the philosophical/pre-philosophical meaning of actuality and the understanding of being as constant presence.
The word ἐνέργεια sterns from ἔργον, work [Werk]. ἐν ἔργον, in work, means more precisely: sell-holding (sell-maintaining) in the activity of work. The workhood of work is the essence of work. The Greeks, and above all Aristotle, see the workhood of work not in terms of its origin, nor in terms of the person who sets the work into motion, but in the moment of being finished and ready.8 To be sure, the Greeks also see the intention of the work, its directedness-to, but they do not regard this as the decisive and essential moment. The work hood of work consists in its being finished. And what does this mean? Being ready and finished is the same as producedness. And again, not necessarily in the sense of being produced rather than growing up by and of itself. Rather, the understanding is directed towards the inner content of producedness, to being brought to stand forth from here to there, and, as such, to be now standing there. So producedness means there-standingness [Da-stehendheit], and ἐνέργεια means a sell-holding in producedness and there-standingness.
We can now easily see how the crucial moment shines through: the presence of the finished thing as such. It is from here that we must seek the way to a proper philosophical interpretation of that aspect of Aristotle's doctrine of being which has been so misinterpreted and deformed
8 See Aristotle, Metaphysics Θ 8, 1050 a 21: τὸ γὰρ ἔργον τέλος, and Θ 1, 1045 b 34: ὂν ... κατὰ τὸ ἔργον.
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