that is produced. Phusis, in contrast, contains its end within itself. We have already seen Aristotle contrast nature with the art of healing precisely in this way at 193b12–18, along with Heidegger’s comment that nature “is the kind of being that is in such a way that it becomes in itself” (WP, 6). The art of healing has not itself but rather health as its end, whereas a human being generates a human being. One could also cite here (though Heidegger does not) Aristotle’s description of phusis at Metaphysics IX.8 as “a principle of motion, but not in something else, but in itself as itself” (1049b9–10; ἀρχή γὰρ κινητική, άλλ᾽οὐκ ἐν ἄλλῳ ἀλλ᾽ ἐν αὐτῷ ᾗ αὐτό).
This again raises the question of why Heidegger insists that productive movement, rather than the more perfect movement of nature, is for Aristotle paradigmatic. The reasoning appears to be the following: we see in production that movement is given its being by the end that is its principle (the movement exists for the sake of this end); it is only on this basis that we then look for a movement that is more perfect in being its own end, and more perfect in more closely approximating the determinacy of being. On this view, it is not the case that nature is a fundamentally different kind of movement from production; instead, it is a more perfect productive movement in being a self-production. The guiding phenomenon here is movement, but both the central significance and the being of movement are taken from production. This is how we can understand the lines that follow in the notes: “The fundamental perspective of being as being-produced conditions the fundamental significance of κίνησις. For every (produced) being is produced either through τέχνη or φύσει. Τέχνη and φύσις, however, are both (categorial) κινήσεις. That overall the question can be about the greater or lesser perfection [Vollendung] of the movement (τελειότερον), lies in the ontological starting-point. The greater perfection is always with a view to what is brought into being (τέλος the end); what has resulted, what was yielded, what has come into being” (WP, 15). We take from production an identification of being with a movement’s end that is its principle and completes it; we then judge the greater or lesser perfection of a movement, that is, its greater or lesser being, according to its completeness, that is, according to the extent to which it contains its own end.
Heidegger next seeks a more precise determination of the notions of archê and aitia in order to uncover the motivations for ontological inquiry, as well as for physics and ethics. What exactly are we searching for and why when we search for the principles and causes? Heidegger returns here to Metaphysics Δ (V).1, the chapter on archê, and Aristotle’s claim there that