own notes (though very brief and cryptic) and student protocols have been published in volume 83 of the Gesamtausgabe (though not yet translated into English). The notes of Helene Weiss were not, however, included or even consulted for this publication. If we compare the Weiss notes to the published protocols, the former are indeed often inferior, being briefer, fragmentary, and unclear. Indeed, Weiss was evidently absent for the first few classes and therefore relied for these on other notes and the protocols themselves. But she tells us that she was present for the five classes in July and her notes for these are therefore not only independent of the published protocols, but also as detailed or even more so. Finally, and most importantly, Weiss records a very important and substantial class as the final session that is completely missing from the published protocols. The editor of the Gesamtausgabe volume, clearly not having consulted the Weiss notes, is not even aware of the existence of this final class.2
The account of the seminar in the present chapter will follow and reproduce as much as possible the Weiss notes, given that they are otherwise not available, and will of course rely on them entirely in reconstructing the final class (in which, importantly, Heidegger turns to Metaphysics IX.6 for an understanding of the temporality of “absolute motion”).3 Yet, especially where the Weiss notes are unclear or incomplete, I will draw on the published protocols and in every case make clear what these protocols add to the Weiss notes. The result will be the most complete and detail account of this important seminar currently possible.
The opening class of May 14 introduces the theme of the seminar. Motion (κίνησις) is dealt with in the Physics because the theme of this text is nature (φύσις), which is a principle (ἀρχή) of motion (200b12–13). Other topics dealt with in this text, that is, place, the void, time, and the infinite, are dealt with because, as essential a priori moments of motion as such (200b20–21), their analysis is demanded by the analysis of motion. The published protocol of Toni Rübesamen adds the point that phusis is not a being on the basis of which motion is first possible. Phusis must rather be understood as a way of being and thus ontologically. Therefore, “‘Motion’ is a way of being, not a property that appears in a being. That is the presupposition for comprehending the ἀεὶ ὄν” (GA83, 227). This last point anticipates a central thesis of the seminar: that it is only because motion is a way of being that being-motionless can also be a way of being. In other words, being eternal can say something not only about how long a being lasts, but about what kind of a being it is. But if motion is a way of being, this is because phusis
2. In the afterword, Mark Michalski claims that the protocols “fully covered the course of the seminar [den Verlauf des Seminars vollständig abdeckten]” (GA83, 667). They do not.
3. The pages of the notes are not numbered, but they total thirty-one pages and in citing the notes I will cite the number the page should have.