itself in the form of seizing or evading. The question of existence is always to be brought into the clear only through existing itself. The understanding of oneself that leads here is what we name existentiell” (SZ, 12; my translation) In the seminar, Heidegger identifies the philosopher with the type of Dasein that freely chooses to make his own existence transparent and to assume this existence. This self-appropriation of one’s own existence is a possibility of Dasein, and the philosopher is the one who realizes this possibility. “The philosopher is characterized by the faith, the inner trust, that his own existence can lay hold of itself. This faith presents itself here as fidelity to oneself (Treue zu sich selbst)” (244). Heidegger goes on to describe such existence as free both from any external bond and from the need to determine others through persuasion; in a marginal note, Heidegger refers to the necessity and superfluity of philosophical critique and Auseinandersetzung, as well as to the “esoteric character of philosophy” (244). But then we arguably have here the choice not only of philosophical existence as such, but of a particular kind of philosophical existence. What is most striking, however, is the evident implication: an ontology must be grounded not only in the ontic/ontological priority of Dasein as that kind of being concerned with its own being, but in a particular ideal of Dasein, which is to say, in the existentiell priority of that kind of Dasein that seizes upon its own existence and seeks to make it transparent.
After the digression of the last two classes that veered away from Aristotle’s text in pursuing questions raised by Heidegger’s own analysis of Dasein in Being and Time, the class of June 25 returns to Aristotle’s account of motion. Here Weiss claims to follow the protocol of Ernst Fuchs, which is the protocol published in GA83. Oddly, however, Weiss misdates the class to July 2 (WP3, 5), despite dating the next class as July 2 (WP3, 7). Weiss only reproduces in a fragmentary fashion what is to be found in the protocol. In this class we have a somewhat different translation of Aristotle’s definition of motion: “The completeness [Fertigkeit] of what is suitable in its suitability for [des Geeigneten in seiner Eignung zu]” (WP3, 5). In case we think that Heidegger has retracted his identification of entelecheia with presence, he immediately adds that it would be “more precise” (genauer) to say: “The presence [Anwesenheit] of. . . .” Yet in attempting to understand what kind of presence motion is, the class will focus on a text that challenges the identification of this presence with what is present-at-hand.9 The importance of this text cannot be exaggerated, as in this way it challenges the interpretation of ancient ontology we have seen Heidegger defend in previous
9. Heidegger indeed in the course of the class will shift to speaking of Wirklichkeit instead of Anwesenheit: both the Wirklichkeit of what is present-at-hand and the Wirklichkeit that is motion (see GA83, 246). Recall that he connects this term to the verb wirken and thereby understands by it not “reality” but something like “the state of being-at-work.”