latter has lost all relation to the problem of kinêsis. If for Aristotle energeia refers to a thing’s being-present-at-hand-for itself, it also has a clear connection to motion, while the question of the reality of beings is discussed today only in terms of the independence from the knowing subject (WP3, 18). Furthermore, and more essentially, what “being” means here when we speak of something being-in-itself is left completely unquestioned. Indeed, it is because the understanding of being is not even raised as a question that its relation to motion is left hidden.
Heidegger therefore proceeds to give his own analysis of “what lies in a being’s being-at-hand-in-itself” (WP3, 18). He uses the example of a stool. The essence of a stool is to be a thing of use or a kind of equipment. But what interests Heidegger here is the mode in which it exists (modus existendi). How does the stool exist before I use it? It exists in the mode of resting, is Heidegger’s reply. It rests in the sense of being unmoved, but not in the sense of being free of motion. Its rest is understood in relation to its being moved: it is at rest (1) in not yet being used and (2) in having been produced and now finished. Heidegger further notes that in being used, the stool can be damaged (as only objects of use can be damaged) and therefore require being produced anew. The point that Heidegger wishes to emphasize is that the resting which is the stool’s mode of existing “in itself” can be under-stood only relative to motion. Furthermore, the stool has the peculiarity that it rests even in being used, unlike the knife. But this means that rest is here the stool’s mode of being used, that is, being in motion.
Because the stool rests in “standing there,” Heidegger turns to the question of how the standing of a human being differs from the standing of a stool (or, switching now the example, the standing of an inkwell). In standing, I “touch” the floor, the floor is unconcealed to me, not as data of touch, but as grass, pebbles, and so on. In contrast, the plate on which the inkwell stands is not there for it. But what Heidegger in general wishes to show is that in the resting of the object of use, a diversity of ways of being is revealed to us that is simply ignored by theories about what exists in itself. And, indeed, Heidegger maintains that in use the being-in-itself of something announces itself in a much more fundamental way than it does for a simple grasping (WP3, 20). It is here that we have the answer to the earlier objection that talk about how something announces itself (Bekundung) tells us nothing about its being-in-itself. The class ends with an important observation recorded only by Weiss: “See how the full comprehension of reality on the one hand leads to kinêsis, on the other hand how the possibility