is anticipating the priority of energeia in Aristotle; or, stated the other way around, the notion of energeia would be only Aristotle’s interpretation of the idea of the good in Plato. To see that this is not an outrageous sugges-tion consider that when Aristotle in NE X.6 describes the energeia of nous as exceeding everything else “in power and honor” (1178a1–2; δυνάμει καὶ τιμιότητι . . . πάντων ὑπερέχει), he appears to be borrowing the language by which Plato describes the good as “beyond being in honor and power” (509b9–10; ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας πρεσβείᾳ καὶ δυνάμει ὑπερέχοντος).24
Now we finally turn to Θ.6 and, as we could expect, the focus of the discussion is the last half of the chapter in which Aristotle argues for the distinction between energeia and kinêsis. Yet Heidegger notes that it is the notion of praxis that is the focus of this section (being indeed the term first introduced at 1048b18). Significantly, he refers to praxis as itself a kind of motion and sees the passage as distinguishing it from the kind of motion that is poiêsis. As the passage proceeds, this distinction is formulated as one between energeia and kinêsis as such. Heidegger observes that Aristotle here, as often in central passages, is remarkably vague in his terminology and that this has its grounds. Heidegger also notes that Aristotle’s examples can be problematic: he gives walking (βάδισις) as an example of an incomplete motion, but is it really the case that the recuperation (Erholung) at which walking aims is to be found only when the walking comes to an end rather than in and throughout the walking? (WP3, 30).
But putting aside the ambiguous terminology and the problematic examples, what is the distinction Aristotle is trying to make, a distinction that, according to Heidegger, concerns purely existential concepts (Existenzbegriffe)? As we have already seen in the context of the 1924/25 seminar, Aristotle’s fundamental distinction is between, on the one hand, an activity that is its own end, always therefore in possession of its end, and in possessing its end does not have to come to an end, and, on the other hand, a motion whose end is distinct from itself, which therefore is never in possession of its end as long as it exists, and in arriving at its end must come to an end. An example of the former would be seeing, while an example of the latter (and clearer than the walking example) would be building a house: the end of building a house is the built house, but the house does not yet exist at any point during the process of building and puts an end to this process when it does exist; in contrast, there is no product of seeing, but the end of seeing is seeing itself and therefore is achieved as soon as, and for as long as, the seeing exists. Recall that Aristotle uses temporal tenses
24. For further interpretation and discussion of this claim, see Gonzalez 2018b.