to explain the distinction further: while in the case of a kinêsis the present and perfect tenses exclude each other, for example, one cannot be building the house and have built the house at the same time, in the case of a praxis or energeia they apply simultaneously, for example, I can still be seeing in having seen. But if this is how Aristotle expresses the distinction, how does Heidegger interpret it? Weiss captures Heidegger’s interpretation in the following notes that need to be cited in full: “Having been completed (Fertig geworden sein): only then genuinely being. The perfect first constitutes the genuine presence of πρᾶξις. Rebound [Rückschlag] of becoming-complete upon action itself. This [action] does not thereby cease, but first becomes genuine. In contrast, ποίησις must come to an end. Aristotle wants to say: here a κίνησις that does not need to be interpreted from the ἔργον, but ἔργον is the seeing itself. With becoming-complete I first come genuinely into the work” (WP3, 30). The first thing to note is that this is indeed an interpretation and not a simple paraphrase. The second thing to note is that the distinction between praxis and poiêsis is here interpreted entirely from the perspective of poiêsis. If poiêsis is a motion incomplete in moving to-ward an end or a product distinct from itself and needing to be interpreted from the perspective of this end or product, praxis is a motion onto which being-complete has been read back: a motion that has been made itself the product. The final thing to note is the assumption that praxis or energeia is a mode of presence: not the presence of what is incomplete as such, but a presence constituted by the “perfect.”
A possible problem with this interpretation is exposed most clearly by the claim that “the perfect first constitutes the genuine presence of πρᾶξις.” This is because the “perfect” by itself would appear to constitute the presence of the product as such, for example, of the house that has been built. This is why Aristotle himself is careful to claim that what characterizes energeia in contrast to kinêsis is not the perfect tense as such, but the simultaneity of perfect and present tenses—“has seen and sees simultaneously the same” (1048b33–34; ἑώρακε δὲ καὶ ὁρᾷ ἅμα τὸ αὐτό). One must therefore wonder if Heidegger has truly captured the distinctive being and temporality of energeia in simply identifying it with a motion that has been interpreted as a completed product and whose temporality is therefore simply the same as that of the completed product.25
Instead of saying more, Heidegger now turns to some short remarks on dunamis. The distinction is again made between ontic dunamis understood as a capability or power (Vermögen, ein seiendes Können) and an ontological
25. The problematic assumption is captured in the following analysis by Minca 2006, 192: “Bei der ποίησις liegt dieses ἔργον daneben (παρά), bei der πρᾶξις ist das ἔργον im Sein des Menschen selbst, als Handlung—aber trotzdem sind das ἔργον und die πρᾶξις Resultate.” A praxis is not a result in the way a house is; which means that it arguably has neither the being of what is “finished” nor the temporality signified exclusively by the perfect tense.