PATHMARKS
analogous to our understanding of τὸ ὄν. Τὸ ὄν can mean a being, i.e., this particular being itself; but it can also mean that which is, that which has being. Analogously ὑποκείμενον can mean "that which lies present," but it can also mean "something distinguished by lying-present," and so it can mean the very lying-present itself. [331] (The unusually rich and manifold forms of the participle in the Greek language — the truly philosophical language — are no mere accident, but their meaning has hardly yet been recognized.)
In accordance with the explanation of οὐσία by way of ὑποκείμενον, the beingness of beings means for the Greeks the same as to lie present "there," i.e., "in front of ..." In this connection let us recall that toward the beginning of this chapter, at 191 b13 (and later at 193 a36), instead of τὰ ὄντα Aristotle says συνεστῶτα (the stable: that which has taken a stand). Accordingly, "being" means the same as "standing on its own." But "to stand" is quite the opposite of "to lie." Yes, that is true if we take each of them separately. But if we take "to stand" and "to lie" in terms of what they share in common, then each manifests itself precisely through its opposite. Only what stands can fall and thus lie; and only what lies can be put upright and thus stand. The Greeks understand "being" sometimes as "to stand on its own" (ὑπόστασις, substantia) and sometimes as "lying present" ὑποκείμενον, subjectum), but both have equal weight, for in both cases the Greeks have one and the same thing in view: being-present of and by itself, presencing. The decisive principle that guides Aristotle's interpretation of φύσις declares that φύσις must be understood as οὐσία, as a kind and mode of presencing.
Now, it has already been established through ἐπαγωγή that φύσει ὄντα are κινούμενα, that is to say: φύσει-beings are beings in the state of movedness. Accordingly, it is now a question of understanding movedness as a manner and mode of being, i.e., of presencing. Only when this is accomplished can we understand φύσις in its essence as the origin and ordering of the movedness of what moves from out of itself and toward itself.5 Thus it is clear in principle that the question about the φύσις of the φύσει ὄντα is not a search for ontic properties to be found in beings of this sort, but rather an inquiry into the being of those beings, from which being it gets determined antecedently in what way beings of this kind of being can have properties at all.
[332] The next section, which forms the transition to a new attempt at determining the essence of φύσις, shows how decisively Aristotle's explanation of φύσις heretofore has, in the meanwhile, broadened explicitly into a principled reflection, and it shows how necessary this reflection is for the task confronting us:
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