PATHMARKS
If φύσις is οὐσία, a manner of being, then the correct determination of the essence of φύσις depends, first, on an adequately original grasp of the essence of οὐσία and, second, on a corresponding interpretation of what it is that we encounter, in the light of a given conception of being, as a φύσει-being. Now, the Greeks understand οὐσία as stable presencing. They give no reasons for this interpretation of being any more than they question the ground of its truth. For in the first beginning of thought, the fact that the being of beings is grasped at all is more essential than the question of its ground.
But how does the Sophist Antiphon, who comes from the Eleatic school, interpret φύσις in the light of being, conceived as stable presencing? He says: only earth, water, air, and fire truly are in accordance with φύσις. With this, however, there occurs a decision of the greatest import: what always seems to be more than mere (pure) earth — e.g., the wood "formed" out of the earth and even more so [337] the bedstead fashioned from the wood — all this "more" is in fact less being, because this "more" has the character of articulating, impressing, fitting, and forming, in short, the character of ῥυθμός. Things of this son change, are unstable, are without stability. From wood one can just as well make a table and a shield and a ship; what is more, the wood itself is only something formed out of the earth. The earth is what truly perdures throughout, whereas the changes of ῥυθμός happen to it only now and again. What properly is, is τὸ ἀρρύθμιστον πρῶτον, the primarily and intrinsically unformed, which remains stably present throughout the changes of shape and form that it undergoes. From Antiphon's theses it is clear that bedsteads, statues, robes, and gowns are only inasmuch as they are wood, iron, and the like, i.e., only inasmuch as they consist of something more stable. The most stable, however, are earth, water, fire, and air — the "elements." But if the "elemental" is what most is, then this interpretation of φύσις — as the primary formless that sustains everything that is formed — implies that a decision has likewise been made about the interpretation of every "being," and that φύσις, as conceived here, is equated with being pure and simple. But this means the essence of οὐσία as stable presencing is given a fixed and very specific direction. According to this definition of its essence, all things, whether growing things or artifacts, never truly are — and yet they are not nothing; hence they are non-being, not fully sufficing for beingness. In contrast with these non-beings, only the "elemental" qualifies as the essence of being.
The following section gives an insight into the importance of the interpretation of φύσις currently under discussion, i.e., as the πρῶτον ἀρρύθμιστον καθ᾽ ἑαυτόν (the primarily and intrinsically unformed):
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