PATHMARKS
unformed that is primally present, [342] the πρῶτον ἀρρύθμιστον, and, as such, in ruling (ὑπάρχον) normatively over the being of everything that in some other way still "is." Aristotle does not formally reject this way of conceiving φύσις. But the word δοκεῖ hints at such a rejection. We would do well to consider right now why the interpretation of φύσις as put forth by Antiphon must necessarily remain inadequate:
(1) Antiphon's doctrine does not consider the fact that φύσει-beings are in movedness, that is to say, that movedness co-constitutes the being of these beings. On the contrary, according to his understanding of φύσις, all character of movement, aU alteration and changing circumstantiality (ῥυθμός) devolves into something only incidentally attaching to beings. Movement is unstable and therefore a non-being.
(2) Beingness is indeed conceived as stability, but one-sidedly in favor of the always-already-underlying. Thus,
(3) The other moment of the essence of οὐσία is omitted: presencing, which is the decisive factor in the Greek concept of being. We try to bring out in a word what is most proper to it by saying "presencing" [Anwesung] instead of "presentness" [Anwesenheit]. What we mean here is not mere presence [Vorhandenheit], and certainly not something that is exhausted merely in stability; rather: presencing, in the sense of coming forth into the unbidden, placing itself into the open. One does not get at the meaning of presencing by referring to mere duration.
(4) But the interpretation of φύσις given by Antiphon and the others understands the being of the φύσει ὄντα via a reference to "beings" (the "elemental"). This procedure of explaining being through beings instead of "understanding" beings from being results in the aforementioned misunderstanding of the character of κίνησις and the one-sided interpretation of οὐσία. Accordingly, because Antiphon's doctrine in no way reaches the proper area for thinking about being, [343] Aristotle obviously must reject this conception of φύσις as he makes the transition to his own proper interpretation of φύσις. We read:
XII. "Consequently, in one way φύσις is spoken of as follows: it is what primarily and antecedently underlies each single thing as 'the order-able' for beings that have in themselves the origin and ordering of movedness and thus of change. But in the other way, [φύσις is addressed] as the placing into the form, i.e., as the appearance, (namely, that) which shows itself for our addressing it." (193a 28-31)
We read and are astonished, for the sentence begins with οὖν, "consequently." The transition expresses no rejection of the aforementioned doctrine. On the contrary, the doctrine is obviously taken over, albeit with
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