PATHMARKS
language. Nonetheless, if the Greeks conceive of saying as λέγειν, then this implies an interpretation of the essence of word and of saying so unique that no later "philosophy of language" can ever begin to imagine its as yet unplumbed depths. Only when language has been debased to a means of commerce and organization, as is the case with us, does thought rooted in language appear to be a mere "philosophy of words," no longer adequate to the "pressing realities of life." This judgment is simply an admission that we ourselves no longer have the power to trust that the word is the essential foundation of all relations to beings as such.
But why do we lose ourselves in this wide-ranging digression into an explanation of the essence of λόγος when our question is about the essence of φύσις? Answer: in order to make clear that when Aristotle appeals to λέγεσθαι he is not relying extraneously on some "linguistic usage" but is thinking out of the original and fundamental relation to beings. Thus this seemingly superficial beginning to the demonstration regains its proper import: if beings having in themselves the origin and ordering of their movedness are experienced by means of λέγειν, then as a result μορφή itself and not just ὕλη (not to mention ἀρρύθμιστον) unveils itself as the φύσις-character of these beings. To be sure, Aristotle does not show this directly but rather in a way that clarifies the concept opposed to μορφή, a concept that has gone unexplained until now: ὕλη. We do not say, "That is φύσις" when there are only flesh and bones lying around. They are to a living entity what wood is to a bedstead: mere "matter." Then does ὕλη mean "matter"? But let us ask again: What does "matter" mean? Does it mean just "raw material"? No, Aristotle characterizes ὕλη as τὸ δυνάμει. Δύναμις means the capacity, or better, the appropriateness for ... The wood present in the workshop [351] is in a state of appropriateness for a "table." But it is not just any wood that has the character of appropriateness for a table; rather, only this wood, selected and cut to order. But the selection and the cut, i.e., the very character of appropriateness, is decided in terms of the "production" of "what is to be produced." But "to produce" means, both in Greek and in the original sense of the German Herstellen, to place something, as finished and as looking thus and so, forth, into presencing. Ὕλη is the appropriate orderable, that which, like flesh and bones, belongs to a being that has in itself the origin and ordering of its movedness. But only in being placed into the appearance is a being what and how it is in any given case. Thus Aristotle can conclude:
XIV. "For this reason (then), φύσις would be, in another way, the placing into the appearance in the case of those beings that have in themselves the origin and
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