ON THE ESSENCE AND CONCEPT OF Φύσις
ordering of their movedness. Of course, the placing and the appearance do not stand off by themselves; rather, it is only in a given being that they can be pointed out by addressing them. However, that which takes its stand from these (i.e., from the order-able and from the placing) is certainly not φύσις itself, although it is a φύσει-being — such as, for example, a human being." (193 b3-6)
These sentences do not simply recapitulate the already proven thesis, namely, that φύσις can be spoken of in two ways. Much more important is the emphasis given to the crucial thought that φύσις, spoken of in two ways, is not a being but a manner of being. Therefore, Aristotle again presses home the point: the appearance and the placing into the appearance must not be taken Platonically as standing apart unto themselves, but as the being [Sein] in which an individual being stands at any given moment — for example, this person here. To be sure, this individual being is from ὕλη and μορφή, but precisely for this reason it is a being and not a way of being — not φύσις, as are μορφή and ὕλη in their inherent togetherness. In other words, it now becomes clear to what extent Aristotle's [352] distinction between ὕλη and μορφή is not simply another formula for Antiphon's distinction between ἀρρύθμιστον and ῥυθμός. These latter terms are intended to define φύσις, but they only designate beings — the stable as distinct from the unstable. They do not grasp, much less conceptualize, φύσις as being, i.e., as what makes up the stability or standing-on-its-own of φύσει ὄντα. Such being can be understood only if we use λόγος as our clue. But addressing things shows that the appearance and the placedness into the appearance are primary, and from them what we call ὕλη is then determined as the orderable. But with that, yet another issue already gets decided, but one that prompts the next step in the demonstration that φύσις is μορφή. Although ὕλη and μορφή both constitute the essence of φύσις, they do not carry equal weight. Μορφή has priority. With that we are saying that the course of the demonstration as carried out so far now lifts the task of the demonstration one level higher. And Aristotle loses no time in saying so:
XV. "What is more, this (namely, μορφή as the placing into the appearance) is φύσις to a greater degree than the orderable is. For each individual thing is addressed [as properly being) when it 'is' in the mode of having-itself-in-its-end rather than when it is (only) in the state of appropriateness for ..." (193 b6-8)
Why is it that μορφή is φύσις not only on a par with ὕλη but "to a greater degree"? Because we speak of something as properly in being only when it is in the mode of ἐντελέχεια. Accordingly, μορφή must somehow have the intrinsic character of ἐντελέχεια. To what degree this is true, Aristotle does
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