ON THE ESSENCE AND CONCEPT OF Φύσις
XIX. "However, the self-placing into the appearance - and therefore φύσις as well — is spoken of in two ways, for 'privation' too is something like appearance." (193 b18-20)
The reason why φύσις can be looked at from two viewpoints and spoken of in two ways consists in the fact that μορφή in itself- and consequently the essence of φύσις as well — is twofold. The sentence asserting the twofold essence of φύσις is grounded in the remark following it: "for 'privation' too is something like appearance."
As a word, a concept, and an "issue," στέρεσις is introduced in this chapter just as brusquely as was ἐντελέχεια before it, probably because it has as decisive a significance in Aristotle's thought as does ἐντελέχεια. (On στέρεσις, cf. Physics A, 7 and 8, although there, too, it is not explained.)
To interpret this last section of Aristotle's reading of φύσις, we must answer four questions:
(1) What does στέρεσις mean?
(2) How is στέρεσις related to μορφή, such that στέρεσις can help clarify the twofoldness of μορφή? [365 {GA 9 295}]
(3) In what sense, then, is the essence of φύσις twofold?
(4) What consequence does the twofoldness of φύσις have for the final determination of its essence?
Re (1) What does στέρεσις mean? Literally translated, στέρεσις means "privation," but this does not get us very far. On the contrary, this meaning of the word can even bar the way to understanding the issue if, as always in such cases, we lack a prior familiarity with, and a knowledge of, the realm in which the word arises as a name for the issue at stake. The realm is shown us by the claim that στέρεσις, too, is something like εἶδος. But we know that the εἶδος, specifically the εἶδος κατὰ τὸν λόγον, characterizes μορφή, which in turn fulfills the essence of φύσις as οὐσία τοῦ κινουμένον καθ᾽ αὐτό, i.e., of φύσις as κίνησις. The essence of κίνησις is ἐντελέχεια. This is enough to let us know that we can adequately understand the essence of στέρεσις only within the area of, and on the basis of, the Greek interpretation of being.
The Romans translated στέρεσις as privatio. This word is taken as a kind of negatio. But negation can be understood as a form of denial, of "saying no." Thus στέρεσις belongs within the realm of"saying" and "addressing" — κατηγορία in the preterminological sense we noted earlier.
Even Aristotle seems to understand στέρεσις as a kind of saying. As evidence of this we offer a text from the treatise Περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς (A 3, 38 b16f.), a text that is, at one and the same time, appropriate for
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