PATHMARKS
clarifying the sentence we are discussing from the Physics while, in addition, offering us a concrete example of a στέρεσις: τὸ μὲν θερμὸν κατηγορία τις καὶ εἶδος. ἡ δὲ φυχρότης στέρεσις. "'Warm' is in a sense a way we can address things and therefore, properly speaking, an appearance; but 'cold,' on the other hand, is a στέρεσις." Here "warm" and "cold" are opposed to each other as κατηγορία τις versus στέρεσις. But observe carefully that Aristotle says κατηγορία τις. "Warm" is a way of addressing things only in a certain sense - in fact, the word is written in quotation marks. Hence, saying something is "warm" is [366 {GA 9 296}] an attribution, saying something to something; correspondingly, στέρεσις is, in a certain sense, a denial, saying something away from something. But to what extent is "cold" a denial?
When we say, "The water is cold," we attribute something to that being, yes, but in such a way that, in the very attribution, "warm" is denied of the water. But what is at stake in this distinction between warm and cold is not the distinction between attribution and denial; what is at stake, rather, is that which is attributable or deniable in accordance with its εἶδος. And therefore the chapter's concluding sentence, which is supposed to ground the twofold essence of μορφή, and therefore of φύσις, by means of a reference to στέρεσις, says: καὶ γὰρ ἡ στέρεσις εἶδος πώς ἐστιν. "For privation, too, i. e., what is denied or 'said-away' - is a kind of appearance." In the coldness something appears and is present, something, therefore, that we "sense." In this "sensed something" that is present, something else is likewise absent, indeed in such a way that we sense what is present in a special way precisely because of this absencing. In στέρεσις, "privation," it is a matter of"taking something away" by a kind of saying-it-away. Στέρεσις certainly refers to an "away," but always and above all it means something falls away, has gone away, remains away, becomes absent. If we bear in mind that οὐσία, beingness, means presencing, then we need no further long-winded explanations to establish where στέρεσις as absencing belongs.
And yet right here we reach a danger point in our comprehension. We could make matters easy for ourselves by taking στέρεσις (absencing) merely as the opposite of presencing. But στέρεσις is not simply absentness [Abwesenheit]. Rather, as absencing, στέρεσις is precisely στέρεσις for presencing. What then is στέρεσις? (Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics Δ 22, 1022 b22ff.) When today, for example, we say, "My bicycle is gone!" we do not mean simply that it is somewhere else; we mean it is missing. When something is missing, the missing thing is gone, to be sure, but the goneness itself, the lack itself, is what irritates and upsets us, and the "lack" can do this only if the lack itself is "there," i.e., only if the lack is, i.e., constitutes a manner of being. Στέρεσις as absencing is not simply absentness; rather, [367 {GA 9 297}] it
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