Τέχνη goes back behind the referential connection of the as soon as-then to the because-therefore. The if-then can thus pass over into the because-therefore. But the as soon as-then is still alive even here; in the because-therefore it is elucidated and transparent. Yet the temporal characters only step into the background, they do not disappear. And in the because- therefore, as disclosed in τέχνη, the connection between ground and consequence is already predelineated. That which in the referential connection is primarily αἴτιον, due to something, motive for something, becomes more and more the ἀρχή. The "why" is then no longer that which leads to results but simply that which discloses beings. The whence-connection in the structure of beings, and thus beings themselves, become disclosed and understood more and more. In the tendency toward simple disclosive looking at beings with regard to their ἀρχή resides the σοφώτερον. Hence in τέχνη σοφία is predelineated.
In our interpretation the following relations are becoming visible. In ἐμπειρία the referential connection of the as soon as-then is given, and it expresses a providing of something that is made present, a producing. To the extent that ἐμπειρία is sustained, this connection gets modified into the "as soon as such and such, then always so and so," which for its part is modified, in repetition, into the if-then, the because-therefore. Thereby the what-connection is extracted as such. That which is presentified in the presentification of the referential connection is given in each case in its εἶδος and specifically within the referential connection itself. For in τέχνη that which is at issue becomes understandable according to its outward look, in such a way that the foundation of the relation can be read off from this concrete connection. Ultimately, the presentification of the referential connection of the as soon as-then, or of the as soon as-then always, is preparatory for the disclosure of beings out of their ἀρχή. The ἀρχή is indeed the whence and is always already there. Thus the presentification of this connection is in the last analysis preparatory for making beings disposable in their presence (οὐσία), in a disclosive return to that which is already there, the ἀρχή.
This structure is not explicit in Aristotle. But we have to say in general that an interpretation must go beyond what can be found in the text at first glance. This is not interpreting something into it; it is rather a matter of disclosing what was present to the Greeks though unexplicit. If in doing so we go beyond what a primitive understanding sees at first glance, then there resides here a certain danger that we might attribute to Aristotle and the Greeks too much. But closer knowledge will see that they precisely merit this "too much." When an exact reckoning is at issue then it must be said that if one has previously gone beyond the text, the only course left is to make reductions.