Chapter Nine
The following investigations serve the purpose of a history of ontology and logic. As interpretations, they stand under certain conditions of interpreting and understanding. The subject matter making up the content of an interpretation, i.e., the thematic object in the “how” of its being-interpreted, is able to speak for itself in a manner fitting for it only when the particular hermeneutical situation at the time, and every interpretation is relative to such a hermeneutical situation, has been made available by being sketched out in a sufficiently clear manner. All
See pp. 8, 29 for bibliographic and other background information on this draft introduction to a planned book on Aristotle from the last years of Heidegger’s Early Freiburg Period. Insertions by the translator have been placed in brackets, those by the German editor in the symbols “{ },” and those by Heidegger within quotations in the symbols “< >.” References to Aristotle’s works have been filled out, missing references added, and mistakes in the German edition regarding the spelling of Greek words corrected. For the convenience of the reader, standard English translations of terms and passages from Aristotle also have been added, though often in modified form, from The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941).