Translated by Pete Ferreira
67
However, the tautology and the petitio principii are merely apparent, and once such appearances are dissolved the Aristotelian definition's depth becomes clear again. The solution of the tautology is for Heidegger in the fact that the determinations of before and after, used in this definition, designates a time dimension different from that indicated by the time that is the subject of the definition; in fact the temporality that before and after recall is something more original about the time which must be defined. The apparent tautology, then, would indicate that the phenomenon of time (subject to be defined) can only be understood from the determination of a more original temporality (indicated by what came before and what came after). Now, according to Heidegger, this more original temporality, which founded on the common experience of time, is the temporality of the soul, is the original temporal structure of being-there.
In this way, the apparent tautology that threatens with inconsistency the Aristotelian definition of time, is revealed to be actually an indicator of a fundamental instance, and so indicates the search for the principle, the petere principium in a positive sense, so that the phenomenon of time, as it is commonly understood, can be properly established and interpreted with reference to the principle that the original temporality represents. And also in general the apparent putting into question, point by point, the Aristotelian determination of time that Heidegger works with, not so much as a criticism, but to highlight how in its brilliance and depth the Aristotelian definition responds to fundamental aporias that emerge from the common understanding of time and leads by their solution to a philosophical understanding of the phenomenon.
Now, before moving on to the analysis of originary temporality, it is appropriate to dwell on some aspects not yet sufficiently clarified about the Aristotelian conception of time, namely the determination of time in connection with motion, its continuity and its dimensionality.
Since time is related to movement, it is important to bear in mind that movement (as much as κίνησις and as μεταβολε) is understood by Aristotle in a broad sense, not only as a local move, loco-motion (φορά), but also as qualitative change (αλλοιωσις), and as growth or decrease (αὐχεσις or φθίσις); and the common characteristic of all these species of movement is to be moving from something to something else (ἐκ τινός εἰς τι). This feature should not be understood in a spatial sense, but rather in the sense of a structural determination of movement.67 That causes movement to have a dimensionality, which Aristotle designates by the term μεγέθος (size, extension); and passing (ἐκ τινός εἰς τι) which takes place according to that dimensionality is co-essential with continuity (συνέχεια).
67 According to Heidegger, Bergson had misunderstood this character of dimensionality of time in Aristotle, conceiving it simply, by analogy with space, like spatial extent (see ibid., 343-344). A more extended criticism toward the Bergsonian understanding of time is during winter semester 1925/26 (GA 21, § 21) and in Being and Time (§ 82). On the problem of time in Bergson see R. W. Meyer, Bergson in Deutschland. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Zeitauffassung, E. W. Orth (Ed.), Studien zum Zeitproblem in der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts (Phänomenologische Forschungen, 13), Alber, Freiburg-München 1982, pages 10-64; also E. Lisciani Petrini, Memoria e poesia. Bergson, Jankélévitch, Heidegger, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Naples 1983, pp. 15-65.