Gonzalez Aristotle PDF

Whose Metaphysics of Presence?
The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol. XLIV

Heidegger’s Interpretation of Energeia
and Dunamis in Aristotle
Francisco J. Gonzalez
Skidmore College
Abstract
In the recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe der
aristotelischen Philosophie, Martin Heidegger offers a detailed
interpretation of Aristotle’s definition of kinesis in the Physics. This
interpretation identifies entelecheia with what is finished and
present-at-an-end and energeia with being-at-work toward this end.
In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts to
show that Aristotle interpreted being from the perspective of praxis
rather than poiesis and therefore did not identify it with static
presence. The paper also challenges later variations of Heidegger’s
interpretation, in particular his account of dunamis in the 1931
course on Metaphysics Theta, which insists that its mode of being is
presence-at-hand. By arguing that this reading too is untenable, the
paper concludes that Aristotle’s metaphysics is not a metaphysics of
presence and that his texts instead point toward a possibility of
metaphysics ignored by the attempts of Heidegger and others to
overcome it.
je trouve chez Aristote … de quoi réengendrer la métaphysique.

Celle-ci ne me paraît donc pas close, je dirais plutôt qu’elle me
paraît inexplorée.…
—Paul Ricœur1
Central to Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of the Greeks, and

therefore to his account of the whole history of metaphysics, is
the thesis that for the Greeks “being” meant “presence.” This
interpretation has been extremely influential, provoking many
and diverse attempts to overcome what has come to be called
Francisco J. Gonzalez is associate professor and chair of the

Department of Philosophy at Skidmore College. He is the author of
Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry
(Northwestern University Press, 1998) and has recently completed a
book entitled A Question of Dialogue: Heidegger and Plato.
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“the metaphysics of presence.” Yet I have elsewhere attempted

to show that this thesis is untenable in the case of Plato,2 and
my aim in the present paper is to show that it is equally
untenable in the case of Aristotle. The crucial text is
Heidegger’s recently published SS 1924 course, Grundbegriffe
der aristotelischen Philosophie. 3 It is here that Heidegger
provides the most thorough argument and textual exegesis in
support of his thesis that being in Aristotle means presence.
This thesis then underlies, and is further defended in,
Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle in later texts, most notably in
the 1931 course Aristoteles, Metaphysik Θ 1–3: Vom Wesen und
Wirklichkeit der Kraft, 4 and in the essay, “Vom Wesen und
Begriff der ΦÊσις,” written in 1939.5 A critical reading of these
texts promises nothing less than the recovery of possibilities for
metaphysics that the Heideggerian history of Being must ignore
and exclude.6
1.
Heidegger often cites the ordinary, pre-philosophical meaning of
the Greek word for being, οÈσα, as an indication that the
Greeks understood being as presence. Heidegger expresses this
meaning in the 1924 course as follows: “means [Vermögen],
possessions and goods [Hab und Gut], the household [der
Hausstand], the estate [das Anwesen]” (GA 18, 345). Heidegger
emphasizes that the ordinary meaning thus not only intends a
specific being as the genuine or exemplary being, that is, one’s
own goods or possessions, but also expresses the how of this
being’s being: its being available (verfügbar), usable
(brauchbar), and in this way there for us. Therefore, if we take
the ordinary meaning of οÈσα as a clue to what “being” meant
for the Greeks, as Heidegger suggests (24), then we can infer
that the Greeks understood being as being-there, being-at-hand,
being-present. Furthermore, if this ordinary meaning is
preserved in the philosophical meaning, if the philosophical
meaning only makes explicit and thematic what is “connoted”
(mitgemeint) in the ordinary meaning (25–7, 346), then we can
conclude that Aristotle too in using the word οÈσα understood
thereby “presence.”
But can we legitimately read a philosophical conception of
being into the ordinary use of the word οÈσα? Can we assume
that this ordinary meaning is retained in the otherwise very
different, technical philosophical meaning? After all, when
Aristotle analyzes the different meanings of οÈσα in
Metaphysics Ζ, “goods” or “possessions” is not among them.
Though Heidegger in later texts sometimes invokes the pre-
philosophical meaning of οÈσα as if it were some kind of
evidence for his thesis concerning the conception of being in
Greek philosophy, in 1924 he is much more careful. Thus in
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Heidegger’s manuscript for the course we find the following

important warning regarding the interpretation of οÈσα: “The
ordinary meaning as guideline. Beware! It could have
disappeared. Only when there is a comprehensive examination
of these indications. Otherwise easily dilettante. Mere sem-
blance of depth. Precisely here one must take into consideration
the fate and historicity of every language” (GA 18, 345).
Heidegger thus makes it very clear that the technical meaning
of οÈσα cannot be simply deduced from the ordinary meaning,
that the latter can at most serve as a guideline (Leitfaden) (345;
see also 24 and 26). Heidegger therefore recognizes the need to
demonstrate that moments of the ordinary meaning of οÈσα, in
particular the connotations of Hab and Anwesen, are still
present in Aristotle’s technical use of the term (26).
One way in which Heidegger attempts to demonstrate this is
by showing that the different forms of being (Seinscharaktere),
or rather the different ways of being (Wie des Seins) Aristotle
presents in Metaphysics ∆ 8 all “signify, with greater or lesser
transparency, a there of beings [Da des Seienden]” (350; see
348–50 and 29–34). For the purpose of the present paper,
however, I will focus on the sense of being I take to pose the
greatest challenge to what Heidegger wishes to demonstrate:
the sense of being that cuts through the senses discussed at
Metaphysics ∆ 8, a sense of being expressed in two words that
Heidegger himself will come to consider the most fundamental
words for being in Aristotle:7 §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια.
That Heidegger in the 1924 course translates §ντελεχεα
when it first makes its appearance as “Gegenwart,
Gegenwärtigsein eines Seienden als Ende” (296) should not
surprise us, since this is precisely the translation he needs to
maintain the identification of §ντελ°χεια with presence. Yet the
context is precisely the one best suited to show the untenability
of this translation. This context is the account of motion
(κνησις) in the first three chapters of Physics Γ, an account to
which Heidegger devotes the last part of the 1924 course. He
turns to this account because he believes that “κνησις
constitutes the genuine there-character of being” (287). What
this means will become apparent if we turn to Heidegger’s
translation/interpretation of the definition of motion Aristotle
offers in the first chapter of Physics Γ, 201a10–11: “≤ τοË
δυνάµει ˆντος §ντελ°χεια, √ τοιοËτον, κνησς §στιν.” Heidegger,
adopting the translation of §ντελ°χεια already mentioned,
initially translates the whole sentence thus: “motion is the
being-present [Gegenwart] of what is capable of being-there as
such” (313; see also 315). An immediately apparent problem
with this translation lies precisely in the word “Gegenwart.” A
piece of wood can be present as something capable of being, for
example, capable of being made into a table, without thereby
being in motion. Yet Heidegger oddly insists that such presence
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is motion. “Insofar as it is there, the piece of wood is in motion.

Insofar as it is genuinely there as capable-of-being-a-box, it is in
motion” (313). Essential to understanding this very strange
claim is Heidegger’s identification of κνησις with “significance”
or “Bedeutsamkeit.” This is made especially clear in Heidegger’s
manuscript, where we read: “Κνησις is the There of the ‘from …
to …’ as such” (ist das Da des ‘von … zu …’ als solchen, 376).
The piece of wood is there as significant, that is, as something
to be used for a house or as something from which a box can be
made: this is its Bedeutsamkeit. But this is also the κνησις that
Heidegger sees as constituting “the genuine being-there of
being.” The piece of wood sitting there is in motion in the sense
of referring beyond itself, signifying something, and this is the
κνησις that Aristotle is making manifest in his definition.
One could of course object that what is “significant” in
Heidegger’s sense, such as the piece of wood in his example, is
at rest, while what Aristotle is trying to define is not rest
(±ρεµα), which he characterizes as the ἀκινησα of what is
capable of being moved (202a4–5), but rather the opposite of
rest (229b23–26; 264a27–28): κνησις in the sense of alteration,
growth and decay, generation and destruction, and movement in
place (201a11–15). Furthermore, κνησις in this sense is not
simply the being-present of the capable as capable, but the
actual exercise, activation, of the capable as capable; for
example, it is not simply the presence of the wood as buildable,
but the actual exercise of this potential in the activity of
building. Heidegger acknowledges this possible objection (314)
but dismisses it as an illusion (Täuschung) by drawing our
attention to the phenomenon of rest. When the carpenter goes
to lunch and leaves what he is building uncompleted, the wood
is at rest. But rest is something that can characterize only what
is capable of being in motion: rest thus preserves, rather than
eliminates, a thing’s motion as its way of being: “Rest is only a
limit-case of motion” (314). The way in which this answers the
objection Heidegger faces is apparently this: Bedeutsamkeit can
indeed characterize something at rest, something not presently
being put to work, but what is thus at rest still has motion as
its way of being. Thus the identification of Bedeutsamkeit and
κνησις is preserved by way of an identification of both with rest.
Thus in Heidegger’s manuscript we read the following: “Rest as
the way of being-there [Da-Weise] of what is in motion as an
object of concern in the world [des Besorgten der Welt]. Only
thus is significance [Bedeutsamkeit] fully determined” (379).8
One can now understand why Heidegger gives such impor-
tance to the discovery of the phenomenon of rest as the way of
being of most of the beings we encounter and deal with in the
world: “As far as I know, no one has ever brought into consider-
ation this moment of rest” (314). But even if we admit the unity
of motion and rest to which Heidegger draws our attention, is it
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not still important to explain the difference? While the explicit

purpose of Aristotle’s definition of κνησις is to explain this
difference, Heidegger’s interpretation prevents it from doing so.
Specifically—and this is what is crucial—in translating
§ντελεχεα as Gegenwart and thereby making κνησις a kind of
being-present, Heidegger blocks access to the phenomenon of
κνησις as distinct from rest.
Heidegger’s interpretation is strikingly similar to that of the
philosophers whom Aristotle describes as explaining κνησις in
terms of “otherness” (•τερÒτης). Heidegger himself suggests the
possibility that these philosophers saw •τερÒτης as a
characteristic a being has in itself in the sense “that a being in
itself has the possibility of being from … to …, of being charac-
terized with regard to a certain determination by the absence of
this determination. Does not •τερÒτης then in this case
determine the being of being-in-motion?” (317). The problem, of
course, is that Aristotle rejects this interpretation of κνησις
because, in Heidegger’s own paraphrase, “Wood can be a box
and is there as wood—determined in itself through •τερÒτης—
and yet not determined as moving” (384). It is as if Heidegger
in proceeding through the text has suddenly encountered a
resurrected Aristotle telling him his interpretation will not
stand.
Heidegger nevertheless refuses to see defeat here and
instead joins Aristotle in rejecting the explanation of motion as
•τερÒτης. However, he can do so only by suggesting that the
problem with this explanation is its failure to include the
moment of being-present (Gegenwärtigsein) (318, 384). It is not
enough for something to be characterized by otherness or differ-
ence in order for it to be in motion: this otherness or difference
must be present. Heidegger’s interpretation is thus saved because
it included presence along with Bedeutsamkeit as essential
dimensions of κνησις. Yet the distance here between Heidegger
and Aristotle is made clear by the fact that Aristotle’s objection
to the thesis that κνησις is •τερÒτης has nothing to do with its
failure to take presence into account. Instead, his objections are
that what is other is not necessarily moved and that movement
occurs not from and to what is other, but rather between con-
traries (Physics 201b21–24). In other words, Aristotle appeals
not to the phenomenon of presence, but to the phenomenon of
motion itself. This again shows that it is Heidegger who is
reading “presence” into the text. Furthermore, Aristotle’s
objection explicitly rejects as a characteristic of κνησις precisely
what Heidegger wants to identify it with: the structure of being
from/to what is other. In other words, what characterizes κνησις
is the relation of contraries and not Bedeutsamkeit.
A little later in the course Heidegger again appears to
undermine his own interpretation of κνησις when he insists:
“One should not simply say: Κνησις is simply the §ν°ργεια of
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what is capable. What is capable is not as such moved” (320).

Yet Heidegger now appears to move towards a different account
of motion: “What is in possibility comes to its proper end in
being put to work [In-Arbeit-Sein], it is then genuinely what it
is, namely, being-capable. In relation to the ¶ργον of ποησις,
however, it is not finished [nicht fertig]” (321). Why this shift
now in Heidegger’s account from defining motion in terms of
Gegenwart to defining it in terms of In-Arbeit-Sein? The main
reason is that Heidegger by this point in the course has come to
Aristotle’s characterization of κνησις as “incomplete” (ἀτ°λης).
This is clearly a characteristic of κνησις that Heidegger’s earlier
interpretation cannot account for: what is at rest and
gegenwärtig in its significance need not be ἀτ°λης but, on the
contrary, can be finished and complete. If we saw that
Heidegger’s earlier characterization of κνησις was unable to
capture what is distinctive of κνησις as opposed to rest, we can
now say that this is incompleteness, the state of being neither
fully potential nor fully actual: and this is precisely the difficult
indeterminacy of κνησις that Aristotle is trying to explain.
But how can Heidegger feel justified in now changing his
interpretation, specifically, in replacing Gegenwart with In-
Arbeit-Sein? The reason is that he thinks he finds such a
distinction in Aristotle himself, as he makes clear in the
following remark: “Insofar as Being ultimately means Being-at-
its-end, Holding-itself-in-its-end in a final sense, §ντελ°χεια,
Aristotle, when he speaks with care, must characterize the
being [Dasein] of being-in-motion as §ν°ργεια” (321). 9 What
Heidegger is assuming here is a distinction between §ντελ°χεια
as being-present-at-an-end and §ν°ργεια as being-at-work-
towards-an-end. This distinction then allows him to grant that
the definition of motion as §ντελ°χεια is not fully adequate,
since motion is ἀτελÆς, and that Aristotle would be more careful
if he were to characterize motion as §ν°ργεια in the sense of an
incomplete being-at-work. But what grounds are there for this
sharp distinction between §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια?10 And is In-
Arbeit-Sein an adequate translation of the §ν°ργεια that defines
motion?11
Let us consider the second question first. This translation of
§ν°ργεια is of course suggested by the etymology of the term.
Yet, as Heidegger well knows, etymology by itself can prove
nothing. Furthermore, Heidegger’s etymological account is
questionable on two main points. (1) He takes the word ¶ργον
to mean “work,” whether in the sense of “working,” as here, or
in the sense of “the work, the finished product,” which, as we
will see, is how Heidegger interprets the word in later texts
(these two related meanings, for example, are the only ones
recognized in the 1931 course [GA 33, 50]). But are either or
both of these interpretations fully adequate interpretations of
¶ργον? To see that they are not, one need only recall the use of
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the word in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics: to say

that the ¶ργον of man is “the soul’s §ν°ργεια in accordance with
reason [κατὰ λÒγον]” (1098a7) is not to say that this is the
“work” man does nor that it is something “produced” by man;
this is why the translation of “function” is sometimes chosen.
Note also how in this part of the Nicomachean Ethics the ¶ργον
is argued to be an §ν°ργεια with no sense of redundancy. (2)
Therefore, the other problem with Heidegger’s reading is that it
tends to reduce §ν°ργεια to ¶ργον: as being-at-work it is work;
as “standing in the work produced,” it is the work produced.12
Heidegger’s translation has indeed more than etymology to
recommend it: it is certainly better to characterize motion as a
putting-to-work of a capability than it is to characterize it as
the mere being-present of this capability. Yet this translation
confronts a serious philosophical problem: it collapses the
distinction between §ν°ργεια and κνησις. Being-at-work towards
an unachieved end is itself a motion, so that to define §ν°ργεια
thus is necessarily to turn it into a motion. Heidegger indeed
characterizes §ν°ργεια, in distinction from §ντελ°χεια, as
“Unfertigsein” (381), “das Noch-nicht-fertig” (382), thereby
identifying it with motion not only implicitly but at one point in
the course explicitly: “§ν°ργεια is κνησις, but not §ντελ°χεια”
(296).13 Yet such an identification is untenable for two reasons.
(1) Aristotle’s definition of motion would become viciously
circular, since it would amount to saying: “motion is the
putting-in-motion of what is capable qua capable.” Of course,
as Heidegger would be quick to point out, in philosophy, circles
are not always vicious. But while some circular reasoning can
be illuminating, a definition of motion as the putting-into-
motion of what is capable of motion illuminates or reveals
nothing at all.14 (2) The second problem is that, in a well-known
text from the Metaphysics (Θ 6, 1048b18–35), Aristotle sharply
distinguishes between §ν°ργεια and κνησις precisely because
the latter is ἀτελÆς while the former is not.15 And it is impor-
tant to emphasize that the definition of κνησις as an §ν°ργεια
does not at all contradict their distinction. The §ν°ργεια that
defines motion is not itself an incomplete process towards some
end but, rather, the full actuality and completion of what is
capable insofar as it is capable. It is the qualification “insofar as
it is capable” that explains the incompleteness of motion and
not anything in §ν°ργεια itself, as Aristotle explicitly says:
“κνησις, though a kind of §ν°ργεια, is incomplete [ἀτελÆς]. The
cause of its being incomplete is the capable [τÚ δυνατÒν] of
which it is the §ν°ργεια” (Phys. Γ 2, 201b31–33).16 This is why
the definition is not circular: §ν°ργεια in itself is not motion 17
nor is “the capable qua capable” in itself motion: only the
§ν°ργεια of the capable qua capable is motion. This is also why
Aristotle at one point can even, with no hint of paradox,
characterize motion as an §ντελ°χεια ἀτελÆς (257b8–9), a
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characterization that of course defeats the whole point of

Heidegger’s distinction between §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια.
We can now draw an important conclusion: the key term in
the definition of κνησις, whether it be §ντελ°χεια or §ν°ργεια,
can mean neither Gegenwärtigsein nor an unfertiges im-Arbeit-
Sein: the former interpretation eliminates the phenomenon of
κνησις altogether by substituting for it the mere presence of a
capability, while the latter interpretation leaves it completely
unexplained by simply defining it as itself. But these inade-
quate interpretations of §ντελ°χεια or §ν°ργεια rest on the sharp
distinction Heidegger makes between them. Only by being
sharply distinguished from §ν°ργεια can §ντελ°χεια be rid of any
connotation of “activity” and be identified with “Gegenwart,
Gegenwärtigsein eines Seienden als Ende” and “Fertigsein”
(296); only by being sharply distinguished from §ντελ°χεια can
§ν°ργεια be characterized as an incomplete movement towards a
τ°λος. It is therefore this distinction that fails to make sense of
Aristotle’s account of motion, an account in which the terms
§ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια are used interchangeably. What justi-
fication, then, does Heidegger provide for making such a
distinction?
Before looking at this justification we need to reflect on why
Heidegger needs a sharp distinction between §ντελ°χεια and
§ν°ργεια. As already noted, one of Heidegger’s principle aims in
this discussion is to demonstrate that for Aristotle, and for the
Greeks in general, Being was understood as presence and, more
specifically, as a static presence. To support this interpretation
he must argue that Aristotle’s word for being in the fullest
sense, that is, §ντελ°χεια, means being-present-once-and-for-all,
being-at-an-end, being-finished. But the only way in which he
can interpret §ντελ°χεια in this way is to sharply distinguish it
from §ν°ργεια and interpret the latter in a way that completely
subordinates it to the former: as movement towards being-at-
an-end, being-finished. The conclusion that Heidegger thus
wishes to arrive at is clearly stated in the following passage
from his manuscript for the course:
The How of the There (Da) of something: how does “being-at-

work” [“In-Arbeit-sein”] arrive at this ontological-hermeneutical
precedence? Because being=being-produced [Sein=Hergestelltsein],
There=being-present [Da=Anwesendsein], being-finished [Fertigsein],
having-come-into the Now [Hersein in Jetzt], into presence
[Gegenwart]; in being-present-before [Gegenwärtigsein], being-in-
possession-of-the-there [Da-Habendsein], remaining-there with
[Sichaufhalten bei].… (381)
But what becomes of this conclusion if §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια

are synonyms? It simply collapses. If §ντελ°χεια means the
same as §ν°ργεια, then as activity it cannot mean “what is
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simply present” (schlechthin gegenwärtig), what is finished,

much less what is produced. If §ν°ργεια means the same as
§ντελ°χεια, then as an end-in-itself it cannot be a process nor
therefore work or production. The synonymous pair §ντελ°χεια/
§ν°ργεια would then name a conception of Being that evades
and transcends the conception to which Heidegger tries to
confine Aristotle and the Greeks.
But it is now time to look at the textual evidence Heidegger
provides for the distinction on which his present reading of
Aristotle’s ontology, and Greek ontology in general, depends. The
evidence provided on p. 295 is Metaphysics Θ 3 1047a30. Here
Aristotle, according to most editions of the text, refers to “≤
§ν°ργεια τοÎνοµα” as “≤ πρÚς τØν §ντελ°χειαν συντιθεµ°νη”:
§ν°ργεια (as a name) is “set down in relation to, or for,
§ντελ°χεια.” However, this is not the text Heidegger reads: he
follows Diels in substituting συντεινοµ°νη for συντιθεµ°νη so that
he can interpret the text as meaning that §ν°ργεια “spannt sich
aus zum Ende,” “stretches itself towards the end” (296). This of
course is the interpretation Heidegger needs in order to distin-
guish between §ν°ργεια as an unfinished movement towards an
end and §ντελ°χεια as a being-finished-at-an-end. Unfortunately,
W. D. Ross already showed in 1924 that the substitution of
συντεινοµ°νη for συντιθεµ°νη is neither possible nor necessary.
But it is only in the active voice that Aristotle uses συντενειν in

this sense. [In other words, there is no parallel for the middle
voice συντεινοµ°νη meaning what Heidegger takes it to mean
here]. συντιθεµ°νη implies that Aristotle was in the habit of
connecting the words §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια together in his
lectures, and such phrases as εις ταÈτÚν βασιλ°α κα‹ τÊραννον
συν°θεµεν [we have “set down” the words βασιλ°α and τÊραννον as
meaning the same] (Pl. Pol. 276E, cf. 259d) form a close enough
parallel.18
In short, there is a more plausible reading of the text that

makes it mean the exact opposite of what Heidegger needs it
to mean: the word §ν°ργεια is “set down” in relation to
§ντελ°χεια in the sense that Aristotle normally uses the two
together, and perhaps even—this is perfectly compatible with
the text on this reading—interchangeably. And this of course is
Aristotle’s practice. We have already seen that the two terms
appear to be used interchangeably in the account of motion
(see especially 201a27–29 19 and 202a15–18) and there are
many more examples of this synonymy in Aristotle’s texts.
Therefore, we can conclude that both the most plausible
reading of 1047a30 and Aristotle’s general practice rule out
Heidegger’s interpretation.
However, Heidegger does offer a textual parallel for his
substitution of συντεινοµ°νη for συντιθεµ°νη at 1047a30. He
541
cites Metaphysics Θ 8, 1050a21–23 where Aristotle writes: “For

the ¶ργον is τ°λος and §ν°ργεια is the ¶ργον; therefore, the
name §ν°ργεια is also said according to the ¶ργον and “stretches
towards” (συντενει πρÚς) §ντελ°χεια.” So in this text Heidegger
has the word he wants, συντενει, in order to interpret the
relation between §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια as a movement from
one to the other. But two objections can be made here. First, the
present text does not support Heidegger’s reading of 1047a30
since the word συντενει here is in the active voice, not the
middle voice (Heidegger must attribute the same meaning to
both voices, which is not plausible). Secondly, here as in the
earlier text it is the word §ν°ργεια that is the subject: it is not
§ν°ργεια itself that “stretches towards” §ντελ°χεια, but the
word. What can it mean to say that a word tends towards
another word? What else besides that it tends towards the
meaning of the other word, tends to mean something similar or
the same? And this is the interpretation clearly suggested by
the context of the entire sentence. Here we do well to cite Ross
again, this time on 1050a21–23: “Because the ¶ργον is the τ°λος
(l. 21), the word §ν°ργεια, which is derived from ¶ργον, tends to
mean the same as §ντελ°χεια” (264). In short, rather than
saying that §ν°ργεια itself is a movement towards §ντελ°χεια,
what the sentence says is that the word §ν°ργεια tends to have
the meaning of §ντελ°χεια. This reading would bring the
passage in line with the most plausible reading of the earlier
passage at 1047a30: Aristotle sets down the word §ν°ργεια
together with §ντελ°χεια. This reading would not only fail to
support but would even contradict Heidegger’s interpretation of
the relation between the two terms.
Given its slim, or only apparent, textual basis and, more
importantly, its inability to make sense of Aristotle’s account of
motion, Heidegger’s distinction between §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια
must be rejected. But to reject this distinction is, as I have
already suggested, to reject Heidegger’s thesis that being for the
Greeks meant being-present and being-produced. To think
§ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια in their synonymy, as Aristotle’s text
demands, is to recognize, on the one hand, that §ντελ°χεια is
activity, being-active, and not some static presence, that it is in
its τ°λος by being an activity with its aim in itself and not by
being finished or at an end; and, on the other hand, that
§ν°ργεια is activity but not Arbeit, not something unfinished. In
other words, it is to recognize that the distinction between
Fertigsein and Unfertigsein is completely incapable of capturing
what is meant by either §ντελ°χεια or §ν°ργεια. What emerges
from such reflection as the central characteristic of Being is not
presence and not being-produced, but rather act.
As is clear from the passage cited above, with its character-
ization of Being as Hergestelltsein, Heidegger insists on making
ποησις and τ°χνη the guiding and determining perspective in
542
Aristotle’s account of Being. What reflection on the synonymy of

§ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια shows, however, is that it is πρᾶξις, as
sharply distinguished from ποησις and τ°χνη,21 that is Aristotle’s
guideline in the interpretation of Being. In other words, what
we find in Aristotle is not an ontology of production, as
Heidegger insists, but rather what Paul Ricœur has called an
“ontology of action.”22 Specifically, this means that it is from the
perspective of §ν°ργεια understood as πρᾶξις that Aristotle
interprets κνησις and ποησις and not vice versa. Nothing
demonstrates this better than Heidegger’s complete failure to
explain Aristotle’s account of κνησις from the perspective of a
conception of Being derived from production (Being as full
presence, being-finished, being-at-an-end). It is only from the
perspective of act, or being-in-act, that we can explain κνησις as
the being-in-act of what is capable qua being capable.
The understanding of §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια together as
“act” also has important consequences for the understanding of
the relation between being and time. In sharply distinguishing
between §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια by characterizing the former
as meaning being-fully-present-now and the latter as meaning
on-the-way-to-being-fully-present-now, Heidegger is attributing
to Aristotle a conception of Being as, in the words cited above,
“Hersein in Jetzt, in eine Gegenwart” (381). Being is thus
understood within the horizon of a naive conception of time as a
series of nows. But this is precisely the conception of time and
being that is shattered by an understanding of §ντελ°χεια and
§ν°ργεια as synonyms. As Aristotle explicitly argues, while
κνησις is in time, §ν°ργεια is in an important sense not in time
(1174a14ff.) This means that while κνησις, having its τ°λος
outside itself, takes time, is stretched out in time so as to be
countable with respect to before and after, §ν°ργεια, being its
own τ°λος, does not have a “before” and an “after” since it is
τ°λειον “in whatever time” (§ν ıτƒοËν χρÒνƒ, 1174b5–6).
But is not an §ν°ργεια then still in time in the sense of being
complete in the moment, in the “now”? Here we need to be very
careful. Aristotle indeed, after claiming that the activity of
pleasure (¥δεσθαι), unlike being moved (κινε›σθαι), need not
occur in time, adds the following explanation: “For it is a whole
in the now” (τÚ γὰρ §ν τ“ νËν ˜λον τι, 1174b9). But does this
mean—and this is the crucial question—that an §ν°ργεια is
whole and complete in the “now” in the sense that a house, at
the end of the process of building, is whole and complete in the
now? Can we speak in both cases of something finished,
completed, and therefore present now? Can we, in short, reduce
§ν°ργεια to the conception of Being that Heidegger attributes to
Aristotle, a conception determined by the perspective of the
“now,” the “present”?23
To see that these questions must be answered negatively, we
need only consider the striking way in which Aristotle illus-
543
trates the temporal difference between §ν°ργεια and κνησις in

Metaphysics Θ 6, 1048b18–35: 24 while in the case of a κνησις
such as building I cannot say simultaneously (ἅµα, Met. 1048b23)
that I have built the house and that I am building the house, in
the case of an §ν°ργεια such as seeing, I can say simultaneously
that I am seeing and that I have seen. In short, in a κνησις, the
present tense excludes the past perfect tense and vice versa:25
that something cannot be what it is becoming, this opposition
between being and becoming, is precisely what it means to exist
in time. But how then can §νεργεα simultaneously admit both
the past perfect and the present tense, how can it overcome
their opposition and thereby not exist in time?
Through careful reflection on what Aristotle says here we
can avoid the mistake mentioned above: to see §ν°ργεια as
differing from κνησις only in being finished, completed in the
present moment would be to identify it with the past perfect
tense, thus locating it, like the house that has been built, in
time (and, we could add, in motion, as the completion or
finishing of motion). In this case, §ν°ργεια would differ from
κνησις in that, while κνησις can admit only the present active
tense, §ν°ργεια would admit only the past perfect: §ν°ργεια
would, like the house that has been built, exclude the present
active tense.26 But this of course is not what Aristotle says. To
claim, as he does, that §ν°ργεια admits simultaneously both the
present and the past perfect tenses is to put it completely
outside the distinction between being-unfinished and being-
finished, a distinction that, after all, has meaning only in time.
If the same thing can simultaneously be seeing and have seen
(ἅµα τÚ αÈτÒ,# 1048b33–44),27 this is because seeing is always
complete without ever being finished. I can of course stop
seeing, but this is not to finish seeing.28 To describe my seeing,
or another §ν°ργεια, as in itself finished or unfinished, makes
no sense at all.
To say that seeing, and §ν°ργεια as such, does not exist in
time and transcends the opposition between the past perfect
and the present tense is to say that it cannot be located in any
present, not even in an eternal present. “I have seen and am
seeing” cannot be reduced to “I am seeing, I am seeing, I am
seeing, ad infinitum.” We have here neither a static eternal
repetition of the same nor a process: we have an activity, an
§ν°ργεια, which as such is not in time in the sense that it exists
neither in a series of moments nor in one moment of this series;
if this §ν°ργεια that simultaneously is and has been exists as a
whole “in the now,” this “now” cannot be a point, but must
rather be an uncountable stretch, a time outside of time under-
stood as the counting of motion. In short, §ν°ργεια differs from
κνησις in being complete; but §ν°ργεια also differs from the
product of κνησις (e.g., the built house) in never being finished;
I have seen but am also simultaneously 29 still seeing. This is
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precisely the mystery of §ν°ργεια that puts it completely beyond

the realm of κνησις and ποιÆσις: it is active without being in
motion; it is complete without being finished; it is now and not
now, present and not present; temporal and yet outside of
time.30
What is arguably the key example Aristotle uses in Meta-
physics Θ 6 is life itself.31 While it is not possible simultaneously
to be moving and have moved, since these are different (ßτερον,
1048b32–33), it is the same to be living and have lived
(1048b27). Though life is complete, it is never completed; in its
very completeness, in its very having lived, it is always a
present tense verb: living. Life of course can “cease” with death,
but as Aristotle explicitly says, it can never come to a stop (ποτε
παÊεσθαι, 1048b26–27). Also, a dead person cannot strictly be
described as having lived (perfect tense), but only as someone
who once lived (imperfect tense). Having lived is possible only
in living and living is possible only in having lived. In this way
life itself is not in time, that is, cannot be located anywhere on
the continuum of counted time, neither in any present now nor
in any sequence of present nows. As thus characterized, the
§ντελ°χεια of life can be identified neither with being-at-work,
which implies working-towards-a-goal and thus not having yet
lived, nor with being-at-an-end and being-at-hand, which
implies no longer living. In other words, life that is at work has
not yet lived, while life that is at hand is dead.
These brief reflections on Aristotle’s fundamental concepts of
§ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια should suffice to show that Heidegger’s
interpretation of these concepts is not only wrong but disas-
trously wrong.32 In being sharply distinguished from each other,
both concepts are distorted beyond recognition. It is at this cost
that Heidegger reads into Aristotle a conception of Being as
Being-present. It is at this cost that he transforms into an
ontology of Vorhandenheit what is an ontology of πρᾶξις in
which the highest and most genuine being is, despite being
“unmoved,” or rather because “unmoved,” characterized as life
(ζωÆ) and pleasure (≤δοµÆ, Met. 1072b16 and 26–30), thinking
(νÒησις) and nothing but thinking (νÒησις νοÆσεως, Met.
1074b34–35). Though Heidegger does not discuss the unmoved
mover in SS 1924, in an earlier course on Aristotle from SS
1922 he appears, according to the transcript of Helene Weiß, to
have recognized the problem that the unmoved mover posed for
his interpretation: “But how can it be pure §ν°ργεια despite its
being ἀκνητον? Must there then be an opposition [Gegensatz]
between κνησις and §ν°ργεια? (GA 62, 321). His reply is simply
to assert dogmatically that §ν°ργεια is to be determined from
the perspective of motion and is itself a type of motion: “1. The
meaning of §ν°ργεια” determines itself purely from the
phenomenon of motion. 2. What it is, what type of motion: that
too is a consequence of the meaning of pure movedness
545
[Bewegtheit]” (321). In a course from SS 1926 a different, and

even opposed, “solution” is suggested: “No ἀτ°λης, no κνησις, but
pure §ν°ργεια, pure energy [reine Energie], that is, pure self-
standing constant presence from out of itself [reine eigenständige
ständige Anwesenheit von ihm selbst her]” (GA 22, 178; see also
328). The above analysis and critique has shown that every-
thing is lost in the move signaled by the seemingly innocent
and inconspicuous “that is.” Just a little later in the same text
§ν°ργεια is characterized as the “highest form of being-at-hand
(höchste Art des Vorhandenseins)” (180), which would make the
unmoved mover something at hand in the highest sense
because eternally-at-hand. The being of the unmoved mover
would thus not essentially differ from the being of an eternal,
indestructible rock. In this reduction of the being of the first
being to Vorhandenheit, the life and activity that are both the
heart and head of Aristotle’s ontology are completely lost.33
2.
We can turn now to a consideration of two important later texts
on Aristotle already cited above: the 1931 course on Metaphysics
Θ 1–3 and the 1939 essay “Vom Wesen und Begriff der ΦÊσις.”
While Heidegger in these texts builds on and further carries out
his reading of §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια, we will see that his
interpretation undergoes no fundamental transformation. These
later interpretations will instead make even clearer the
limitations of Heidegger’s interpretative framework and thus
the need to free Aristotle’s ontology from this framework. As the
above reflections have already suggested, what is at issue here
is not primarily the reliability of Heidegger as an interpreter of
Greek texts nor even the “correct” reading of Aristotle; what is
at issue is §ν°ργεια itself, as the word for a possibility of
thinking that is arguably still unexplored and that, while still
alive in Aristotle’s texts, is suppressed by Heidegger’s reading of
these texts.
The 1931 course is primarily devoted to Aristotle’s concept of
δÊναµις. However, in Heidegger’s interpretation of chapter three
of Metaphysics Θ, the chapter in which Aristotle critiques the
Megarian identification of δÊναµις with §ν°ργεια, the latter
notion is necessarily at issue. Furthermore, a brief considera-
tion of this part of the course will show that Heidegger’s
reading does as much violence to the notion of δÊναµις as it
does to the notion of §ν°ργεια, and again with the aim of
identifying the Greek conception of being with presence-at-
hand. That this is indeed Heidegger’s aim can be shown
through a brief summary of his overall interpretation of Θ 3.
The central question at issue in this chapter, according to
Heidegger, is how δÊναµις is at-hand (vorhanden). The thesis of
the Megarians is that a δÊναµις is present at-hand only when it
546
is being exercised, that is, only in §ν°ργεια. Heidegger insists

repeatedly that this Megarian thesis is to be taken very
seriously and is even a pinnacle of Greek thought. Its powerful
justification is that only in §ν°ργεια does a δÊναµις show itself,
offer a “look” (Anblick), announce its presence (GA 33, 179–80;
see also 183). In other words, the Megarians claim that δÊναµις
is at hand only in §ν°ργεια because it is only in the process of
production, and especially in the final product, that a δÊναµις
comes into full presence. But then the conception of being that
comes to expression in the Megarian thesis is the Greek concep-
tion of being as Hergestelltheit and Anwesenheit. Thus the
Megarian thesis, Heidegger asserts, is “conceived in a good
Greek manner [gut griechisch gedacht]; indeed, not only that,
but it is—right up to the new step Aristotle takes—the only
possible interpretation of the being-at-hand of a capability”
(180).
If the Megarians are only giving voice, with great consis-
tency and insight, to the Greek conception of being, then isn’t
Aristotle, through his critique of the Megarians, bringing this
conception into question? As the passage just cited indicates,
Heidegger grants Aristotle a modification of this conception of
being as presence, but not a radical departure. Indeed, Heidegger
asserts emphatically that Aristotle and the Megarians are in
complete agreement (sich ganz darüber einig) in understanding
being as presence (179). Thus Heidegger even suggests that the
Megarian thesis might have been provoked by Aristotle’s failure
to explain the being-at-hand of δÊναµις (169) or his dogmatic
assumption that this question was already resolved (175). What
Aristotle does achieve in chapter 3 is to show a way in which
δÊναµις can be present without being §ν°ργεια: namely, by being
had. The having of δÊναµις is still a certain kind of presence of
δÊναµις. Whether or not Heidegger thought Aristotle’s response
to the Megarians was adequate—the Megarians could, after all,
insist that the δÊναµις is really had only in actual exercise, in
§ν°ργεια—is not clear since the course comes to an abrupt end
before Heidegger’s reading of Metaphysics Θ 3 is completed. We
can presume, however, that he would not consider fully
adequate any response that was still locked within a conception
of being as presence, as Aristotle’s supposedly was. Heidegger
can thus maintain that the Megarians, despite the injustice
history has done them, were of an equal stature with Plato and
Aristotle (“hatten … den gleichen Rang,” 163); they were, after
all, more consistently Greek!
It is not possible here to go into all the details of Heidegger’s
reading of Metaphysics Θ 3, a reading that without question
offers some rich philosophical rewards. Instead, only one funda-
mental question will be posed to this reading: is it really
“indisputable” (unbestreitbar, 170–71), as Heidegger asserts,
that the question at issue in Θ 3 is how δÊναµις can be
547
vorhanden and therefore, given the supposedly Greek concep-

tion of Being, how it can be present? First, it needs to be noted
that Heidegger’s thesis that Aristotle and the Megarians shared
the same conception of being as presence and therefore could
disagree only about how δÊναµις is present is asserted
categorically towards the beginning of the reading and is never
demonstrated. In other words, it is a presupposition of the
reading, not its result. However, Heidegger does a number of
things to make the text fit this assumption. It is by showing the
arbitrariness and untenability of these interpretative moves
that I hope to show that Θ 3 has nothing to do with the
Vorhandenheit or Anwesenheit of δÊναµις, and for the simple
reason that for Aristotle a δÊναµις is not something “present” or
“at hand.”
The view Aristotle attributes to the Megarians in the very
first line of the chapter, and the view that he spends the rest of
the chapter challenging, is: “˜ταν §νεργª µÒνον δÊνασθαι”:
“when something is active only then is it capable.” It seems
from this that the Megarians are making a claim about the
capability of capability: a capability is a capability only in its
exercise; to be capable is actively to be capable, that is, to be
acting. Yet consider Heidegger’s “translation” of the Greek:
“When a power is at work, only then is the having-power-for at
hand [vorhanden]” (167). With this translation the question
becomes not how a capability is a capability, not how what is
capable is capable, but how a capability is vorhanden. But there
is in the Greek nothing corresponding to “vorhanden”!
Heidegger takes care of this problem by adding to the text some
new Greek, some Greek of his own making. After citing the
Greek that is actually in the text, Heidegger adds: “that is,
δÊναµιν Íπαρχε›ν” (167). It is now this added Greek that
Heidegger can translate as “δÊναµις is vorhanden.”
But does this really make an important difference? Is not
“the being-at-hand of capability” just a different way of saying
“being-capable” (δÊνασθαι)? Most certainly not. To substitute
“the being-at-hand of capability” for “being-capable” is to
subordinate and even reduce “being-capable” to a different
sense of being: “being vorhanden,” which is then later trans-
formed, through the alchemy of Heidegger’s undefended thesis
concerning the Greek conception of being, into “being present.”
Heidegger would of course claim that the Greeks are the ones
who reduce all senses of being, including being-capable, to
presence. But the irony is that Heidegger can maintain this
thesis only by himself introducing “presence” and “being-at-
hand” into the text. Neither at the beginning of Metaphysics Θ
3, nor anywhere in the course of Θ 3, is the presence or being-at-
hand of δÊναµις at issue, or even mentioned.
Furthermore, the dispute between the Megarians and
Aristotle can be naturally interpreted with no reference to
548
Vorhandenheit or Anwesenheit. What the Megarians and

Aristotle do agree on is that δÊναµις is not mere possibility, but
a positive capability, a power (Kraft in Heidegger’s defensible
translation). The Megarian objection is that power is power only
in being exercised and that therefore δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια
cannot be distinguished. That this is a sensible objection—the
Megarians, as Heidegger insists, were no fools—is shown by the
fact that Aristotle himself in De Anima characterizes knowledge
that is possessed without being exercised both as an §ντελ°χεια
(412a21–27) and as a δÊναµις (417a26–28): it is an §ντελ°χεια
in contrast to the mere potential for acquiring knowledge
possessed by a certain genus or matter; it is a δÊναµις in
contrast to the actual exercise of knowledge. Thus, even for
Aristotle, δÊναµις in the strongest sense of the word, that is,
when understood not as a mere potential (as in a human
embryo having the potential to learn mathematics) but as a
positive capability, is §ν°ργεια.34 However, what he must argue
in Θ 3 is that despite this unity of δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια, their
distinctness must be preserved if what only their distinctness
can explain is to be preserved: namely, not only motion, but
even the independence of the external world in its relation to us
(since this requires a distinction between what is perceived and
what is perceivable). The argument, thus plausibly interpreted,
has nothing to do with the being-at-hand or presence of δÊναµις;
what is at issue is only δÊναµις as δÊναµις.35
As already noted, Heidegger argues that Aristotle explains
the presence-at-hand of δÊναµις by interpreting the being of
δÊναµις as being-had. “Aristotle sees the presence of δÊναµις as
such in ¶χειν; what is had, is in possession and as possessed
usable, at hand” (183). One sees clearly in this sentence why
Heidegger is insisting that Aristotle understood the being of
δÊναµις as being-had: it is in this way that Aristotle can be
made to conform to the supposedly Greek conception of being as
what is produced and thus present for use, at hand. But what is
the evidence that Aristotle understood the being of δÊναµις in
this way? Heidegger can appeal only to Aristotle’s habit, in this
text and elsewhere, of using the phrase δÊναµιν ¶χειν as a
synonym for the verb δÊνασθαι. But does Aristotle’s use of the
common Greek idiom of “having a δÊναµις” really show that he
located the being of δÊναµις in having? 36 To believe this one
must at least already be convinced that in Θ 3 Aristotle is
seeking to explain how δÊναµις is present and at hand—how
else than as had?—and even then one should pause before
reading so much into one word. In any case, we have seen that
there is no reason to believe this is Aristotle’s goal in the text.
We also need to note how philosophically questionable
Heidegger’s method of proceeding here is. He is reducing
δÊνασθαι to δÊναµιν ¶χειν and then reading out of the verb
¶χειν, instead of the verb δÊνασθαι, the meaning of being that is
549
operative here. Aristotle, who knows better, insists that being-

capable and having are two fundamentally distinct senses of
being: the latter is one of the categories (Cat. 1b27, 2a3), while
the former is distinct from all being in the sense of the
categories (Met. E 2 1026a33–b2; Met. Θ 1 1045b27–35).37 And
Aristotle in the present text has been seen to be faithful to his
principle: he discusses being-capable in terms of being-capable
and not in terms of any other sense of being. δÊναµιν ¶χειν must
be interpreted as another and looser way of saying δÊνασθαι,
not vice versa.38
If Heidegger’s reading can so far be said to have “forced” the
text, this is nothing compared to what he does to the sentence
at 1047a20–24. Here Aristotle, defending the distinctness of
δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια, says what anyone except Heidegger
would translate as follows: “So it can happen that something is
capable of being something (δÊνατÒν τι ε‰ναι) without being it,
and capable of not being something (δυνατÚν µØ ε‰ναι) while
being it….” This is how Heidegger translates: “So it can happen
that something as capable of something indeed really is
[wirklich ist] and at the same time is yet not really that of
which this real capability as such is capable, and it can also
happen that something capable as a capability is not really
[nicht wirklich ist] and yet precisely is really that of which it is
capable” (215). Why the tortuous and even painful circum-
locution? What Heidegger is trying to do is transform the
“capability of being” at issue in the text into the “being of capa-
bility”; even more bizarrely, he is “paraphrasing” the “capability
of not being” as the “not-being of a capability as a capability.”
Here refutation seems superfluous, for why point out what any
beginning student of Greek knows: that “δÊνατÒν τι ε‰ναι”
means “capable of being something” and not “something capable
really is”; that “δυνατÚν µØ ε‰ναι” means “capable of not being”
and not “something capable is not really”? The important
question is why Heidegger, who certainly knows his Greek well
enough to see that, would willfully so distort the text. The
answer is simple: only through such a distortion can Heidegger
force through his thesis that what is at issue in the text is the
Vorhandenheit and Anwesenheit of capability. Aristotle speaks
of being-capable, but Heidegger needs him to speak of the
being-present or being-at-hand of capability. The violence
that this requires is especially evident in Heidegger’s trans-
lation of Aristotle’s example: “Being capable of walking and
not walking” (δυνατÚν βαδζειν ¯ν µØ βαδζειν) becomes “what
is capable-of-walking is really a being (at-hand) and yet does
not walk in reality” (215)! That Heidegger must resort here
to such impossible readings of the Greek only confirms what
has been clear from the beginning: there is in Metaphysics Θ
3 no talk of the being-present or being-at-hand of a capa-
bility, but only of being-capable (of being x) where this is not
550
reduced, and cannot be reduced, to any kind of being-present or

being-at-hand.
Yet Heidegger tries again when he turns to the definition or
characterization of being-capable Aristotle provides at 1047a24–
26. The meaning of this sentence is unclear and disputed, but
the Greek itself is not especially difficult and can be translated
thus: “Something is capable [¶στι δ¢ δυνατÚν τοËτο] if, when
the §ν°ργεια of which it is said to have the δÊναµις occurs in it,
there will be nothing incapable [οÈθ¢ν ¶σται ἀδÊνατον].” The
problem this sentence poses for interpretation is its apparent
circularity: it appears to be saying that something is capable
when it is not incapable. One common expedient for remedying
this problem is to give the defining phrase “not ἀδÊνατον” a
completely different meaning from that of the word δυνατÚν
that is being defined: “δυνατÚν” is taken to mean “capable,”
while “not ἀδÊνατον” is taken to mean “not logically impossible.”
The sense would then be that something is capable when there
is no logical impossibility in its having the corresponding
§ν°ργεια.39 Yet this expedient, which involves giving two occur-
rences of the same word in the same sentence two radically
different meanings, is highly questionable and Heidegger is
right to reject it.
Furthermore, the expedient is not necessary since sense can
be made of the sentence without it, especially when it is not
seen as representing a strict definition. Given the context, the
task of the sentence can be taken to be this: to show the insep-
arability of δÊναµις from §ν°ργεια, and thus acknowledge what
truth there is in the Megarian objection, while nevertheless
showing their distinctness and preserving the autonomy and
irreducibility of being-capable. We can identify something as
capable only when in exercise or activity it proves not
incapable. For example, someone cannot be said to be capable of
playing chess unless an actual chess game finds him not
incapable of playing chess. This means that a δÊναµις indeed
cannot be identified or defined without the corresponding
§ν°ργεια. So far the Megarians have a point. But Aristotle’s
statement also maintains the distinctness of δÊναµις and
§ν°ργεια. It does not say simply that something is δυνατÒν
when it is in §ν°ργεια, but rather when in §ν°ργεια it proves not
ἀδÊνατον. §ν°ργεια is not δÊναµις, but rather the site where
δÊναµις shows itself as δÊναµις. Here being-capable still
remains distinct from that in which it shows itself not incap-
able. Whatever circularity there is in Aristotle’s statement is
intentional and unavoidable: being-capable can ultimately be
explained only in terms of being-capable (or not being incap-
able) because it cannot be reduced to any other kind of being:
neither being in §ν°ργεια nor, much less, being in any other sense.
What has been sketched out here is of course not Heidegger’s
reading. This is because, in order to make the sentence fit his
551
interpretation of Θ 3, he must insist that it is not about being-

capable, but rather about the being-present or being-at-hand of
capability. To push through this reading, Heidegger must again
read the Greek in his own inimitable manner. The word ¶στι in
the opening phrase “¶στι δ¢ δυνατÚν τοËτο…” does not mean,
Heidegger insists, “being-capable” “Vermögendsein” (220). He
insists on this because he needs the ¶στι to mean “is present at
hand.” Thus, on his reading, “¶στι δ¢ δυνατÚν τοËτο …” means
not “this is capable,” but rather: “this capable is present at
hand.” Heidegger actually expresses surprise that his reading
“is in all interpretations and translations—as far as I know—
completely missed,” and continues that as a result “every
prospect of understanding the definition is from the very
beginning pushed aside” (220). The phrase “¶στι δ¢ δυνατÚν”
must be understood as “the capable is present at hand” because
the task of the entire chapter is “to determine in what the being
of the capable, its reality—the ε‰ναι of the immediately preceding
sentence—consists” (220). That this is the task of the chapter,
however, has been seen to be Heidegger’s own invention and one
sustained only at the cost of the kind of rewriting and mis-
reading of the text which we see again here and saw at its most
outlandish in the reading of ε‰ναι at 1047a20–24 to which
Heidegger now refers.
It is perhaps precisely in order to preempt such criticism
that Heidegger states the following a little earlier in the course.
When we in the process go beyond what Aristotle says, this is not

in order to make what is said there better and the like, but at
first only in order to understand it at all; here, the manner and
form of expression in which Aristotle on his side may have carried
out the considerations that are necessary here is a matter of
complete indifference [gänzlich gleichgültig]. (192)
One can certainly agree that an interpretation needs to go

beyond what is said while yet strongly objecting to the sugges-
tion that Aristotle’s own manner and form of expression are a
matter of complete indifference! The latter are especially
important when what is at issue is Aristotle’s implicit under-
standing of being. What has been seen again and again is that
while Aristotle speaks only of being-capable in terms of being-
capable, Heidegger repeatedly ignores, changes, or distorts
Aristotle’s form of expression in order to make him speak of
being-present and being-at-hand.
The last part of the 1931 course that needs to be considered
in the present context is Heidegger’s return, immediately before
the course abruptly ends, to 1047a30–32, and thus to the ques-
tion of the relation between §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια. One
departure from the reading in 1924 is that Heidegger now does
not emend the text but reads συντιθεµ°νη, perhaps because he
552
had by this point consulted Ross’s commentary.40 However, his

view concerning the distinction between §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια
does not appear to change. He translates even the unemended
text as follows: “Being-at-work [Am-Werke-sein], a meaning that
is in itself directed at [ausgerichtet ist auf] §ντελ°χεια.”
Furthermore, Heidegger’s comments explain the meaning of
§ντελ°χεια thus: “the end, possessing perfection as something
carried out, holding itself in it—most precisely: being-produced
[Hergestelltsein]” (224). What remains the same here is
therefore the interpretation of §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια from the
perspective of Herstellen, and therefore from the perspective of
ποησις rather than πρᾶξις, with the result that the one
becomes “being-at-work” (Am-Werke-Sein) 41 and the other
becomes “being-produced” (Hergestelltheit). What has already
been shown to be the main problem with such an interpretation
is made clear when Heidegger in this course, after making the
perhaps acceptable claim that δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια are essen-
tially related to κνησις, goes further and claims that they are
“ways of being-in-motion” (“Weisen des In-Bewegung-seins,” 216).
This is the fundamental mistake: as argued above, δÊναµις and
§ν°ργεια are not ways of being in motion 42 and therefore a
fortiori certainly cannot be interpreted in terms of producing
and being-produced.
Aristotle himself makes this clear when at the very beginning
of Metaphysics Θ he tells us that, while he will begin with the
most common sense of δÊναµις, which is δÊναµις in relation to
motion, this sense is not what he needs for his present aim (οÈ
µØν χρησµη γ’§στ‹ πρÚς ˘ βουλÒµεθα νËν, 1045b36–1046a1).
Why? Because δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια go beyond, or are more
than (§π‹ πλ°ον), the δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια said according to
motion (κατὰ κνησιν, 1046a1–2). Predictably, Heidegger’s
reading of this passage does everything possible to reinstate
motion as the essential and unsurpassable guiding perspective,
despite what Aristotle says. Thus Heidegger asserts: “When
accordingly in our treatise the theme of investigation should
become δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια §π‹ πλ°ον this does not rule out
that κνησις nevertheless remains in view; on the contrary: it
must remain in view, but not κατὰ κνησιν (54). Therefore
Heidegger resorts to the extraordinary expedient, grounded on
nothing in the text, of characterizing δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια §π‹
πλ°ον as κατὰ κινÆσεως, that is, he simply changes the accusa-
tive to the genitive and thus retains motion as the determining
perspective for even δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια §π‹ πλ°ον (53). This
opens the door to characterizing later in the course the δÊναµις
and §ν°ργεια that “go beyond” what is said according to motion
as nevertheless ways of motion and moments of production, in
flagrant contradiction to what Aristotle himself claims to
“want.” 43 In short, what we see in the 1931 course is an un-
warranted and violent reduction not only of §ν°ργεια and
553
§ντελ°χεια, but now also of δÊναµις, to a conception of being as

presence and being-produced which, judging from all the
evidence, is not Aristotle’s, but Heidegger’s.44
3.
The interpretation of §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια in the 1939 essay,
“Vom Wesen und Begriff der ΦÊσις,” departs from the earlier
interpretations of 1924 and 1931 in no longer making a sharp
distinction between the two concepts. Is this because Heidegger
is now closer to understanding them both together as a kind of
activity or act distinct both from motion and from what is
produced, at-an-end, completed? That this is not the case is
evident from the fact that his characterization of §ντελ°χεια has
not changed: it is still “Sich-im-Ende-Haben” (354). What has
happened is only that §ν°ργεια has now been brought into line
with this interpretation, being no longer interpreted as being-
at-work (In-Arbeit-Sein or Am-Werke-Sein) but rather as
standing-in-the-work: “Im-Werk-Stehen; das Werk als das, was
voll im ‘Ende’ steht”, where “das Werk” is also understood “in
the sense of what is to be produced and is produced [im Sinne
des Herzustellenden und Her-gestellten]” (354). We thus see
that nothing essential has changed in Heidegger’s interpre-
tation: we have the same interpretation of §ν°ργεια and
§ντελ°χεια in terms of production (Herstellen) and thus the
same ignoring of the fundamental distinction between §ν°ργεια
and κνησις; the only change is that now both §ν°ργεια and
§ντελ°χεια are identified with the product, the result, the “end”
or “completion” of this process of production. In other words,
the only change is an even greater eclipse of §ν°ργεια as
activity.45
In an important passage of the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle asserts in no ambiguous terms: “It is evident that
§ν°ργεια becomes [γνεται] and is not at hand like some
possession [οÈχ Íπάρχει Àσπερ κτ∞µά τι]” (NE 1169b29–30). It
is as if Aristotle were here anticipating Heidegger’s misinter-
pretation and objecting to it. While Aristotle insists that
§ν°ργεια is activity, even at the cost of giving the equally
erroneous impression that it is “becoming” in the sense in which
motion is, Heidegger is determined to reduce its way of being to
that of something produced and possessed.
We can therefore expect that the interpretation Heidegger
proceeds to give of Aristotle’s definition of motion in the 1939
essay, like the account he initially gave in the SS 1924 course,
will turn it into a definition of rest. This is indeed not only what
happens, but Heidegger makes this consequence of his interpre-
tation quite explicit. So many momentous and questionable
moves take place in his brief interpretation of 1939 that,
without the preparation provided by a reading of the SS 1924
554
course discussed above, it must leave one completely bewildered.

Consider first his translation of Aristotle’s definition of motion
as stated at Physics 201b4–5: “The having-itself-in-its-end [Das
Sich-im-Ende-Haben] by that which is apt [geeignet] insofar as
it is apt (that is, in its aptness) is clearly (the essence of)
movedness [Bewegtheit]” (355). The obvious objection to this
translation/interpretation is that an ability that has reached its
end, that has itself in its end, is no longer in motion, but rather
at rest. The unprepared reader must assume that Heidegger
cannot possibly mean what he says. How could he be defining
motion as an ability’s fulfillment in its final end or product
when this would instead be the end (in both senses of the word)
of motion?
That this, however, is exactly what Heidegger is doing is
shown not only by the preceding interpretation of §ν°ργεια cited
above, but by the example with which he grounds and prepares
his interpretation of Aristotle’s definition of motion.
The transformation [Umschlagen] of the apt wood into a table

consists in this: that the aptness of the apt emerges more and
more fully, fulfilling itself in the look [Aussehen] of the table and
thus coming to a stand in the table produced, i.e., brought-into-
the-unconcealed. In the resting of this stand (of what has come to
a stand) the emerging aptness (δÊναµις) of the apt (δυνάµει)
gathers and “has” itself as in its end. (355)
It is thus clear that Heidegger means exactly what one other-

wise would think he could not mean: that what Aristotle’s
definition of motion is describing is how the apt or capable
has-itself-as-in-its-end in the sense of having-come-to-a-stand
and being-at-rest in what is produced. But this is not motion.
As Aristotle insists, motion, far from standing-at-its-end, is
essentially ἀτελÆς.
Indeed, but this is why Heidegger is careful to remove motion
as the object of Aristotle’s definition; on his interpretation/
paraphrase, what is being defined is not motion, but “movedness.”
On the preceding page Heidegger has distinguished between
motion (Bewegung) and movedness (Bewegtheit), characterizing
the latter as the “essence” (Wesen) of the former (354).
Heidegger’s paraphrase removes Aristotle’s definition even
further from the sphere of motion by making its object not only
“movedness,” but “the essence of movedness.” Of course, the
essence of motion, and a fortiori the essence of the essence of
motion, is not motion. Indeed, Heidegger argues, the essence of
motion, movedness in the highest and most genuine sense, is
rest (Ruhigkeit, 354). And it is precisely this rest, as the essence
of movedness, that Aristotle’s ostensible definition of motion is
defining. Therefore, when Heidegger does mention the kind of
κνησις that is ἀτελÆς and that is distinct from rest, he
555
describes it as a “narrower” sense of κνησις, that is, narrower

than, and distinct from, the κνησις defined by Aristotle at
201b4.
This interpretation of Aristotle’s definition is, unfortunately
for Heidegger and fortunately for the future of philosophy,
completely untenable. The motion that Aristotle’s definition
attempts to define is beyond question the motion that is ἀτελÆς
and that is distinct from rest. To show this one need only cite a
passage which has already been partly quoted above; it is also a
passage out of which Heidegger in the 1939 text cites only one
sentence, since citing the context would spell disaster for his
interpretation. The passage reads:
Its appearing indefinite [ἀÒριστον] is the reason why motion can

be classed among beings neither as δÊναµις nor as §ν°ργεια. For
neither that which is capable of being of a certain quantity
[ποσÒν] nor that which is in actuality of a certain quantity is
necessarily moved. And κνησις seems on the one hand to be a
kind of §ν°ργεια and on the other to be ἀτελÆς; the cause of its
being ἀτελÆς is the capable of which it is the §ν°ργεια. And this is
the reason why it is hard to grasp what motion is…. What
remains is the way suggested above, i.e., that it [motion] is a kind
of §ν°ργεια, but the kind we said it was [i.e., the §ν°ργεια of what
is capable qua capable], one indeed hard to see, but nevertheless
capable of being. (Phys. 201b27–202a3)
This passage makes clear that the aim of Aristotle’s definition

of κνησις is precisely to explain its ἀτελÆς and indefinite
character, that is, that which prevents it from being defined
either as simply δÊναµις or as simply §ν°ργεια. This problem is
of course left completely unresolved if Aristotle’s definition is
interpreted as being a definition not of ἀτελÆς κνησις at all, but
rather of a rest and standing-in-the-end that are supposed to be
the essence of motion.
Why does Heidegger misinterpret Aristotle’s definition of
ἀτελÆς κνησις as a definition of rest in the sense of having-
come-to-a-stand-in-the-work (or product)? He must do so
because only at this price can his characterizations of
§ντελ°χεια as das Sich-im-Ende-Haben and of §ν°ργεια as Im-
Werk-Stehen be upheld. In other words, only at this price can he
persist in denying §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια the meaning of “act”
or “activity” as distinct from κνησις. And note the significant
lesson here: it is precisely the failure to distinguish §ν°ργεια
and §ντελ°χεια from κνησις and the product of κνησις that
renders κνησις undefinable and inexplicable. But there is a
further question: why does Heidegger persist in his funda-
mentally inadequate interpretation of §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια?
The answer has already become apparent: only in this way can
Heidegger maintain his thesis that for the Greeks being meant
556
producedness (Hergestelltheit) and presence. And it is indeed

this thesis that Heidegger pulls out of his interpretation of the
definition of motion, in a move that has become as stale and
as predictable as the trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat: “The
having-itself-in-its-end (§ντελ°χεια) is, however, the essence of
movedness (that is, the being of what is moved) because this
rest [Ruhigkeit] satisfies most purely the essence of οÈσα, of
the self-standing presencing in the look [der in sich ständigen
Anwesung im Aussehen]” (356). Because Aristotle must a
priori have had a conception of being as visible presence
(Aussehen), the object of Aristotle’s definition must be
transformed from ἀτελÆς κνησις into rest 46 and from some-
thing “hard to see” into a stable and unchanging object of
vision. 47 But that this thesis regarding the Greek interpre-
tation of Being can once again be maintained only at the cost
of misinterpretation and even inversion of what Aristotle says
should be sufficient reason to reject it once and for all in favor
of liberating the very different direction in which the texts can
guide our thinking.
Heidegger could still be correct in maintaining that ordinary
Greeks had an interpretation of being as “constant presence”
born of the anxiety that what is would cease to be present (see
GA 18, 289–90, 297, 367; also 353). Since this fear, however,
can probably with equal justice be attributed to the ancient
Egyptians and Chinese, as well as modern day Americans and
Russians, rather than speak of a metaphysics of presence as a
historical phenomenon beginning with the Greeks, we should
probably instead see such a metaphysics as characterizing any
immediate, unreflective experience of the world: a fear of
insecurity and instability that leads to an identification of what
is with what is had in such a way that it cannot be taken away,
what is possessed securely. In contrast, it may belong to the
essence of all philosophy, including that of the Greeks, to
destroy this security and challenge all naive metaphysics of
presence, to expose the indeterminate, potential, and kinetic
character of being. It is perhaps only in the modern period that
philosophy ceases to do that, and then because its essence is
determined from without itself, that is, by mathematical
science. But whatever interpretation we wish to put in its place,
the conclusion remains that Heidegger’s interpretation of
Aristotle cannot stand.
This critique in no way means to deny the great importance
of Heidegger for an understanding of the Greeks: in carrying
out a continuous and intense dialogue with the Greeks,
Heidegger has enabled them to speak to us to today with extra-
ordinary power, relevance, and immediacy. Through Heidegger
we learn to engage the Greek thinkers, not with the self-com-
placency of the historian who charts their primitive antici-
pations of contemporary wisdom, but rather with the respect
557
of philosophers convinced that we can never escape the

immense shadow of the Greek beginning and that philosophy
can have no future outside of a constant dialogue with this
beginning. Yet it is no denial of this debt owed Heidegger to
suggest that some, and perhaps the most important, possi-
bilities for future thought locked in the ancient Greek texts
can be liberated only against Heidegger; on the contrary, those
who simply repeat Heidegger’s reading of the Greeks are doing
both Heidegger and the Greeks the greatest disservice. Since
Heidegger’s interpretation of the Greeks is inseparable from
his own path of thinking, we must ask if his misinterpretation
of Aristotle’s fundamental concepts turned him aside too soon
from a barely explored road at the beginning of the metaphysi-
cal tradition. What possibilities were missed in Heidegger’s
insistent reduction of the Greek conception of being to presence,
a reduction that required interpreting Greek ontology from the
perspective of ποησις, instead of from the perspective of
πρᾶξις and §ν°ργεια? What is lost in reducing κνησις to rest,
in failing to preserve its ontological distinctness in contrast to
rest? 48 The present critique of Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle
gives a special urgency to a question posed by Paul Ricœur:
“One can in the end ask oneself if Heidegger perceived the
hidden resources of a philosophy of being that would replace
the transcendental of substance with that of act, as a phenom-
enology of acting and suffering demands.” 49 It is difficult at
this point to resist the conclusion that this is precisely what
Heidegger failed to perceive.50
Notes
1
Cited in Dominique Janicaud, Heidegger en France I. Récit
(Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), 470–1.
2
“Confronting Heidegger on Logos and Being in Plato’s Sophist,”
in Platon und Aristoteles - sub ratione veritatis: Festschrift für Wolfgang
Wieland zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Gregor Damschen, Rainer Enskat,
and Alejandro G. Vigo (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2003),
102–33.
3
Gesamtausgabe 18 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,
2002); hereafter, cited in the text as GA 18, followed by the page
number.
4
Gesamtausgabe 33, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1990); hereafter, cited in the text as GA 33, followed by
the page number.
5
Wegmarken (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967),
309–71.
6
A discussion of these texts, with the exception of the 1924
course then unavailable, is to be found in Franco Volpi, Heidegger e
Aristotele (Padova: Daphne Editrice, 1984), 172–203. Volpi’s quick
run-through, however, goes little beyond paraphrase and quotation
and certainly makes no attempt to judge critically Heidegger’s
interpretations.
558
7
Heidegger is reported in the Bröcker Nachschrift of the SS 1926
course, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, as saying: “Die
§ν°ργεια stellt die höchste Art des Seins dar, die der οÈσα zukommt”
(Gesamtausgabe 22 [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,
1993], 331; hereafter, cited in the text as GA 22, followed by the page
number). Jean Beaufret attributes to Heidegger at Cerisy in 1955 the
claim that §ν°ργεια is “la plus haute nomination de l’être qu’ait
jamais osée la philosophie des Anciens” (Dialogue avec Heidegger -
Philosophie Grecque [Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1973], 120).
8
See also “Ruhe konstitutiv für dieses Da, d.h. Bedeutsamkeit”
(380); and 387 where Heidegger calls rest “uneigentliche Bewegung”
because it conceals the πρÒτερον-Ïστερον in the Now.
9
Yet Heidegger later in the course returns to a characterization
of κνησις as “Gegenwart.” In Aristotle’s account of motion from the
perspective of ποησις and πάθησις in Physics Γ 3, Heidegger finds
expressed the πρÒς τι character of being-in-the-world and therefore
the genuine definition of κνησις (clearly understood again as
Bedeutsamkeit) (327). The characterization of κνησις that Heidegger
is working towards is made clear in the Handschrift: “Κνησις die
Gegenwart des Seienden, das ist in dem genannten Mitdasein des
einen zum anderen” (392). Heidegger therefore now paraphrases
Aristotle’s first definition of motion thus: “das Gegenwärtigsein eines
Seienden in bestimmtem Bezug zu einem anderen, so zwar, daß das
erste ist als Seinkönnendes ‘durch’ das zweite” (394). This para-
phrase is open to the same objection that was made against
Heidegger’s initial interpretation as well as to the objections that
follow.
10
This distinction appears already suggested in the
“Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der
hermeneutischen Situation)” of 1922: “δÊναµις, das je bestimmte
Verfügenkönnen über, §ν°ργεια, das in gen[uine] Verwendung Nehmen
der Verfügbarkeit, und §ντελ°χεια, das verwendende in Verwahrung
Halten dieser Verfügbarkeit” (Gesamtausgabe 62 [Frankfurt am
Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2005], 396; hereafter cited in the text as
GA 62, followed by page number).
11
In the SS 1926 course, and again in the context of the account
of motion, Heidegger defends the definition of §ν°ργεια as
“Wirklichkeit” (GA 22, 172, 322), which he interprets as
“Vorhandensein als Im-Werke-Sein” (173). An interesting change,
however, is his occasional translation of §ν°ργεια as Zuhandenheit, so
that the definition of motion can be stated as: “Zuhandenheit des
Bereiten in seiner Bereitheit” (173). However, since he can at the
same time interpret the definition as “Anwesenheit des Vorhandenen
in seiner Bereitheit und hinsichtlich dieser” (174), Zuhandenheit is
clearly being treated as a mode of Anwesenheit and Vorhandenheit
(see also 320–21). Walter Bröcker, on whose Nachschriften of the SS
1924 and SS 1926 courses the Gesamtausgabe editions of these
courses partly rely, betrays the influence of Heidegger in his own
book on Aristotle when, in explaining the account of motion, he
writes: “Aber wirklich, gegenwärtig anwesend [my emphasis], ist
nicht nur das Rotsein des Seienden, sondern wirklich ist auch das
Anders-Sein-Können des Seienden. Dies Seinkönnen dessen, was das
Seiende je gerade nicht ist, gehört mit zu dem was es je gerade
wirklich ist” (Aristoteles, 3rd. ed. [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
559
Klostermann, 1964], 80).

12
Heidegger can be seen making these questionable inter-
pretative moves in the following texts: Vom Wesen der menschlichen
Freiheit, Gesamtausgabe 31 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Kloster-
mann, 1982), 69; “Die Metaphysik als Geschichte des Seins,” in
Gesamtausgabe 6.2 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997),
368–9, 375; “Wissenschaft und Besinnung,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze,
Gesamtausgabe 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000),
43–4. At the start of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes an
explicit distinction between §ν°ργεια and ¶ργον as one between
activities and products existing apart from the activities that
produce them (1094a4–5).
13
In the SS 1922 course, Phänomenologische Interpretationen
Ausgewählter Abhandlungen des Aristoteles zur Ontologie und Logik,
Heidegger identifies §ν°ργεια with “reinste Bewegtheit” and “reine
Zeitigung,” apparently making no distinction between §ν°ργεια and
§ντελ°χεια (GA 62, 102–08). At one point Heidegger in citing the
definition of the soul in De Anima as the first §ντελ°χεια simply
inserts κνησις in brackets after §ντελ°χεια, thus suggesting their
equivalence (229; see also 336).
14
Heidegger rightly defends against circularity Aristotle’s
definition of motion as §ντελ°χεια τοË κινητοË, √ κινητÒν [of what is
movable insofar as it is movable] (328). But he here translates
§ντελ°χεια as “Gegenwart,” a translation that, though creating other
problems, at least avoids making the definition circular. If, on the
other hand, Aristotle used the word §ν°ργεια instead, as Heidegger
earlier claims he should to be more precise, and we were to follow
Heidegger in characterizing §ν°ργεια as κνησις, then we would have a
circular definition indeed: “the motion of what is capable of being
moved insofar as it is capable of being moved.”
15
The same distinction is implied by the argument in the Nico-
machean Ethics that ≤δονÆ is not a κνησις (1173a31–1174b14).
16
W. D. Ross comments on 201a10–11: “§ντελ°χεια must here
mean ‘actualization,’ not ‘actuality’: it is the passage from
potentiality to actuality that is κνησις” (Aristotle’s Physics [Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1936], 537). But if actualization as the passage
from potentiality to actuality is κνησις, then this cannot be what
§ντελ°χεια means. In this case, the qualification, “of what is capable
insofar as capable,” would be superfluous, since §ντελ°χεια would as
such be κνησις, and the definition would be viciously circular. The
problem with Ross’s reading is therefore much greater than that
“Such a sense of entelecheia is … unparalleled in Aristotle”: this is
the objection of Edward Hussey, who himself translates “actuality”
(Aristotle’s Physics Books III and IV [Oxford: Clarendon, 1983], 60).
See also Rémi Brague: “L’acte qui intervient dans la définition du
mouvement est actualité et non actualisation” (Aristote et la question
du monde [Paris: PUF, 1988], 500), and Pierre Aubenque: “Le
mouvement est moins l’actualisation de la puissance, qu’il n’est l’acte
de la puissance, la puissance en tant qu’acte, c’est-à-dire en tant que
son acte est d’être en puissance” (Le problème de l’être chez Aristote
[Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 2002], 454). But Aubenque nevertheless
immediately proceeds to make the fatal mistake: “Le mouvement, dit
ailleurs Aristote, est un acte imparfait, §ν°ργεια ἀτελÆς, c’est-à-dire
dont l’acte même est de n’être jamais tout à fait en acte” (454, my
560
emphasis). Brague, on the other hand, avoids this error: “Il l’est
[ἀτελÆς] moins, précise ailleurs Aristote, parce qu’il serait lui-même
un acte imparfait, que parce qu’il est l’acte (et, en tant que tel,
parfait) de quelque chose d’imparfait (Ame III, 7, 431a6 s.)” (502, my
emphasis). Yet the error remains persistent and widespread. In a
recent book we find the following: “in welchem Sinne Heidegger und
Gadamer energeia auffassen: als Sein, das nur im Werden sein Sein
hat. [This is more Gadamer than Heidegger] Hingegen meint
energeia bei Aristoteles Werden zum Sein, genesis eis on” (Thomas
Gutschker, Aristotelische Diskurse: Aristoteles in der politischen
Philosophie des 20. Jahrhundert [Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2002], 222).
17
At Rhet. 1412a9 Aristotle does describe §ν°ργεια as a κνησις,
but in the context Aristotle is clearly not using the word in its
strictest sense. The passage therefore does not support W. D. Ross’s
conclusion that “κνησις and §ν°ργεια are species of something wider
for which Aristotle has no name, and for which he uses now the
name of one species, and now that of the other” (Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, vol. 2 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924], 251).
18
Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, vol. 2, 248.
19
In this passage the definition of motion includes both terms:
whenever something “§ντελεχεα ˆν §νεργª” not insofar as it is itself
but insofar as it is movable, that is motion.
20
Heidegger presumably found support for his interpretation in
Hermann Bonitz’s 1849 commentary on the Metaphysics. Bonitz also
finds at 1048a30 and 1050a21–23 a distinction between §ν°ργεια and
§ντελ°χεια, claiming that while the two are very closely related and
therefore often not distinguished, nevertheless the former most
properly signifies “viam” while the later most properly signifies
“finem viae” (Metaphysica Commentarius [Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
1960], 387–88). Yet Bonitz can maintain such a distinction only by
making the same mistake Heidegger makes: collapsing the distinc-
tion between §ν°ργεια and κνησις. Thus he sees §νεργε›ν as signifying
“eam actionem et mutationem, qua qui ex mera possibilitate ad
plenam perducitur essentiam” (387). This is obviously a definition of
κνησις and not of §ν°ργεια. Yet this insistence on a sharp distinction
between §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια and the mistake it presupposes have
undoubtedly an impressive pedigree since they can be traced back at
least to Simplicius. After reporting that Alexander, Porphyry and
Themistios “converted §ν°ργεια into §ντελ°χεια in the definition of
motion, as if they were the same for Aristotle” (Simplicii in Aristotelis
Physicorum libros quattuor priores commentaria, ed. H. Diels [Berlin:
1882], 414, 20–21), Simplicius objects that if Aristotle does some-
times use the word §ντελ°χεια for §ν°ργεια, he does not mean just any
§ν°ργεια but only the complete kind (τελεα). The name §ντελ°χεια
signifies “τØν τοË §ντελοËς συν°χειαν” (414, 37), so that it cannot
properly be applied to the incomplete §ν°ργεια that Simplicius sees
as characterizing motion. Simplicius thus insists on reading the word
§ν°ργεια in the defintion of motion at 201a9–11: “Motion being of the
incomplete, however, it is not in vain that he [Aristotle] directly
called it §ν°ργεια and not §ντελ°χεια” (414, 28–9). Behind this distinc-
tion is the same error made by the contemporary commentators
criticized above (note 16): against Porphyry’s suggestion that κνησις
is an §ντελ°χεια ἀτελÆς and an §ν°ργεια τελεα, Simplicius objects:
“But if it is the §ν°ργεια of what exists potentially (τοË δÊναµει) and
561
what exists potentially is incomplete (ἀτελ°ς), then how could the

§ν°ργεια of something incomplete (τοË ἀτελοË) be a complete §ν°ργεια
(τελεα)?” (415, 23–5).
21
I show elsewhere how Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle’s
account of the good in this course assimilates πρᾶξις to ποησις: see
my “Without Good and Evil: Heidegger’s Purification of Aristotle’s
Ethics,” in Heidegger and the Greeks: Interpretative Essays, ed. by
Drew A. Hyland and John Panteleimon Manoussakis (Indiana
University Press, 2006), 127–56. Especially significant here is the
following passage in which Heidegger, asserting that ποησις is the
resource for the question “What is being?,” does not distinguish
between ποησις and πρᾶξις: “Die Frage nach dem τ τÚ ˆν ist
geschöpft aus den Bestimmungen der ποησις und des Gegenwärtig-
Daseins—ποησις als primäre In-der-Welt-Sein, πρᾶξις” (GA 18, 329).
Robert Bernasconi has observed that “Heidegger focuses explicitly on
praxis only rarely and his sights are clearly set on poiesis. Futher-
more, this is not always the broad conception of poiesis which
includes praxis …” (“The Fate of the Distinction between Praxis and
Poiesis,” in Heidegger in Question: The Art of Existing [New Jersey:
Humanities Press, 1993], 12). If Heidegger does not sharply
distinguish praxis from poiesis, this is because, according to
Bernasconi, the characterization of praxis in terms of its distinction
from poiesis still amounts to “a technical interpretation of praxis”
(21; see also 22). Yet Aristotle’s definition of motion shows, I suggest,
that he understands poiesis/kinesis in the light of energeia/praxis
rather than vice versa. Bernasconi sees at Nic. Eth. VI ii 5, 1139a35–
b4 a characterization of praxis as the goal of poiesis, a character-
ization which he sees as subordinating praxis to poiesis (8). But this
passage can be interpreted with at least equal plausibility as
showing that Aristotle interprets making from the perspective of
praxis as an unfulfilled praxis.
22
See Paul Ricœur, “Négativité et affirmation originaire,” in
Aspects de la dialectique (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1956), 101–24;
and Soi-même comme un autre (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1990), 364.
In the former important essay, after a critique of modern philos-
ophies that privilege negation and the nothing, like that of Sartre,
for presupposing a limited and impoverished conception of being as
thinghood and essence (120), Ricœur concludes: “Sous la pression du
négatif, des expériences en négatif, nous avons à reconquérir une
notion de l’être qui soit acte plutôt que forme, affirmation vivante,
puissance d’exister et de faire exister” (124). See Dominique
Janicaud’s description of Ricœur as proposing “une ‘ontologie de
l’agir’ qui a pour fin le ‘bien vivre’ au sens d’Aristote et pour laquelle
l’être lui-même se découvre et se définit comme agir” (471). Janicaud
also notes how Ricœur emphasizes the dunamis-energeia sense of
being in Aristotle against Heidegger’s reduction of being to presence
(472–3).
23
Heidegger discusses briefly the characterization of ≤δονÆ in the
Nicomachean Ethics as not a κνησις and not existing in time (GA 18,
244-45), but he does not reflect on the peculiar relation of §ν°ργεια to
time and concludes: “Dieser Charakter, daß sie keine κινÆσις ist,
charakterisiert sie als eine Bestimmung der Gegenwärtigkeit des
Daseins als solchen” (245). This inference from “keine κινÆσις” to
“Gegenwärtigkeit” is precisely the inference I want to bring into
562
question.
24
This is understandably a text to which Ricœur attaches much
importance: see Soi-même comme un autre, 356 and 364 n. 1. For an
account of the strange history of this text’s transmission, see Brague,
Aristote et la question du monde, 454–61. Brague’s is probably the best
philosophical interpretation of this text currently available, at least
in part because he recognizes the text’s crucial importance.
25
We do find at Physics 249b29 the phrase: “ἅµα κινε› κα‹
κεκνηκεν.” The context, however, is the continuity of motion as a
process, not its relation to its τ°λος. This continuity shows that
motion is indeed an §ν°ργεια, but without collapsing the distinction
between the two. See Wolfgang Wieland, Die aristotelische Physik,
3rd. ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 332.
26
This interpretation is the one advanced by Pierre Aubenque:
“Dans le cas d’§ν°ργει, ce qui demeure pensé à travers la formation
savante du mot, est l’activité artisanale, plus précisément l’œuvre
(¶ργον). Certes, l’acte n’est pas l’activité, et Aristote prendra bien
soin de le distinguer de mouvement, mais il en est le résultat. Il n’est
pas le devenant, mais le devenu, non pas le bâtir, mais l’avoir-bâti,
non pas le présent ou l’aoriste du mouvoir, mais le parfait de l’avoir-
mû et de l’avoir-été-mu” (Le problème de l’être chez Aristote, 440). Yet
Aubenque must admit in a note (440, n. 4) that Aristotle does not
actually say this. Instead, Aristotle claims that §ν°ργεια is
simultaneously past perfect and present. So how can Aubenque
interpret so against the grain of the text? Because, no matter what
Aristotle might say, his “extension” of §ν°ργεια to πρᾶξις “en contredit
l’origine technologique, selon laquelle la référence à l’œuvre est
immédiatement presente” (440–41, n. 4). Despite his critique of
Heidegger in the next note (441, n. 1) Aubenque here follows
Heidegger in considering the etymology of a word more important to
its interpretation than its actual use and analysis in the Aristotelian
text. Some salutary words of Paul Ricœur are worth citing in this
context: “Et cette proximité entre énergéia et ergon n’a-t-elle pas
encouragé maints commentateurs à donner un modèle artisanal à la
série entiére: entélécheia, énergéia, ergon? Ce qui, en banalisant le
propos, rendrait à peu près inutile toute enterprise de réappro-
priation de l’ontologie de l’acte-puissance au bénéfice de l’être du soi”
(Soi-même comme un autre, 355, n. 2).
27
See parallel passages at Soph. el. 178a9–11 and De sensu
446b2.
28
Brague expresses well the paradox: “L’acte n’en finit pas de
finir, il cesse sans cesse” (470). At one point in his manuscript for the
SS 1926 course, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, Heidegger
appears to see this crucial point: “§ντελ°χεια: 1. nicht nur überhaupt
anwesend. 2. nicht nur beweglich, ἀτελÆς, ἀÒριστον, 3. sondern von
ihm selbst her seinem Wesen nach nur im Wirken seiend. §ν°ργεια
τελεα, fertig und doch nicht Aufhören der vordränglichen
Anwesenheit; π°ρας und doch kein Aufhören, sondern gerade in ihr
ist Sein. Ich habe gesehen und so sehe ich. Ich bin glücklich
geworden und bin es so gerade. Ich habe es erlebt und lebe jetzt so”
(GA 22, 175). But Heidegger does not appear to see the extent to
which this challenges a characterization of §ν°ργεια as Im-Werke-Sein
(173), a characterization of §ντελ°χεια as Fertig-sein, and, finally, the
characterization of both as modes of Anwesenheit and Vorhandenheit.
563
Similarly, Bröcker, while rightly claiming that “das Sehen von etwas
[ist] auch kein Aufenthalt, kein Stillstand, sondern ruhige Tätigkeit”
(85), still proceeds to make the mistake of identifying it with the end
of motion and thus with what Heidegger calls “Fertig-sein”: “die
Energie in Gegensatz zur Bewegung sich bestimmt als Ruhe, u. z.
nicht als Aufenthalt auf dem Wege zu einem Ende, sondern als Ruhe
im Ziel und Ende einer Bewegung: Entelechie” (85). In the SS 1922
course, Heidegger, after citing 1048b19–21, interprets it as speaking
of a Bewegung “die selbst in ihrem Ende steht, am Ende gerade ist!—
die noch oder gerade dann Bewegung ist, wenn sie an ihrem Ende
ist! Am ‘Ende’ sein und gerade dann Bewegung sein” (106). But
Aristotle in this passage is speaking of πρᾶξις τελεα, not of κνησις,
and for a good reason: it is precisely the fact that κινÆσις comes to an
end when it reaches its end that distinguishes it as such from
§ν°ργεια.
29
Capturing in a translation the sense of ἅµα is difficult because,
as Brague rightly warns, “Il faut se garder de la réduire trop vite à la
contémporanité que suggérait la traduction par ‘en même temps.’ …
Dans cet hama, le passé est intégré au présent non pour y être aboli,
mais en tant que tel” (473). Does not this ἅµα then defy the
conception of time to which Heidegger insists on restricting the
Greeks?
30
Despite otherwise reiterating Heidegger’s view that Aristotle
“s’est borné à suivre le λÒγος” (108) and thus is led to characterize
being as Íποκεµενον, Beaufret appears to go beyond Heidegger in
seeing Aristotle as recognizing the limits of language and the
categories in the face of the phenomenon of §ν°ργεια (118–19).
31
As Brague, for example, argues (474–92).
32
Heidegger’s interpretation, to the extent that it appears in the
Einführung in die Metaphysik and other later texts, was already
brought into question by Pierre Aubenque in an important note to Le
problème de l’être chez Aristote (first published in 1943): “Nous ne
pouvons accepter l’interprétation que M. Heidegger propose du mot
§ντελ°χεια. Voulant à juste titre éviter la mésinterprétation moderne
de l’entelechie comme finalité, il en vient à éliminer du mot τ°λος
toute idée de fin, au sens d’achèvement, d’accomplissement de
l’inachevé, pour ne plus retenir que le sens statique d’accompliss-
ment toujours déjà accompli de ‘pure présence de ce qui est présent’
… Il s’agit, certes, d’une présence, mais d’une présence advenue,
devenue. La traduction moderne d’acte n’est pas un oubli du sens
originel, mais lui reste, pour une fois, fidèle” (441, n. 1). Two aspects
of this critique are on the mark: (1) the criticism of Heidegger’s
elimination of all idea of “fin” from τ°λος, his insistence that τ°λος
“nicht Ziel und nicht Zweck, sondern Ende bedeutet” (Einführung in
die Metaphysik, 3rd. ed. [Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1966], 46; for a
critique of Heidegger’s defense of this view in the SS 1924 course, see
my “Without Good and Evil: Heidegger’s Purification of Aristotle’s
Ethics,” 131–34; (2) and the defense of the translation of §ντελ°χεια
as “act” against Heidegger’s interpretation of it as “das Sich-in-der-
Endung (Grenze)-halten (wahren)” (Einführung, 46), an interpre-
tation Heidegger uses to support his thesis that for the Greeks being
meant “Ständigkeit.” (In contrast, Jean Beaufret follows Heidegger in
the translation of §ν°ργεια as “actus” claiming that it constitutes a
wall between us and the Greeks [135].) But Aubenque’s critique of
564
Heidegger is not radical enough because it follows Heidegger in

interpreting §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια as moments within movement
(i.e., as results or aims of movement) and thus in ignoring or greatly
minimizing Aristotle’s distinction between §ν°ργεια and κνησις: see
the critique of Aubenque on this point in note 5. In this respect, the
interpretation of §ντελ°χεια as “presence having-arrived, having-
become” is no better than the interpretation of §ντελ°χεια simply as
“presence.”
33
Christopher P. Long’s otherwise very insightful account of the
ontological significance of πρᾶξις in Aristotle seems to fall into this
error: he appears to assume that only potentiality and matter could
prevent §νεργεα from being some “static actus purus,” thereby failing
to note that the §νεργεα without matter that is the unmoved mover
is interpreted by Aristotle as πρᾶξις, to the extent of being described
as life, pleasure, and happiness (“The Ethical Culmination of
Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” in Epoché 8 [2003]: see 128 and 133). It is
for this reason that Long, in looking for a model of dynamic,
nonuniversal knowledge that can do justice to §νεργεα, turns to
φρÒνησις instead of to the νÒησις νοÆσεως of the unmoved mover.
Long provides a detailed defense of this thesis in The Ethics of
Ontology: Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy (Albany: SUNY Press,
2004); but see my critique in “Form in Aristotle: Oppressive Univer-
sal or Individual Act?” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 26, 2
(2005): 179–98.
34
Ricœur rightly stresses the importance of preserving the
tension between δÊναµις and §ν°ργεια and from this perspective
criticizes the reduction of §ν°ργεια to “facticity” (Soi-même comme un
autre, 364–5). In contrast, Heidegger in the 1930 course insists with
regard to §ν°ργεια that “Unser Fremdwort ‘Energie’ im Sinne von
Kraft hat damit nichts zu tun. §ν°ργεια bedeutet zumal als
philosophischer Ausdruck für Existenz, Wirklichkeit, Vorhandensein
bei Aristoteles alles andere als Kraft” (GA 31, 67).
35
Heidegger at one point asserts that according to the Megarian
position, “Nichtvollzug des Vermögens gleich Abwesenheit, gleich
Nichtvorhandensein desselben” (184). Judging from what Aristotle
wrote, what the Megarians are claiming instead is that “Nichtvollzug
des Vermögens gleich Unvermögen.”
36
Heidegger at one point refers to “the emphasis [die Betonung]
of δÊναµιν ¶χειν” (188) in the text. What emphasis? What one finds in
the text is Aristotle occasionally using this expression without calling
attention to it and without deriving from it any philosophical
conclusions for the argument. The “emphasis” is all Heidegger’s.
37
Even if it is legitimate to ask, as Heidegger does earlier in the
course, “In welcher Weise ist denn nun das ˆν (ε‰ναι) √ ρολλαχ«ς
λεγÒµενον, das Sein als vielfach Gesagtes, κοινÒν τι, irgendwie
gemeinsam für die Vielen?” (GA 33, 31), this certainly does not
justify the conflation of a categorial sense of being with being as
δÊναµις.
38
Heidegger derives the following characterization of being-
capable from his excellent phenomenological description of the
runner: “Wirklich-vermögend-sein ist das bereitschafterfüllte Im-
Stande-sein-zu, dem nur noch die Enthemmung in den Vollzug
fehlt…” (218). This characterization of being-capable is without
question defensible and illuminating. The problem is that Heidegger
565
does not stop here. Instead, he proceeds to bring this definition in

line with the supposedly Greek conception of being by identifying Im-
Stande-sein-zu with the having of a δÊναµις as something present
(219). If we are to remain faithful to what Aristotle says even in
going beyond what he says, we must insist that Im-Stande-sein-zu is
δÊναµις itself, not the being-present or being-at-hand of a δÊναµις.
39
Bonitz, though not seeing this as eliminating all the problems,
suggests that the viciousness of the circle in the definition is
minimized if “τÚ δυνατÒν, quod definit, de qualitate quadam rei
inhaerente, τÚ ἀδÊνατον, quod ad definiendum adscisit, de interna
cogitandi repugnantia intellexerimus…” (387). Ross takes the same
way out (245), though his comments appear to go further in seeing
the meaning of logical (im)possibility in both δυνατÒν and ἀδÊνατον,
something that seems hardly possible in the first case, given the
context.
40
According to the editor of GA 33 (226), Ross’s commentary is
one of the texts Heidegger consulted for the 1931 course.
41
When Heidegger comes upon Aristotle’s example of α‡σθησις, he
is forced to make the important concession that “Ενεργε›ν, §ν°ργεια
haben hier schon nicht mehr die ursprünglich ganz enge Bezogenheit
auf ¶ργον, aber immer doch die Bedeutung des Vollzugs” (204). In
this case one must of course even question the translation Vollzug,
which suggests a process towards some outcome. Yet this concession
does not stop Heidegger from translating §ν°ργεια as Am-Werke-Sein.
42
At one point in the course, Heidegger asks how the Megarians
can appeal to §νεργε›ν when they presumably, as Eleatics, denied the
existence of motion (171–2). Perhaps the solution is that §νεργε›ν is
not understood as motion. Heidegger himself raises the possibility,
though only in passing and without pursuing it, that §ν°ργεια, which
he translate here as Vollzug, is perhaps something other than motion
(“[ … ist vielleicht etwas anderes?]”, 174).
43
Enrico Berti also makes this objection to Heidegger’s reading,
rightly insisting that for Aristotle the primary meaning of §ν°ργεια is
not that according to movement, but that of “activity” (Aristotele nel
Novecento [Roma: Laterza, 1992], 103, 110–11). See also Long, who
for this reason finds in Aristotle an undermining of “the metaphysics
of ‘productive comportment’” (138, n. 39).
44
At one point in speaking of §ν°ργεια, Heidegger writes: “Vollzug
ist Ausübung, also Anwesenheit von Übung und Geübtheit” (185).
Here, as in other cases, the “also” expresses not what necessarily
follows but, rather, what Heidegger needs. Why must Ausübung be
interpreted as the presence of Übung? Only to fit Heidegger’s thesis
concerning the Greek conception of being. Heidegger himself sees
that this interpretation is not necessary when he remarks that
Vollzug is not simply Anwesenheit: “vielmehr ist der Vollzug
Ausübung und als solche, wenn überhaupt, Anwesenheit von
Einübung” (191, my emphasis). This possibility that Vollzug is not
Anwesenheit at all is quickly passed over and not allowed to interfere
with Heidegger’s thesis.
45
Beaufret follows Heidegger’s later interpretation in affirming
the synonymy of §ν°ργεια and §ντελ°χεια only at the cost of denying
that the former means “act” and identifying both with what is
achieved or completed: “C’est bien pourquoi §ν°ργεια, où l’on entend
¶ργον, et §ντελ°χεια, où l’on entend τ°λος, sont synonymes, τ°λος
566
n’étant pas plus un but qu’¶ργον n’est une action ou un acte, mais les
deux disant l’un et l’autre que quelque chose est achevé et non
seulement ‘en cours’, ou même moins encore, au sens où l’ouvrage de
la menuiserie ne peut pas même encore, dans l’arbre de la forêt, être
dit ‘en cours’” (114). Beaufret therefore also follows Heidegger in
claiming that §ν°ργεια and δÊναµις are understood from the
perspective of movement (114–5). Heidegger’s thesis that being for
the Greeks was presence is accordingly accepted without question:
see page 138.
46
Thus also in the Beiträge zur Philosophie Heidegger can claim
that “Aristoteles begreift erstmals griechisch von Beständigkeit und
Anwesenheit her (οÈσα) das Wesen der Bewegung …” (Gesamtausgabe
65, 2nd. ed. [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994], 193)
only by asserting that “ens ‘actu’ ist gerade das Seiende in der ‘Ruhe’,
nicht in der ‘Aktion’, das Insichgesammelte und in diesem Sinne voll
Anwesende” (194).
47
Brague rightly sees in the phrase “χαλεπØν .δε›ν” a surpassing
both of the conception of knowledge according to the paradigm of
vision and of a conception of being as what-is-there (Íπάρχειν) as a
thing (κτ∞µα) (502–6). He even writes: “le paradigme visuel qui
domine une bonne partie de la pensée grecque y trouve l’accroc, peut-
être unique, où il commence à se démailler” (505). I would deny,
however, that this paradigm dominates Greek thought to the extent
Brague suggests. Brague argues that our only access to §ν°ργεια is
not vision, but λ°γειν (504–6), which he however distinguishes from
both predication and naming (506). This is presumably because we
can speak of §ν°ργεια only from within, as Brague suggests earlier:
“Nous comprenons l’acte, non pas du dehors, mais quand nous nous
plaçons à l’intérieur de lui—formule d’ailleurs provisoire, car il faut
comprendre que nous ne nous y sommes jamais mis, que nous y avons
toujours été, que l’acte est ce dont nous ne pouvons jamais sortir”
(495).
48
One text that demands reflection here is the Beiträge (293–4).
Heidegger here uses the language of Aristotle’s definition of κνησις,
despite his characterization of it as “outlived” metaphysical language,
to express the essence of Being. What needs to be considered here is
what is lost in this appropriation. An answer is perhaps to be found
in Patocka’s critique of Heidegger from the perspective of a
phenomenology of movement: for discussion and documentation, see
Renaud Barbaras, “La phénoménologie du movement chez Patocka,”
in Phénoménologie: un siècle de philosophie, eds. Pascal Dupond and
Laurent Cournaire (Paris: Ellipses, 2002), 129–37; especially 135.
49
“On peut enfin se demander si Heidegger a aperçu les ressources
que pouvait receler une philosophie de l’être qui mettrait le transcen-
dantal de l’acte à la place de celui de la substance, comme le
demande une phénoménologie de l’agir et du pâtir” (Soi-même comme
un autre, 380, my translation). One of the “resources” Ricœur has in
mind here is an ethical one. This is evident not only in Soi-même
comme un autre but also in the much earlier essay cited above, where
Ricœur suggests that only an ontology of the act, as opposed to both
the privileging of negation in existentialism and a philosophy of
essences, can ground respect for the other and thus ethics: “si
l’existentialisme privilégie le moment du refus, du défi, de
l’arrachment au donné, du désengluement, c’est que d’une part le
567
moment de néantisation du donné est toujours obscurci par une

volonté coupable d’annihilation d’autrui.… Mais la position de
l’existence par l’existence, de l’existence de l’autre comme condition
de mon existence pleine et entière, ne me condamne pas à une
philosophie des essences mais m’oriente vers une philosophie de
l’acte d’éxister. L’illusion de l’existentialisme est double: il confond la
dénégation avec les passions qui l’enferment dans le négatif, il croit
que l’autre alternative à la liberté-néant c’est l’être pétrifié dans
l’essence” (“Négativité et affirmation originaire,” 119). One must
wonder to what an extent such a criticism applies to Heidegger.
50
This paper was written with the support of the National
Endowment for the Humanities and the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation.
568

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Whose Metaphysics of Presence?

The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol. XLIV

Whose Metaphysics of Presence?

je trouve chez Aristote … de quoi réengendrer la métaphysique.

Central to Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of the Greeks, and

Francisco J. Gonzalez is associate professor and chair of the

“the metaphysics of presence.” Yet I have elsewhere attempted

Heidegger’s manuscript for the course we find the following

is motion. “Insofar as it is there, the piece of wood is in motion.

not still important to explain the difference? While the explicit

what is capable. What is capable is not as such moved” (320).

the word in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics: to say

characterization that of course defeats the whole point of

The How of the There (Da) of something: how does “being-at-

But what becomes of this conclusion if §ντελ°χεια and §ν°ργεια

simply present” (schlechthin gegenwärtig), what is finished,

But it is only in the active voice that Aristotle uses συντενειν in

In short, there is a more plausible reading of the text that

cites Metaphysics Θ 8, 1050a21–23 where Aristotle writes: “For

Aristotle’s account of Being. What reflection on the synonymy of

trates the temporal difference between §ν°ργεια and κνησις in

precisely the mystery of §ν°ργεια that puts it completely beyond

[Bewegtheit]” (321). In a course from SS 1926 a different, and

is being exercised, that is, only in §ν°ργεια. Heidegger insists

vorhanden and therefore, given the supposedly Greek concep-

Vorhandenheit or Anwesenheit. What the Megarians and

operative here. Aristotle, who knows better, insists that being-

reduced, and cannot be reduced, to any kind of being-present or

interpretation of Θ 3, he must insist that it is not about being-

When we in the process go beyond what Aristotle says, this is not

One can certainly agree that an interpretation needs to go

had by this point consulted Ross’s commentary.40 However, his

§ντελ°χεια, but now also of δÊναµις, to a conception of being as

course discussed above, it must leave one completely bewildered.

The transformation [Umschlagen] of the apt wood into a table

It is thus clear that Heidegger means exactly what one other-

describes it as a “narrower” sense of κνησις, that is, narrower

Its appearing indefinite [ἀÒριστον] is the reason why motion can

This passage makes clear that the aim of Aristotle’s definition

producedness (Hergestelltheit) and presence. And it is indeed

of philosophers convinced that we can never escape the

Klostermann, 1964], 80).

what exists potentially is incomplete (ἀτελ°ς), then how could the

Heidegger is not radical enough because it follows Heidegger in

does not stop here. Instead, he proceeds to bring this definition in

moment de néantisation du donné est toujours obscurci par une

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But it is only in the active voice that Aristotle uses συντενειν in

trates the temporal difference between §ν°ργεια and κνησις in

describes it as a “narrower” sense of κνησις, that is, narrower