Christopher P. Long-The Ethics Of Ontology_ Rethinking An Aristotelian Legacy (S U N Y Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy) (2004).pdf

Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy

C H R I S T O P H E R P. L O N G

ONTOLOGY

THEETHICSOF

The Ethics of Ontology

SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy

Anthony Preus, editor


Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy

Christopher P. Long

State University of New York Press

Published byState University of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system

or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise

without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press,90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Michael HaggettMarketing by Susan M. Petrie

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Long, Christopher Philip, 1969–The ethics of ontology : rethinking an Aristotelian legacy / Christopher P. Long.p. cm. — (SUNY series in ancient Greek philosophy)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-7914-6119-X

1. Aristotle. 2. Ethics. 3. Ontology. I. Title. II. Series.B491.E7L66 2004111'.092—dc22

2004006851

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

With friendship, respect, and, above all, love:

For Valerie,in whom grace and will converge.

Refuse the life of anarchy;Refuse the life devoted toOne master.The in-between has the powerBy God’s grant always, thoughHis ordinances vary.

—Aeschylus, Eumenides

The concentration and fusion into the whole being can never happen through menor can it happen without me. I become inrelation to the Thou, becoming I, I say Thou.All actual life is encounter.

—Martin Buber, Ich und Du

Preface xi

1 The Legacy of Ousia 1

2 Foundational Thinking and the Categories 19

3 Kinetic Principles and the Hegemony of Form 31

4 Prelude to a Safe Passage—Two Aporiae 49

5 Toward a Dynamic Ontology 59

6 The Dynamic Economy of Principles 85

7 Knowledge in Actuality and the Ethical Turn 111

8 Contingent Knowledge: Phrone \sis in the Ethics 131

9 The Ethics of Ontology 153

Notes 167

References 209

Index 217

ix

Contents

This book calls into question the privilege that ontology has historicallyenjoyed over ethics. Ontology, the search for the ultimate principles of reality,has traditionally been said to precede ethics, which concerns itself with thecontingency of human character and action. This tradition begins with Aris-totle, whose attempt to establish a rigorous “science of being” seems tosequester the contingent concerns of finite existence from the search for thenecessary principles of being. Yet this Aristotelian legacy fails to recognize thecontingent nature of all ontological investigation and so unwittingly coversover its own collusion in the alleged “discovery” of the ultimate principles oforder. This obfuscation lends an aura of objectivity to these principles thatserves to legitimate the manner in which they function. Although this seemsharmless and abstract, such principles have historically animated the variousstructures of oppression operating at the very heart of Western civilization.

The codification of such structures of oppression may be traced to thePhysics and Metaphysics of Aristotle, and specifically to the tendency to seekultimate order in the domination of form over matter. The tremendous powerof the Aristotelian distinction between form and matter lies in its universalapplicability: anything can be thematized as a composite of these two princi-ples. Testimony to its enormous success lies in the way it operates unnoticed:we no longer see the distinction as anything other than the description of theobjective structure of reality. Aristotle’s conception of ousia, traditionally ren-dered “substance,” but more literally, simply “being,” functions both in Aristo-tle and throughout the history of Western thinking as a parameter accordingto which the totality of beings is quite literally set in order.1 As a parameter,ousia operates both conceptually and practically. Conceptually, ousia names thetendency not only to divide that which exists into an active formal and a pas-sive material component but also to posit the domination of form as theordering principle of being. Practically, however, ousia translates the hege-mony of form into the concrete contingent world by identifying it as objec-tively given and thus as unquestionably valid. The parameter of ousia lurks justbeneath the surface of Western civilization, legitimating its various structures

xi

Preface

of oppression, from misogyny, racism, and slavery to colonialism, imperialism,and genocide. If, as Theodor Adorno suggests, “we speak Aristotle all our livesand ‘don’t even know it,’”2 then this is of no minor consequence, for it informsthe very manner in which we set our world into order.

Yet there is more to the legacy of ousia than the history of domination,for ousia points already in Aristotle to the perplexing presence of the concreteindividual, itself irreducible to the hegemony of form. Thus if we speak Aris-totle, as we surely do, it is the dialect of domination and not the more nuanceddialect, discernable already in Aristotle, of doing justice to the phenomena. Torecover this other dialect and so to relearn the very language through whichwe determine not merely the meaning of being, but more significantly, theworld of beings is the main purpose here.

Recovering this other dialect in Aristotle involves stepping back behindthe long and codified tradition of Aristotle scholarship. I have sought to dothis in three ways. First, in order to destabilize our sense of familiarity withbasic concepts that no longer strike us as thought provoking, I have left Greekterms largely untranslated. For ousia is not simply “substance,” nor praxismerely “action”; energeia is more than “actuality,” and to ti en einai is surelymore complicated than “essence.” These terms, and others, most notably todeti, which shows itself here to be far more than merely that which is “particu-lar,” are meant to stand out rather awkwardly, to cause the reader to pause andperhaps even to reconsider the calcified meaning that they have taken on overthe centuries.

Second, the methodological approach of this book is unconventional:although it follows the paths of Aristotle’s thinking, it does not aim to recon-struct the system of Aristotelian thought. The detailed investigation into thevarious paths of Aristotle’s thinking that constitutes the greater part of thebook is necessitated by the recognition that these paths themselves suggest away of thinking about principles that is eclipsed by traditional interpretations.The traditional approach, concerned as it is to reconstruct the system of Aris-totle’s thought, naively embraces the dialect of domination. In so doing, itremains loyal to Aristotle’s own deep concern to establish order and stabilityin a dynamic world. Yet this reconstructive approach tends to obscure another,more open dimension of Aristotelian thinking: his intense loyalty to thatwhich appears and his deep willingness to modify and revise theoretical posi-tions when they fail to do justice to concrete experience. Rather than seekingto secure the ultimate order of the Aristotelian system, this book is, quite lit-erally, peripatetic, for it attempts to walk with Aristotle as he thinks his wayinto the complexities of finite being.

The third way this book seeks to step back behind the orthodox Aristo-tle is by calling into question the presumed destination of these various pathsof thinking. At least since the ancient editor, Andronicus, set the books of theMetaphysics in order, it has been assumed that the ultimate culmination of the

xii Preface

work is to be found in Book XII with its account of God, pure thought think-ing itself, who serves as the ultimate principle of order. Yet however enticingthis theoretical abstraction may be, however intoxicating may be the languageAristotle uses to describe it, it is by no means clear that all of the paths ofAristotelian thinking lead to God. Rather, this book suggests that the variouspaths of Aristotle’s thinking concerning finite ousia lead in a different direc-tion, one that is less concerned with establishing the ultimate principle oforder than it is with doing justice to the phenomenon of the finite individualitself. To anticipate the itinerary of this book, the path of Aristotle’s ontolog-ical engagement with finite being leads from the Categories through the Physicsto the middle books of the Metaphysics, where a dynamic conception of ousiais developed. Insofar as this dynamic ontology thinks ousia as finite and con-tingent, it disrupts the attempt to establish ontology as a rigorous science andpoints to the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle introduces an ethical formof knowledge, phrone \sis, that is capable of doing justice to the finite, contin-gent individual. To put the point boldly, the Metaphysics culminates in theNicomachean Ethics. Ontology is ethical.

In following this path of Aristotle’s thinking, it becomes increasinglyclear that the ontological investigation into the meaning of finite being can-not remain merely theoretical but must descend into the practical realm, forthe very appearance of the finite composite is itself never merely abstract andtheoretical but always already concrete and personal. By tracing the trajectoryof Aristotle’s thinking concerning finite ousia, we come to recognize thatbeing does not appear to us in isolation, that we ourselves collude in the con-struction of the individual, and, finally, that we must become vigilantlyresponsible for and constantly cognizant of this collusion. This ability torespond to the otherness of the Other—complex, ambiguous, but necessary—is the ethics of ontology.

��

This book was born of many long hours of thoughtful discussion andnourished by many cherished relationships. I owe a debt of gratitude to myfamily, who has remained ever supportive and willing to lend me confidencewhen my own was on the wane; to my teachers and friends at the New Schoolfor Social Research, who encouraged me to trust my philosophical instincts;and to my colleagues and students at Stockton College, who work each day toensure that philosophy never becomes an abstract, disengaged discipline. Thebook itself would not have been possible without the generous support ofinstitutional research and professional development grants awarded to me bythe Richard Stockton College. Finally, this book is dedicated to my wife,Valerie Winnicki, who teaches me each day the meaning of justice in relation,that there is freedom in it and infinite joy.

xiiiPreface

To speak once again, and at this late date, of ousia is surely anachronistic. Toonce again take up this ancient concept, this foundational principle, here, now,in the wake of the twentieth century, when so many have suffered in the nameof ultimates, when the seductive aura of the Archimedean dream has finallybegun to wane, this is surely perverse. Yet the decay of the aura of the mod-ern project to seek security in absolute principles gives rise to a new and anequally dangerous delusion: that an epoch of anarchy has dawned in which allappeals to principle are indicted as hegemonic, totalizing, and violent. If themodern mind-set succumbs to the alluring aura of apodeictic absolutes, thenthe postmodern mood attempts to disrupt the violence allegedly endemic tothe very deployment of principles by positing a radical rupture in history itself,a rupture after which every appeal to principles, particularly one so heavilyladen as ousia, is deemed naïve, outdated, and perilous.

The recognition that principles always already include a dangerous dimen-sion of domination emerges only as the legitimacy of a certain economy of prin-ciples begins to wither. At such times, it becomes possible to rethink the mean-ing and function of principles themselves. The appeal to ousia here recalls thelong history of efficacy determined by the unification of the two basic meaningsof the Greek word arche \, principle. Prior to Plato and Aristotle, two distinctsenses of arche \ remained separate: on the one hand, arche \ designated the begin-ning, the first, incipience; on the other hand, it designated the supreme com-mander, that which holds dominion and power.1 Aristotle seems to have broughtthese two determinations of arche \ together into a single philosophical concept,and in his ontological engagement with finite sensible being—ousia—inceptionand domination continually compete with one another for preeminence. Theinterplay between these two dimensions of arche \ is the legacy of ousia.

1

1

The Legacy of Ousia

Although the dimension of domination, which finds a powerful expres-sion in the modern obsession with absolute ultimates, has dominated (from)the beginning, the attempt to think through the legacy of ousia cannot simplyposit a rupture in history on the far side of which principles no longer func-tion violently. There is no stepping back behind the determination of arche \established by Aristotle: principles function hegemonically, but the hegemonicfunctioning of principles cannot be permitted to eclipse the equally importantdimension of incipience. The appeal again to ousia, here, now, is an intentionalprovocation—it at once calls forth this other, eclipsed dimension of arche \ andchallenges the attempt to leave history behind. If, however, we do not join inthe rush toward rupture, neither do we attempt to rejuvenate the self-decep-tion of modernity by appealing, once again, to the aura of absolute ultimates.No, it is too late for that, and we too wise.

Yet even at this late hour, the promise of an ultimate, authoritative arche \remains seductive. The Archimedean dream still haunts us, for there remainsthe desire for an ultimate measure, for an end to the questioning, for a lastcourt of appeal where disputes are once and for all decided—it is the desire forsecurity in an uncertain world. Although Descartes situates the Archimedeanideal at the center of the modern philosophical project,2 the obsession withcertainty and order does not begin with him. It is as ancient as philosophyitself. In fact, Aristotle suggests that something similar was already at stakewhen the Platonists, convinced by the Heraclitean contention that all sensiblethings are in a state of flux, posited Forms existing in separation from the sen-sible things, which themselves were not subject to change.3 Thus the Platon-ists and the Cartesians,4 like the rest of us, immediately respond to the expe-rience of flux, instability, and uncertainty in the same manner: by grasping forsomething fixed, by positing a principle according to which order may onceagain be secured. As long as this immediate reflex in the face of uncertaintymotivates the deployment of principles, then the dimension of dominationwill continue to eclipse that of incipience and an ever-new ultimate arche \willseek to subvert all that dares to challenge its authority.

However, at least since Kant, this impulse toward foundational ultimatesand the assumptions underlying it have been increasingly called into question.If the uncritical affirmation of the Archimedean ideal is recognized as onedimension of “modernism,” then a profound skepticism about the feasibilityof this ideal may be identified as one dimension of what has come to beloosely called “postmodernism.”5 Yet there is also a discernable postmoderntendency not only to call into question the legitimacy of foundational ulti-mates but also to be suspicious of all appeals to principles. In order to segre-gate itself from the modern obsession with foundational ultimates, the post-modern mood posits a radical rupture in history. The impetus behind this is aheightened sensitivity to the very real dangers of what may be called “totaliz-ing thinking.” Thinking becomes totalizing when it convinces itself that the

2 The Ethics of Ontology

concepts with which it necessarily operates are capable of comprehending allit encounters without remainder; it becomes totalitarian when this self-decep-tion turns dogmatic and loses the capacity to critically consider the contin-gency of the principles it deploys. In one sense, the entire history of Westernphilosophy has been haunted by a totalizing tendency that all too frequentlyruns the risk of turning genuinely totalitarian. The postmodern rejection ofhegemonic principles, when seen against the backdrop of the totalizing ten-dencies of Western philosophy, is as understandable as it is laudable. However,because the outright rejection of principles also involves the renunciation ofthe possibility of responsibility, the price that postmodernism pays for its cri-tique is too high, for it runs the risk of trading the totalizing tendencies ofmodernity for an equally dangerous sort of anarchism.

There is a twofold irony in this situation. First, arising out of a genuineethical concern to do justice to that which escapes determination by the con-cept and to reconsider the manner in which we think and act as finite beingsin a contingent world, the outright rejection of principles in fact underminesthe very possibility of ethics. The postmodern renunciation of absolute ulti-mates affirms both the situated finitude of worldly existence that philosophyhas for so long sought to escape and the inherent limitations of conceptualthinking. The affirmation of anarchy, however, annihilates the possibility ofethics by undermining the legitimacy of the very deployment of principlesthat serves as the condition for the possibility of justice. Without principles,justice is impossible, for justice requires judgment, and judgment, the deploy-ment of principles. The ethical impulse to do justice to otherness by rejectingprinciples destroys the only context within which justice is possible.

The second irony of the postmodern critique is that the rupture of his-tory that serves to segregate it from the modern epoch is nothing more thana repetition of the Cartesian abandonment of the “study of letters,” though theimpetus is different.6 Whereas Descartes abandons the history of philosophybecause its indefinite pluralism undermines his quest for certainty, postmod-ernism rejects the same history because it seeks to secure certainty and orderby positing ultimate principles as absolute. Surely at this late date a return tothe philosophy of ultimates would be misguided. Yet it remains possible torecover Descartes’ recognition of the diversity of the history of philosophywithout endorsing his thematization of this diversity as a detriment. Despitethe radical indictment of philosophy leveled by such great twentieth-centurythinkers as Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, and Emmanuel Levinas, thediversity of the tradition still stands as its greatest resource. This diversity canbe of great assistance in the attempt to think a way between the totalizing ten-dencies of modernism and the anarchy of postmodernism, the delusionaldream of objectivism and the cynical affirmation of relativism. Rethinking thelegacy of ousia allows us to retrieve the meaning of arche \ as incipience that hasremained obscured by philosophy’s obsession with ultimate absolutes.

3The Legacy of Ousia

The term ousia—which is often translated as “substance,” but which willremain untranslated here and throughout to undermine the foundational con-notations associated with that term—names the first principle of Westernphilosophy. Aristotle himself set the framework for any future ontology: “Andindeed, in early times, now and always, the inquiry, indeed always the per-plexity concerning what being is (ti to on) is just this: ‘what is ousia?’”7 By shift-ing the focus of the question of being from to on to he \ ousia, Aristotle deter-mines the trajectory of Western ontology. However, the significance of thisdetermination remains, 2,400 years later, a matter still in need of questioning.

To think being in terms of ousia, it has been said, is to reify being, tounderstand it as an entity rather than as a dynamic process. Heidegger hassuggested that this determination of being is a result of the general Greekinfatuation with poie \sis, the capacity to make or produce, and betrays what hecalls a “productive comportment” toward beings.8 If such a productive com-portment determines the so-called “history of metaphysics,” then perhaps thevery beginning of “metaphysics” may be traced to this sentence in Aristotle.Aristotle himself would then be responsible for the “forgetfulness of being.”9

However, Aristotle’s insistence that the general, and far too abstract, question“What is being?” must always be guided by the question “What is ousia?” maynot have the negative impact that Heidegger ascribes to it. Perhaps it is theresult of Aristotle’s deep conviction that the question concerning the meaningof being must always be directed toward some definite, determinate being, abeing that is eclipsed each time ontology allows itself to be directed toward toon itself. If this is the case—and the extent to which Aristotle’s conception ofsensible ousia remains assiduously directed toward the concrete individual willoccupy a good portion of this work—there then emerges another possibilitylurking in the very beginnings of the “history of metaphysics.” Precisely sucha possibility emerges in the wake of the radical critiques of this history leveledby Theodor Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas.

CRITIQUE AS RESOURCE: ADORNO AND LEVINAS

In response to the horrendous atrocities of the twentieth century, bothAdorno and Levinas denounce the totalizing tendencies of Western philoso-phy. In his Negative Dialectics, Adorno writes: “The proposition common toall emphatic philosophy—as opposed to skeptical philosophy, which refusessuch emphasis—was that it could only be possible as system. . . . The system,a form of representation of a totality to which nothing remains external,absolutely sets thought over each of its contents and vaporizes the content inthoughts: idealistic before all argumentation for idealism.”10 With the possibleexception of Hegel—with respect to whom Adorno develops this line of cri-tique—there is perhaps no better model for the sort of emphatic philosophy


of which Adorno speaks than Aristotle, or so traditional interpretations ofAristotle’s thought would have us believe. At least since Aquinas, Aristotle hasbeen held up as the Philosopher par excellence. His is thought to be anemphatic philosophy that forms a coherent and cohesive system designed tooffer a rational account of all that exists. The widely held belief that the Meta-physics is a unified whole culminating in the speculative heights of Book XIIin which Aristotle posits God as pure act, the ultimate principle of being,embraces this vision of Aristotle as emphatic philosopher.11 However, everyattempt to render Aristotle’s thought consistent and complete fails to do jus-tice to the dynamic nature of his thinking, to the elasticity of his mind, and tohis willingness to risk failure rather than to establish certainty by stealth.12

There is more to Aristotle than emphatic philosophy. To reject his think-ing as one more philosophy of totality is not much better than joining in withthe traditional praise it has so often received as the greatest example of sys-tematic philosophical thought. Adorno is surely right to be suspicious of allsystems of identity, and if the traditional interpretation of Aristotle’s thoughtis correct in reading it as the highest expression of such a system, then he isjustified in calling it to account along with the rest of the history of Westernphilosophy. Yet Adorno too recognizes in Aristotle the tension that under-mines his tendency toward totality; it is the tension actualized by Aristotle’sattention to the individual. Adorno anticipates much of what we will have tosay about this tension when he writes: “no plea for the blessings of orderremoves the difficulties that the relationship between tode ti and pro \te \ ousia inthe Aristotelian metaphysics prepares.”13 If, as will be argued later, the termtode ti, in its most straightforward sense, designates the concrete individual,and pro \te \ousia names the ultimate, hegemonic principle of being, then the dif-ficulties to which Adorno refers already point to the tension that animates thisinvestigation—the tension between the individual and the principle accordingto which it first becomes accessible. This tension, endemic to all ontologicalencounter, is the site from which ontology first becomes possible and to whichit must remain ultimately accountable.

Traditional ontology has sought to resolve this tension by seeking refugein hegemonic principles. Hypnotized by the plea for the blessings of order andconfident in the certainty of the principles that it already possesses, traditionalontology attempts to secure stability by determining the being of the individ-ual according to principles firmly established prior to the encounter with theindividual itself. Thus the being of the individual is reduced to the conceptsaccording to which emphatic ontology seeks to establish order; justice isexchanged for the illusion, at least, of freedom and stability. Yet however con-fident emphatic ontology may be in the certainty of its principles, the tensionremains, for the individual never goes cleanly into the concepts according towhich it is determined. This remainder, which ironically emerges only as prin-ciples are deployed, undermines the quest for absolute order and reveals the


conceit of emphatic ontology’s confidence in the capacity of its concepts tocompletely capture the being of the individual. To do justice to this remain-der, and thus to the being of the individual itself, the deployment of principlesmust be infused with an openness that refuses to succumb to the delusionaldesire for absolute certainty. This need not involve the renunciation of princi-ples altogether; indeed, it cannot, for it is only through the deployment ofprinciples that the individual emerges as a being for whom a claim to justicemay be recognized. Required, rather, is a retrieval of the dimension of incipi-ence latent in the original meaning of the word arche \, an incipience thatremains riveted to the direct encounter with the individual. To emphasizedirect ontological encounter as first principle in this sense, however, is to shiftthe focus of ontology away from a purely theoretical obsession with Truthtoward an ethical concern for justice.

Aristotle’s insistence that the question concerning the meaning ofbeing—ontology—can only be properly posed when it is directed nottoward the abstract to on but to the concrete ousia opens up another possi-bility for ontology. This other ontology is neither guided by the quest forcertainty and order nor deluded by the false belief in the capacity of its con-cepts to comprehend the being of the individual; rather, it is directed towardthe concrete encounter with the individual itself, dedicated to doing justiceto the being of that with which it is concerned. This other ontology is theontology of the Other. As such, it is inherently ethical. If Adorno’s critiqueanticipates the ethics of ontology by insisting on both the need for and thelimitations of principles, then it is Emmanuel Levinas who in emphasizingthe priority of the encounter with the Other gives the ethics of ontology itsconcrete determination.

For the most part, Levinas situates Aristotle within what he thematizesas the totalizing tradition of Western philosophy.14 This tradition, which Lev-inas often simply names “ontology” but which might more appropriately bedubbed “emphatic ontology,” is understood in the following terms: “Westernphilosophy has most often been an ontology: a reduction of the other to thesame by interposition of a middle and neutral term that ensures the compre-hension of being.”15 Although this conception of Western philosophy in gen-eral and ontology in particular emerges out of Levinas’s intense criticalengagement with Heideggerian thinking, it could just as easily be developedout of a traditional reading of Aristotle’s onto-theology.

From this perspective, it would not be hyperbolic to say that Aristotle isthe arche \ of Western philosophy as emphatic ontology. Again, one need lookno further than Metaphysics XII to find precisely the neutral term that ensuresthe comprehension of all being: God as unmoved mover, thought thinkingitself. This is the ultimate principle of order in Aristotle, the foundation uponwhich the entire universe rests. When this idea is maximized and the entiretyof Aristotle’s thinking is interpreted in its shadow, then Aristotle emerges clearly


as the father of totalizing ontology, one of the earliest and most successfulthinkers to reduce all otherness to the hegemony of the Same. It is no acci-dent that Hegel, probing the history of philosophy for a model by which todevelop a conception of free subjectivity suited to his own idealism, came torecognize Aristotle’s thematization of God as thought thinking itself as thehighest expression of pure subjectivity.16 While it is perhaps an inexcusablemisreading of Hegel to characterize his thinking as dedicated to a reductionof all otherness to the Same—as Levinas himself sometimes seems to sug-gest—it is nevertheless true that subjective idealism’s preoccupation with thefreedom of the subject, its tendency to see a neutral Spirit behind all histori-cal happenings, and its bold presumption that the concepts of the thinkingsubject are capable of completely comprehending the world are elements ofthe modern mind-set that may fairly be characterized as totalizing. Given thisgenealogy, it is possible to trace this tradition of totalizing back to the heartof Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

But this is only one possible story that might be told. Indeed, Levinas’spowerful critique of Western thinking and his insistence that “ethics precedesontology” together serve as an invitation not to abandon the entire history ofphilosophy but to rethink it as something other than a history of totalizingontologies, searching all the while for the trace of that ethical impulse that iseclipsed by the traditional preoccupation with systematic totality. The ethicalimpulse sought here is decidedly not grounded in yet another foundationalultimate. It does not seek to establish a set of eternal precepts that would serveas an infallible guide to action. There is a difference between morality andethics. Morality seeks security in firm foundational principles, and in so doingit annihilates the very possibility of ethics; for ethics always involves morethan the simple imposition of predetermined principles upon each new situa-tion. Levinas suggests the more complex vision of ethics that guides thisinvestigation when he writes: “critique does not reduce the other to the sameas does ontology, but calls into question the exercise of the same. A callinginto question of the same—which cannot occur within the egoist spontaneityof the same—is brought about by the other. We name this calling into ques-tion of my spontaneity by the presence of the Other ethics.”17 Ethics and cri-tique are intertwined: the condition for the possibility of critique is the pres-ence of the Other; ethics is the attempt to do justice to the claim concomitantwith this presence. The otherness of the Other always escapes conceptualiza-tion. Its irreducibility calls into question the authority of the spontaneity ofthe Same. To assert that “ethics precedes ontology,” as Levinas does, is to callinto question the self-indulgent assumption on which emphatic ontology isbased: the thinking subject has absolute access to the Other; what exists iscapable of being completely captured by the free exercise of thought. Yet how-ever radical Levinas’s suggestion may be, it has in fact always been the casethat ethics precedes ontology, though ontology has forever sought to deny this


its ethical heritage.18 Ethics always already precedes ontology because, at itscore, ontology is grounded in the actual encounter with an Other. Prior to allclaims of knowledge, to all systems of totality according to which the world isset in order, to all appeals to some neutral term that comprehends being,ontology finds itself faced with the Other. This is where ontology begins; thisis its arche \ and the telos toward which it must always be directed. This is whatrenders ontology ethical, and ethics ontological.

Levinas’s indictment of the history of Western philosophy as “ontology”opens up the possibility of rethinking the traditional understanding of ontol-ogy itself. Such a project, however, is historically conditioned and cannot pro-ceed without engaging the tradition in which it is embedded. Levinas himselfrecognizes that certain dimensions of the history of philosophy cannot becharacterized as totalizing. Infinity seeps through the fissures in the totalitythat is the history of Western philosophy. In Descartes’ perception of God inthe Third Meditation, in Plato’s conception of the Good beyond being, andeven in Aristotle’s conception of the active intellect, Levinas finds traces ofnon-totalizing thinking.19 Thus Levinas seems to endorse what has alreadybeen suggested: the very history of philosophy can be a resource for attemptsto undermine and move beyond the tradition of totalizing thinking.

Aristotle occupies a unique position in this tradition. On the one hand,he may be understood as the father of the totalizing tendencies that havehaunted the history of Western philosophy for millennia. On the other hand,one of the deepest convictions of his ontology—the insistence that the ques-tion of being, to on, must always be asked as the question of ousia—seems tosuggest a concern for the concrete being that disrupts the consolidation ofbeing into a totality. Indeed, one way to read the difficult middle books of theMetaphysics, in which Aristotle diligently pursues the being of finite ousia, isas an attempt to do justice to the individual even as a general account of theorder of being is developed. Aristotle’s unwillingness to sacrifice the individ-ual to the universal generates, as he himself recognizes, the greatest difficul-ties for his attempt to establish ontology as a science. These difficulties them-selves serve as heuristic devices for the present attempt to develop anon-totalizing ontology grounded in the relation to the concrete individual.

Central to this investigation will be a reconsideration of the meaning ofthe Aristotelian tode ti, an equivocal term used most often to designate theconcrete ousia with which ontology must be concerned. The term will, for themost part, remain untranslated, for all translations are doomed to be just asawkward as the insertion of the Greek term itself. For Levinas, and for manyAristotle scholars, the term designates the concrete particular as an instantia-tion of some universal essence. Levinas writes: “The particularity of the tode tidoes not prevent the singular beings from being integrated into a whole, fromexisting in function of the totality, in which this singularity vanishes.”20 Herethe tode ti is already situated on the side of totality—it names one way, per-


haps the first way, in which the singular is integrated into the totality, reducedto the concepts of the Same. There is, however, a more subtle gradation here,one that will prove to be of great significance for the reinterpretation of Aris-totle’s ontology offered later. We may follow Levinas in his affirmation of thesingularity of the Other and in his insistence that the Other, as singular, isunknowable for it escapes the concept. However, Levinas’s move from singu-larity directly to particularity—from the Other as completely recalcitrant tothe concept, to the completely conceptualized Other—blurs an importantmoment that must be maintained. Before the singular is integrated into thetotality, before it becomes particular, it manifests itself as individual. The indi-vidual is encountered on the frontier between the utter darkness of its ownsingularity and the pure light of particularity; it hovers in the shadows, so tospeak, both accessible to the concepts of the Same and never completely cap-tured by them. The individual, like Adorno’s Gegenstand, does not go into itsconcept without remainder.21 The term tode ti designates this individualemerging out of its isolated singularity, prior to its being reduced to particu-larity, the mere instantiation of a dominating concept.

For Levinas, the tode ti is already an expression of the concept.22 This is,in part, correct, for as individual, the Other has already entered into the con-ceptual framework of the Same. The singularity of the Other is sacrificed asit enters the sphere of meaningful relation, for there is no meaning for human-beings without concepts. To the extent, however, that the Same is so duped byan infatuation with its own concepts that it believes itself to be in full posses-sion of the Other through them, the individuality of the Other dissolves intoparticularity, its singularity completely eclipsed by the hegemony of the con-cept. The Same consolidates the delusion of its own absolute authority by ren-dering the singular particular; whatever “knowledge” it convinces itself it hasgained is nothing more than a narcissistic confirmation of its own prejudice.Genuine knowledge is possible only where the deployment of concepts neces-sary to establish an encounter with the Other as individual is tempered by theconscientious recognition of and respect for the singularity of the Other thatescapes all conceptualization. If the Other sacrifices its singularity for the sakeof relation, then the Same must relinquish its delusions and be prepared to betaught. Only then, when grace and will converge, is genuine ontologicalknowledge possible.

If one side of the legacy of ousia is to reduce the singularity of the individ-ual to particularity by appealing to absolute principles, then the other side of thislegacy is the attempt to do justice to the individual as such. This latter side ofthe legacy has always lurked just under the surface of the totalizing tradition,though it finds itself being obfuscated each time the ambiguities endemic tothe encounter with the individual are sacrificed for security.23 Levinas andAdorno, each in his own way, retrieve this lost legacy of ousia and offer theconceptual apparatus according to which another sort of ontology can be


developed, one that conscientiously confirms the singularity of the Other byseeking to do justice to individuality. To further develop this other, ethicalontology is the impetus behind the following interpretation of Aristotle andthe rather bold suggestion that the ontology developed in the Metaphysics ulti-mately culminates not in Book XII, where Aristotle affirms the grand purityof God’s self-thinking, but in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, where hedevelops a conception of contingent knowledge, phrone \sis, capable of doingjustice to the finite individual.

THE HERMENEUTIC APPROACH

The claim that the Metaphysics culminates in the Nicomachean Ethics under-cuts the orthodox reading of Aristotle. The orthodox Aristotle is the emphaticphilosopher wedded to a stable vision of the universe teleologically guided byGod as the ultimate principle of order. The orthodox Aristotle is the system-atic thinker par excellence, a philosopher of totality. This Aristotle is nochimera; indeed, he has dominated the history of Western ontology from itsinception. This book does not intend to reject the orthodox Aristotle outright;rather, it seeks to delineate other, less totalizing dimensions of Aristotle’sthinking in order to develop a conception of ontology that is neither totaliz-ing nor anarchic.

Aristotle’s thinking offers a unique site from which to develop such aconception of ontology. His intense interest in order and his firm belief in theefficacy and necessity of principles situate him in direct opposition to thepostmodern tendency to eschew principles altogether. In this, Aristotle servesas a bastion against anarchism. On the other hand, Aristotle is equally con-cerned to “save the phenomena,” to do justice to the appearance of the indi-vidual. This dimension of his thinking, when set against the former recogni-tion of the importance of principles, generates a fundamental tension inAristotle’s thinking. This tension, never fully reconciled, renders Aristotle’sthinking recalcitrant to unequivocal interpretation. This recalcitrance is itself,however, fecund, for it forces each new generation to come to grips on its ownterms with the thinking expressed in the inherited writing.

Here, of course, a distinction is made between Aristotle’s thinking and histhought. We will be concerned exclusively with his thinking, resisting thetemptation to reify it by attempting to explain away all contradictions in orderto render it complete, systematic, and consistent. The hermeneutics of moder-nity has taught us to value systematic completeness over all else, to presumethat genius lies in clarity and consistency; it has perpetuated the illusion thatthinkers, if they are great, give birth spontaneously to complete, robust philo-sophical systems, as Athena, in full armor, leaps from the head of Zeus. Yetgreat thinkers are engaged with the world, and their thinking reflects the


uncertainty of this engagement. What makes Aristotle so difficult to read isalso what makes his thinking inexhaustibly abundant: the elasticity of hismind and his willingness to constantly reconsider and revise his previous posi-tions. What we encounter in the writing that we have inherited from Aristo-tle is a thinking on the way, a dynamic thinking, not a complete system ofthought. All hermeneutic approaches guided by the attempt to delineate thesystematic completeness of Aristotle’s thought run the risk of missing thefecund surplus of his thinking.

Because this book is animated by the tensions of Aristotle’s thinking, itshermeneutic intention differs from the many excellent classical studies ofAristotle that remain intent on offering an immanently consistent reconstruc-tion of his thought. The present work has benefited greatly from the manyinsights to be found in such excellent studies, but its interest lies elsewhere.We return to Aristotle not as an exercise in philology, though philologicaltechniques are often used, but as a resource for the attempt to rethink themeaning of principles in the face of the failure of modernism and the inade-quacy of the postmodern critique.

Here we are guided not by the modern hermeneutics of reconstructionbut by the Gademerian hermeneutics of application. The basic insight ofGademer’s hermeneutics is that understanding and interpretation are inti-mately bound up with application, that the interpreter, historically situated,can only properly understand the truth of the historical text by bringing aconcrete question to bear upon it, a question determined by the present situ-ation in which the interpreter is embedded. Gadamer writes: “Now, ourreflections have led us to the insight that in understanding there alwaysinvolves something like an application of the text to be understood to theinterpreter’s present situation.”24 For Gadamer, understanding is part of aunified process that always includes interpretation and application. In delin-eating the importance of application as a guide for understanding, Gadamerlooks to Aristotle’s conception of phrone \sis, for in phrone \sis, Gadamer recog-nizes a conception of knowledge that takes seriously the radical embedded-ness of the knower: “Ethical knowledge, as Aristotle describes it, is obviouslynot objective knowledge. The knower does not stand over against a situationthat he merely establishes, rather he is directly confronted by what he per-ceives.”25 There is no abstract neutral position, no God’s eye view, from whichthe true meaning of the text may be divined. Rather, the text and the inter-preter are always involved in a historically conditioned relationship in whichnew meaning emerges as a result of their direct encounter. For Gadamer, thistakes the form of a sort of questioning. He writes: “He who desires to thinkmust himself question. . . . This is the reason why understanding is alwaysmore than the mere reconstruction of another’s meaning. Questioning laysopen possibilities of meaning and thus what is meaningful passes into one’sown thinking.”26 The truth of any text only emerges in the dialogical relation


between it and its interpreter. This relationship, however, is always histori-cally conditioned; indeed, history itself is the unfolding of the process set inmotion by such questioning encounters. Application is an integral dimensionof understanding and interpretation, because it highlights the fact that eachinterpretation of the text is set forth from within a particular context thatserves as the very condition for the possibility of understanding itself.

Here, then, we take up the Aristotelian text not as something to be recon-structed and rendered consistent and complete but as a genuine “Thou,” apartner—albeit impersonal—from which there is much to learn about theissues with which we are concerned. The orthodox objection, of course, will bethat we are reading too much of ourselves back into the text, that the text hasan objective independence and an authority that thwarts every attempt to ren-der it relevant to the present situation. The response to this is twofold. First,despite the modern prejudice against prejudice, there is no way to segregateourselves from the prejudgments that condition us and through which under-standing first becomes possible. Gadamer has recognized this in his attemptsto delineate the conditions for the possibility of understanding. Understand-ing always involves prejudice. This is no endorsement of the sort of “blindprejudice” that is so often the source of great violence. Rather, it is the recog-nition of a basic fact of human finitude, to be neither forgotten nor denied,that all understanding involves some prejudice, because not only are we alwaysalready situated in the world, but our thinking is necessarily discursive, requir-ing concepts to produce meaning.27 This sort of prejudice, following RichardBernstein’s elucidation of Gadamer’s text, may be called “enabling” to distin-guish it from the sort of “blind” prejudice that always serves to limit the pos-sibility of genuine understanding.28 The only way to ensure that enabling prej-udices do not calcify into blind prejudices is to risk our prejudices by enteringinto a dialogical encounter with that which we seek to understand; for it ishere, in the encounter with the Other, that genuine understanding firstbecomes possible.

The second response to the orthodox objection is that the text itself isalways already relevant to the present situation, because it is by nature histor-ically effective. This is particularly true of the Aristotelian texts whose histor-ical impact can hardly be overrated. Here again, Gadamer’s hermeneutics isgermane. He writes: “we should learn to understand ourselves more properlyand recognize that in all understanding, whether one is conscious of it or not,the efficacy of effective history is at work.”29 He continues:

In fact the horizon of the present is constantly in the process ofbeing formed because we must continually test our own prejudices.To this sort of testing belongs not least the encounter with the pastand the understanding of the tradition from which we come. Thus,the horizon of the present does not form itself without the past.


There is no more [a] horizon of the present in itself than there arehistorical horizons that have to be acquired. Rather, understandingis always the process of the fusion of such horizons allegedly exist-ing for themselves.30

This conception of history, as a constant mediation between past and presentmanifesting itself as a “fusion of horizons,” recognizes the efficacy of the pastand its impact on the present. It thus implicitly justifies every attempt toreconsider, requestion, and rethink the texts that have determined the think-ing of the present. Gadamer’s appeal to a “fusion of horizons,” however, mustbe handled with care, for there is in the term fusion the connotation of an ulti-mate reconciliation, a consolidation of the horizons into something stable, rei-fied, and closed. This, however, is anathema to the very conception of “hori-zon” in Gadamer, which is fundamentally distorted whenever it is renderedclosed and self-contained. For Gadamer, a horizon names the fluid and situ-ated standpoint within which beings are encountered. A horizon both sets theframework within which this relation happens—is the condition for its possi-bility—and remains always open to new encounters.31 The “fusion of hori-zons” gives rise to new horizons, which themselves both frame and open newpossibilities of encounter. In taking up Aristotle’s texts again, in approachingthem as a “Thou” from which we can learn, we need not infuse them with anaura of authority that they do not have. Rather, they must be approached withrespect, as one would approach any Other from whom one hopes to learn, rec-ognizing that this very process of questioning accomplishes the “fusion ofhorizons” that constitutes the present and opens us up to new possibilities forthe future. This is the approach to Aristotle taken here.

THE ITINERARY

To trace the trajectory of Aristotle’s engagement with finite, sensible ousia inorder to develop a conception of ontology that is fundamentally ethical is tofollow Aristotle in two ways. First, it is to follow the spirit of Aristotle’s ownapproach to his predecessors. Aristotle was the first to explicitly engage hispredecessors in such a way as to situate his own thinking in relation to theirs.However, he rarely addresses his predecessors with the intent of merelyreconstructing their original ideas. Rather, he brings their thinking to bear onthe philosophical questions with which he himself was most concerned. Hisown thinking is therefore both indebted to them and something creativelynew. To put this in Gadamerian terms, Aristotle’s thinking is itself theexpression of a fusion of horizons that emerges as he applies the thinking ofhis philosophical ancestors to the concrete question toward which he isdirected. Aristotle has often been criticized for not having done justice to the


thought of his predecessors; indeed, his readings are often so closely con-nected to his own philosophical insights that it is difficult to determine theoriginal thinking behind the interpretation. This difficulty is, however, atten-uated by Aristotle’s precision. As Guthrie has convincingly argued, Aristotleis careful to modulate his explicit verbal expressions to distinguish his owninterpretive insertions from what his predecessors wrote or were said to haveheld.32 In dealing with Empedocles, for example, Aristotle explicitly alertsreaders that he does not follow Empedocles’ indistinct expressions but ratherthe direction of his thought.33 Similarly with Thales, Aristotle is careful to dis-tinguish what Thales is thought to have said—that the arche \ is water—fromhis own conjecture as to why he might have held such a view—“getting hisidea perhaps (iso \s) from seeing that the nourishment of all things is moist.”34

If there is any doubt here that this is Aristotle’s own conjecture, the iso \s, or“perhaps,” renders it unambiguous. Such signifiers suggest that Aristotleresponsibly distinguishes attempted reconstruction from interpretive conjec-ture. The interpretation of Aristotle offered here will attempt to be at least ascareful to delineate where it diverges from anything that might reasonably beascribed to Aristotle as Aristotle himself is with respect to his predecessors.

Second, to trace the trajectory of Aristotle’s engagement with finite sen-sible ousia is to become genuinely peripatetic: it is to follow the paths of Aris-totle’s ontological thinking itself.35 These paths of thinking ought not be con-fused with the development of Aristotle’s thought. Although the so-calleddevelopmentalist readings of Aristotle are surely correct in approaching himas a dynamic thinker whose thought changed and matured as he aged, suchapproaches are inadequate insofar as they remain, first, directed ultimately tothe thought, not the thinking, and second, guided by an almost obsessiveconcern to dissolve contradiction. By speaking of the “paths of Aristotle’sthinking” and not the “development of his thought,” the suggestive possibil-ities latent in Aristotle’s thinking may be traced without endorsing either aspecific story about his biography or the modern hermeneutic obsession withinternal consistency.

There are three discernible, though intimately intertwined, paths in Aris-totle’s thinking concerning finite ousia. Each path is governed by its owneconomy of principles, that is, by a distinct set of concepts designed to cap-ture the being of finite, sensible ousia. Although the three paths of Aristotle’sthinking often merge into one another and proceed for a distance in the samedirection—for Aristotle himself seems unwilling to unequivocally reject any ofthem because each answers some deep concern regarding finite ousia itself—they remain nevertheless clearly identifiable. As long as they are not reifiedand posited as mutually exclusive, the distinction between them is heuristi-cally helpful, for it elucidates the limitations of each economy of principlesand brings the underlying concerns of Aristotle’s ontological engagementwith finite ousia into sharp relief.


The first path, found primarily in the Categories, is governed by what maybe designated as a foundational economy of principles. This economy, whichis the focus of the next chapter, posits an identifiable individual like this horseor this human-being as the foundation of accidental alteration. By establish-ing ousia as the hypokeimenon, or subject, that underlies and remains constantlypresent through change, Aristotle objectifies being by determining it, perhapsfor the first time in the history of Western thinking, as a thing. The founda-tional economy of principles is governed by what may be called a “logic ofthings” that generates a number of difficulties for the ontology of finite ousia.The most pressing of these is the incapacity of the logic of things to accountfor generation. This forces a deepening of the theory and points in the direc-tion of the economy of ontological principles introduced in Physics I.7.

There, the foundational economy, which cannot account for substantialgeneration, merges with a second economy of principles, one decisively deter-mined by both the distinction between form and matter and the model ofmotion. Delineating the dimensions of this the “hylomorphic economy ofkinetic principles” is the focus of chapter 3. However, even here the founda-tional economy is not simply rejected; rather, it remains effective on a numberof different levels. First, the basic intuition that individual natural beings, likethis horse or this human-being, deserve to be called ousiai because they havetheir principle of being in themselves and not in some separate entity remainsdecisive for Aristotle throughout. Second, as the meaning of the hypokeimenonis transformed in the hylomorphic economy, its function—to secure orderthrough change—is transferred to the substantial form. Thus there is not onlya retention of vocabulary in the transition from the foundational to the hylo-morphic economy, there is also a commonality of concern, namely, how toaccount for order in a world of change. The hylomorphic economy of kineticprinciples addresses this concern for continuity by ascribing a powerful newontological role to the form, which emerges as the dominating principle ofbeing. This economy, with its penchant for causal analysis and its tendency tothink being in terms of production, has had a long history of efficacy in theWestern philosophical tradition.

Finally, however, the hylomorphic economy of kinetic principles itselfgives rise to a number of intractable ontological puzzles that require the intro-duction of yet another economy designed to account for the being of finite sen-sible ousia. Chief among these puzzles is the so-called universal/singular apo-ria, which concerns the nature of the ontological principles themselves. Brieflystated, in order to account for both the continuity of substantial change and thepossibility of knowledge, it seems necessary to posit the principle as being insome sense permanent and universal, applying to a plurality of beings in thesame way. On the other hand, because each individual has its principle of beingin itself, it seems that the principle must itself be singular, unique in each indi-vidual. In order to address this problem, the path of Aristotle’s ontological


thinking wends its way toward another economy of principles that finds its fullexpression at the end of the middle books of the Metaphysics, specifically inBooks VIII and IX.36 This will be called the “dynamic economy of ontologicalprinciples” in order to highlight the important role that the concepts ofenergeia, activity, and dunamis, potency, play in it.

Thus chapter 4 sets the framework for the introduction of this newdynamic economy of principles by clarifying the precise nature of the aporiaethat animate Aristotle’s engagement with finite, sensible ousia in the middlebooks of the Metaphysics. Chapter 5 traces the rather difficult path leading tothe dynamic economy by elucidating the failure of the attempt in MetaphysicsVII to account for ousia purely in terms of form. This failure—intimatedalready in Aristotle’s biological writings—is not merely negative; it is also preg-nant with suggestions that are taken up and developed in Metaphysics VIII andIX. In chapter 6, the dynamic economy of principles is shown to be a naturaloutgrowth of the suggestive limitations of the investigation of Metaphysics VII.Here Aristotle’s response to the ontological implications of the universal/sin-gular aporia culminates: ousia is itself the activity that expresses the identity ofenergeia and dunamis. The model according to which this is thought is neitherthat of kine \sis, motion, nor of poie \sis, production, but of praxis, or action. Withthe introduction of praxis in Metaphysics IX, Aristotle reaffirms the dimensionof incipience in his conception of the arche \ of being that had been eclipsed bythe hylomorphic economy of kinetic principles predicated as it is on the dom-ination of form. In so doing, Aristotle suggests the possibility of developing aneconomy of ontological principles dynamic enough to do justice to individual-ity yet firm enough to account for order and stability.

The dynamic economy of principles thematizes ousia in terms of praxis.This opens up the possibility of reading a more intimate link between ontol-ogy and ethics into Aristotle than Aristotle’s explicit statements would seemto allow. Here, however, Montaigne’s suggestion that “no powerful mind stopswithin itself: it is always stretching out and exceeding its capacities” may betaken to heart.37 Aristotle’s thinking exceeds itself; we have inherited from hima surplus of thinking. The final three chapters take up this surplus and developit in a direction that Aristotle himself would not likely have endorsed. Never-theless, the text that he has left us offers significant signposts leading in thedirection that will be suggested.

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle seems to affirm individuality over universal-ity, so that the epistemological side of the universal/singular aporia remainsundischarged. The problem that then emerges is, how is ontological knowledgeat all possible? If, as the middle books of the Metaphysics suggest, finite, sensi-ble ousia is understood as praxis, then perhaps the nature of ontological knowl-edge lies not in episte \me \ but in phrone \sis, the sort of practical knowledge thatAristotle develops in the Nicomachean Ethics to cope with the more dynamicand contingent principles endemic to human praxis. Taking up this suggestion


in chapter 7, we turn to the discussion of actual knowledge in MetaphysicsXIII.10, where Aristotle seems to suggest the possibility that there may be asort of knowledge directed toward the individual itself. The discussion of theMetaphysics is then linked to the Nicomachean Ethics by drawing out the simi-larities in vocabulary between the Metaphysics and Ethics and by emphasizingthe parallel distinctions they establish between praxis and motion and praxisand production, respectively. This is designed to support the bold suggestionthat the Ethics may be read as the natural, albeit unrecognized, culmination ofthe ontological analysis of sensible ousia found in the Metaphysics.

Once this is accomplished, chapter 8 develops and further draws out theimplications of this reading for ontology by outlining the basic structure ofAristotle’s conception of phrone \sis as developed in the Nicomachean Ethics.Here a detailed discussion of the specifically ethical significance of phrone \sis ispresented within the framework of Aristotle’s own ethical theory. The analy-sis is guided by the suggestion that in this text Aristotle points to a form ofknowledge that is neither totalizing nor anarchic. The ontological significanceof Aristotle’s understanding of phrone \sis is developed in the final chapter,which again moves beyond what is explicitly found in Aristotle. The signifi-cance of phrone \sis as an ontological form of knowledge is its recognition thatany account of the being of an individual must take into consideration the richnexus of relations in which that being appears, including the relation betweenthe individual and the one making the ontological judgment. Once the cen-tral importance of the ontological encounter is appreciated, the intimate con-nection between ontology and ethics may be discerned, and an economy ofontological principles will emerge that is capable of critically considering theconditions of its own deployment.


Martin Heidegger identifies Aristotle’s Physics as the “hidden and thereforenever adequately thought through foundational book of Western philosophy,”because here, for the first time, being-moved (kine \sis) is understood and ques-tioned as a basic mode of being.1 According to Heidegger, by approachingbeing from the perspective of motion, Aristotle inaugurates a long history ofmetaphysical thinking obsessed with causal accounts. While it is difficult tounderestimate the impact of the concept of causality on the history of Westernthinking, the conceptual apparatus introduced in the Physics is itself a responseto and expansion upon the limitations of the bold theory offered in the Cate-gories. This theory embraces the thesis that the ordinary objects of everydayexperience are ontologically primary. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann has suggestedthat the “unparalleled success” of this thesis is indicated by the extent to whichit no longer seems distinctly philosophical. Rather, it has come to be seen as themost commonsense way to understand things.2 Without indulging in theoverly romantic, though enticing, vocabulary of “hidden foundational books,”the attempt to rethink the legacy of ousia must begin not with the account ofmotion and the conception of causality developed in the Physics, but with thetheory of ousia as an underlying subject introduced in the Categories.

Ironically, despite its success, Aristotle himself came to see the theoryoffered in the Categories as inadequate, and so he developed a rather differentview in the Physics and Metaphysics. Yet however different the position devel-oped in these latter texts may be, Aristotle never seems to give up on the basicintuition that ordinary beings of everyday experience contain their principleof being in themselves and thus deserve to be treated as ontologically primary

19

2

Foundational Thinking and the Categories

in some sense. Throughout his ontological peregrinations, Aristotle insistsupon what may be called the “autarchy of beings.”3 Indeed, this intuition,operating already in the Categories, opens up another possibility for ontology,for by insisting upon the basic autarchy of beings, Aristotle implicitly recog-nizes singularity, the unassailable unicity of each being. This recognition is thefirst step in shifting ontology away from its tendency to totalize and toward aconcern for justice in which the fundamental autarchy of each being is recog-nized as the very principle to which ontology is ultimately accountable. How-ever, in the Categories, although the autarchy of beings is affirmed, their fini-tude is denied, for the principle according to which these beings areunderstood is fundamentally static.

The primary ousiai of the Categories are things. Each is understood as ahypokeimenon—an underlying subject—that serves as the foundation for a setof ontological distinctions that has become exceedingly familiar. On the onehand, the hypokeimenon establishes the distinction between the primary beingsand their accidental properties. On the other hand, it serves as the ultimatefoundation for a hierarchy of more generic concepts known as “secondaryousiai” that serve to delineate the more universal nature of the primary things.Let us call the mode of thought that deploys such an economy of principles“foundational,” designating by this term a thinking that seeks stability andorder in the constant presence of ultimate underlying principles. Let us fur-ther designate the logic according to which this economy operates, the “logicof things,” and the sort of thinking it embodies “entitative.” If it is recognized,as Michael Frede suggests,4 that Aristotle was the first to take the notion ofan object seriously, and thus was able to establish, for the first time, the dis-tinction, now taken for granted, between objects, their accidental properties,and the more generic categories to which they are said to belong, then it is notdifficult to see how the Categories inaugurates a mode of thinking, decisive forthe history of Western philosophy, that objectifies beings by treating them asimmediately existing things.5

THE LOGIC OF THINGS

Although the logic of things that operates in the Categories is exceedinglyfamiliar, this familiarity must not be permitted to obfuscate its fundamen-tal inadequacy. Thus as a first step in the process of rethinking the legacyof ousia, we would do well to rehearse the basic features of this logic inorder to understand both its appeal and its limitations. In what follows,therefore, we are concerned neither to give a complete account of the Cat-egories nor to identify the impetus behind the innovations Aristotle intro-duces there but rather to identify the nature and function of the economyof principles operating in the text. To this end, we will focus almost exclu-


sively on the foundational principle according to which this economy oper-ates: primary ousia conceptualized as hypokeimenon.

In Categories 5, Aristotle turns his attention to primary ousiai: “Primaryousiai are called ‘ousiai’ in the strictest sense because they underlie all otherthings.”6 Their capacity “to lie under”—hypokeisthai—all things allows con-crete, atomic things to play a foundational role in the ontology of the Cate-gories.7 Aristotle writes: “Thus, if primary ousiai did not exist, it would beimpossible for any of the others [the secondary ousiai and the accidents] toexist.”8 This statement expresses the core assumption of the logic of things,namely, that all being depends upon unanalyzable atomic individual things.What permits these primary entities to play such a founding role, and howdoes Aristotle arrive at them? The answer to the second part of this questionlends insight into the first, for Aristotle’s method itself determines the fourbasic characteristics of primary ousiai established in the Categories.

It is one of Aristotle’s most fundamental intuitions that all philosophicalinquiry should begin from that which is most familiar to us and proceed to thatwhich is first by nature.9 The name for this direction of investigation is “induc-tion” (epago \ge \). However, induction in Aristotle always has a preparatory char-acter: it provides us with a methodological principle, a place to begin.10 In theCategories this manifests itself in Aristotle’s appeal to common language in orderto gain access to the nature of those things that are to act as the founding enti-ties. His procedure is to analyze the manner in which words are commonly usedto gain insight into the nature of how things are in reality. Mann recognizes thiswhen he writes: “Aristotle sets out to use facts about language and its use, not toground metaphysical claims directly, but for heuristic purposes. . . . In other words,the ontology does not stand or fall with the linguistic tests, they rather providea route into the ontology.”11 The analysis of language found in the Categories isnot, then, an end in itself; rather, it is undertaken for heuristic purposes, to lendinsight into the nature of reality.12 The terminology of the Categories reflects thismethodological strategy quite clearly.

Two sorts of predication are distinguished by Aristotle. The first, forlack of a better formulation, may be designated as “said-of predication,” thesecond as “inherence-in predication.”13 These two types of predication, weare told,14 are capable of being applied to everything that is, save for onebasic sort of entity that falls outside of their purview: primary ousia.15 Thislinguistic peculiarity begins the investigation into the nature of primarybeings. Taking his clue from the common manner in which people speak,Aristotle first locates the ontologically primary entities themselves and turnsthen to what may be considered a sort of descriptive analysis of them. Thisanalysis involves the thematization of these entities according to four basiccharacteristics: (1) a primary ousia is an atomic individual and numericallyone, designated here by the term “tode ti,” “this”; (2) a primary ousia has nocontrary; (3) it admits of no variation of degree; and (4) while remaining

21Foundational Thinking and the Categories

numerically one and the same, it may come to possess contrary qualities.16 Ofthese, the first and last are the most significant insofar as they elucidate themanner in which Aristotle accounts for synchronic and diachronic identity inthe Categories. However, the middle two characterizations must not be over-looked, because they indicate the extent to which Aristotle apprehends theprimary entities of the Categories as always already determined, and thus howhe is able to skirt the more difficult question of the ontological ground of thisvery determination.

THE DETERMINATENESS OF PRIMARY OUSIAI

The twin characterizations that primary ousiai neither have contraries noradmit of a variation of degree elucidate what it means to be a completelydeterminate object in the Categories. However, the significance of this deter-minateness itself varies slightly according to the perspective of each charac-terization. On the one hand, the fact that primary ousiai do not have con-traries emphasizes the difference between Aristotle’s own conception of therelationship between the universal and the individual and the Platonic con-ception of participation of which he is critical. On the other hand, the factthat primary ousiai do not admit of a variation of degree underscores the fun-damental distinction that Aristotle establishes between the primary thingsand their properties. With these two characterizations of primary ousiai, Aris-totle at once distances himself from his teacher and develops a philosophicalinnovation all his own. In this respect, these characterizations mirror the gen-eral tone of the Categories as a whole: they give voice to what might be con-sidered Aristotle’s declaration of independence from Platonic philosophy.17 Aswill be seen, however, a Platonic legacy haunts this text at certain decisivepoints and forces Aristotle himself, in the Physics and Metaphysics, to deepenhis position, taking into consideration those elements of the Platonic concep-tion of form that he deems necessary to retain without relinquishing his ded-ication to the autarchy of beings. Let us now turn to the first characterizationthat affirms the determinateness of ousiai in order to begin to see how Aris-totle at once remains loyal to and distances himself from the Platonic visionof the universal/individual relation.

An ousia, Aristotle tells us, has no contrary.18 Contraries are thought tobe the things most different falling under a universal kind—as black andwhite fall under the category “color.” Primary ousiai do not allow themselvesto be categorized in this manner: “For what would be the contrary of a pri-mary ousia? For example, nothing is contrary to an individual human-beingor an individual animal.”19 However, Aristotle does not limit this characteri-zation to primary ousiai; rather, he explicitly extends it to include not onlysecondary ousiai, that is, human or animal, for example, but also other things,


such as determinate quantities.20 The appeal to examples of determinatequantities—“three cubits long,” “the number 10”—suggests that determi-nateness is really Aristotle’s central concern here. By extending this charac-terization to secondary ousiai as well, Aristotle reveals the extent to which heremains dedicated to the Platonic notion that such generic terms are deter-minate in and of themselves and so have a certain ontological independence.It is significant that he opts to elucidate the no contraries characteristic ofprimary ousia with explicit examples not of secondary ousiai but of determi-nate quantities, for if he had focused his attention on secondary ousiai, thequestion as to how such beings come to be fully determinate would haveasserted itself. As will be seen, the logic of things operating in the Categoriesis in no position to address this issue for either secondary or primary ousiai.Indeed, to elucidate the meaning of determinateness by focusing on examplesof determinate quantities is to subtly avoid the very difficult problems thatarise when the question concerning how ousiai themselves come to be deter-mined is considered. Given the nature of inherence-in predication, the exis-tence of a determinate quantity already presupposes the presence of someunderlying subject in which it inheres.

The fact that primary ousiai do not allow for a variation of degree furtherunderscores the extent to which primary ousiai are understood straight awayas fully determinate atomic individuals. In contrast to the characterization ofousiai as having no contraries, however, Aristotle limits the no variation ofdegree characteristic to primary ousiai: “It seems that ousia does not admit ofmore and less. By this I mean not that one ousia cannot be more of an ousiaor less of an ousia than another (for it has already been stated that this is thecase),21 but that each ousia, as such (hoper), is not said to admit of more andless.”22 Although Aristotle is not as explicit about restricting this characteris-tic to primary ousiai as we might wish,23 his appeal to the earlier statement thatsecondary ousiai vary in degree—that is, for example, the genus “animal” maybe said to be less of an ousia than the species “human”—makes it clear that hemeans to designate a characteristic peculiar to primary ousiai. However, themain aim of this aspect of the analysis of primary ousiai does not seem to beto further develop the distinction between primary and secondary ousiai butrather to bring into focus the distinction between fully determinate individualobjects and their properties.

Aristotle was perhaps the first philosopher to take the notion of the indi-vidual object seriously enough to situate the object/property distinction at thecenter of his ontological theory.24 By emphasizing the ontological importanceof this distinction, Aristotle distances himself from the Platonic conception ofparticipation which ascribes primary ontological significance to the univer-sal/individual relationship. The claim that ousiai do not admit of a variation ofdegree underscores the distinction between objects and their properties. Thisis clear from the examples he employs in this context:


For example, if that ousia is a human-being, it cannot be more or lessof a human-being, whether it is compared with itself or with anotherhuman-being; for one human-being is not more of a human-beingthan another as one white thing is more white than another, and onebeautiful thing is more beautiful than another.25

Unlike properties (i.e. qualities, quantities, etc.), a primary ousia has a cer-tain stability insofar as it does not admit of a variation of degree.26 This sta-bility accounts for the privileged position that determinate objects taken asunchanging underlying subjects attain in the Categories, for it allows themto play the foundational role that the logic of things requires of them.Implicit in the notion that primary ousiai do not admit of a variation ofdegree is the assumption that it is the nature of such beings to remain thesame through change; that is, they function as hypokeimena, underlyingsubjects, and serve as the static foundation of being. The tendency to seekthat secure something, that ultimate foundational principle upon which allelse can rest, is a fundamental dimension of the logic of things operating inthe Categories.

By positing things as the foundational principle of being and establish-ing the distinction between these ontologically primary objects and thenonessential properties that inhere in them, Aristotle is able to account forthe manner in which ousiai undergo change while remaining one and thesame.27 By affirming the autarchy of such beings, Aristotle is able to accountfor stability in change. However, the arche \ he posits for such beings is funda-mentally static and thus remains incapable of accounting for anything otherthan accidental alteration. This already suggests the inadequacy of the logicof things operating in the Categories, for it cannot account for the finitude ofits own primary things, namely, the fact that they themselves come into beingand pass away.28

THE STRATEGY OF EVASION

The limitations of the position developed in the Categories gain further focuswhen the first and the fourth of the above-mentioned characterizations areconsidered—that is, that primary ousiai are “thisses,” and that, while remain-ing one and the same, they admit of contraries. A close analysis of these twocharacterizations, however, finds Aristotle engaged in a strategy of evasion. Aswill become clear, Aristotle demonstrates his own deep dissatisfaction withthe account offered in the Categories not by what he says but by what he leavesunsaid. This can be seen quite clearly by analyzing the two kinds of identitythat primary ousiai display: identity at any given time (synchronic identity)and identity over time (diachronic identity).


Synchronic Identity

The question of synchronic identity is introduced in the Categories by a phrasethat here seems to have a popular or at least nontechnical sense: “tode ti.” Aris-totle writes: “It seems that every ousia signifies a this (tode ti). In the case ofprimary ousiai, it is most undisputed and true that they signify a this; for thething being pointed out is indivisible (atomon) and one in number.”29 Therather strange vocabulary of tode ti here seems to refer to something that is awhole of some sort, obviously separate and capable of being demonstrativelydesignated.30 Aristotle is clearly at no pains to define this term, and he simplyemploys it without further clarification. His silence concerning its true signif-icance is itself quite significant. It could, rather prosaically, indicate that he hasnot, as yet, developed the technical sense the term will receive in the Meta-physics.31 However, in the sentence immediately following the one just cited,Aristotle is intent on ruling out the possibility that secondary ousiai deservethe designation tode ti: “But in the case of a secondary ousia, though it appearsto similarly signify a this with respect to the way of speaking about it, as whenone says ‘[a] human’ or ‘[an] animal,’ this is indeed not true, but rather it sig-nifies some quality (poion ti); for the subject is not just one, as in the case of aprimary ousia, but the human or the animal is said of many things.”32 This pas-sage suggests both that Aristotle saw a potential problem here and that he was,for whatever reason, concerned to avoid it. Aristotle proposes the possibilitythat a species or genus may in fact deserve to be called a “this” in a certainsense, only to rule it out.

The first hint of evasion is here manifest. Aristotle seems to have recog-nized that the Categories is in no position to deal with the possibility that sec-ondary ousiai could be themselves considered “thisses,” because this wouldhave given them an ontological status that the conceptual apparatus of theCategories is ill equipped to handle. In the absence of the form/matter dis-tinction that plays such a vital role in the ontology of the Physics and Meta-physics, the Categories cannot entertain the possibility that secondary ousiaimay be able, of themselves, to account for their own synchronic identity.33 Inthe Categories, all being is borrowed from primary ousiai. Only as the hege-mony of the logic of things in Aristotle breaks down does the necessity for adistinction between form and matter gain in urgency. The presentiment ofsuch a breakdown is inherent in the very suggestion that the species or genusmay, in a certain sense, be called a “this,” for if secondary ousiai were giventhe ontological authority to account for their own synchronic identity, thenthe absolute ontological dependence upon the atomic individual would becalled into question, and Aristotle would be forced to reconsider the precisenature of the primary/secondary ousia relationship. Such a reconsiderationwould call into question the synchronic identity of the primary ousiai them-selves, for they would seem to be ontologically dependent to some degree on


secondary ousiai. In fact, the introduction of the form/matter distinction,which occurs in Physics I.7, when Aristotle fully faces the problem of sub-stantial generation, is the result of precisely such a reconsideration of the pri-mary/secondary ousia relationship.

Here in the Categories, however, the possibility that a secondary ousia maybe called a tode ti must be ruled out specifically, because Aristotle’s thinking isfundamentally governed by a logic of things that founds all ontological iden-tity upon primary ousiai which, in order to retain their ontological priority,must be made independently responsible for their own synchronic identity.This sort of naïve notion of independence in which objects are taken as imme-diately self-grounded is symptomatic of a continuing loyalty to the logic ofthings. Aristotle’s faith in the immediate ontological independence and prior-ity of primary ousiai is affirmed in the passage quoted earlier:34 The reason,Aristotle tells us, that secondary ousiai are not “thisses” is that they are generalterms “said of many things,” whereas it is “most undisputed” that a primaryousia indicates a “this” straight away.

Nevertheless, Aristotle does not want to reduce secondary ousiai to merequalities, and he hints at his own ambivalence concerning his account of theontological status of secondary ousiai in the following statement: “But[‘human’ or ‘animal’—that is, a secondary ousia] does not simply signify somequality, as does ‘white,’ for ‘white’ signifies nothing other than a quality,whereas a species or a genus determines the quality of an ousia, for it signifiesan ousia qualified in some way.”35 This sentence is haunted by Aristotle’s loy-alty to Platonic theory. On the one hand, the foundational strategy thataffirms the primacy of atomic individuals makes it quite clear that the Cate-gories cannot grant synchronic identity—and with it ontological preemi-nence—to secondary ousiai; on the other hand—perhaps because he does notwant to completely reject the Platonic affirmation of the ontological efficacyof universals—Aristotle refuses to reduce secondary ousiai to mere qualities forthis would pervert the universal/individual relation into just another instanceof the object/property dichotomy. Thus even here in the Categories, the rela-tion between primary and secondary ousiai seems to be ontologically signifi-cant in a manner in which the relation between primary ousiai and their acci-dental properties is not: secondary ousiai determine the nature of primaryousiai in some ontologically important way.

This emphasis on the determining function of secondary ousiai antici-pates the discussion of the determining nature of form in the Physics andMetaphysics.36 However, in the Categories, Aristotle avoids considering thenature of the primary/secondary ousia relation, and finding himself up againstthe limits of his own foundational thinking, he simply asserts that it is just notthe case that secondary ousiai are to be considered individual and numericallyone—a secondary ousia is not a tode ti. Secondary ousiai do not have syn-chronic identity in and of themselves, whereas primary ousiai, being quite


obviously individual and numerically one, are independently and immediatelyresponsible for their own synchronic identity. This, then, is one fundamentalreason atomic individuals like this human-being and this horse emerge as theentities capable of founding the ontology established in the Categories.

Diachronic Identity

These primary entities not only establish their own synchronic identity, theyare capable of accounting for their own diachronic identity as well. Aristotleclaims that this is the fundamental characteristic of an ousia: “It seems that themost proper mark of an ousia is that, while remaining numerically one and thesame, it admits of contraries.”37 Here a dynamic element is introduced into adiscussion which to this point has focused almost exclusively on the staticnature of primary ousiai. However, Aristotle is quite careful to reign in andlimit this dynamic dimension of ousia, perhaps because he recognized thethreat it posed to the entire foundational strategy of the Categories. The man-ner in which he thinks the nature of the change unique to primary ousiai isimportant. The basic intuition is that all change requires some underlyingsubject, which, while being the foundation for change, itself does not alter.

Aristotle develops the notion that primary ousiai are able to admit of con-traries while remaining one and the same by setting up the dichotomybetween primary ousiai and accidents:

A color, for example, which is one and the same in number, will notbe black and white; nor will an action, which is one in number, beboth vicious and virtuous; and similarly also concerning other thingswhich are not ousiai. But an ousia, being numerically one and thesame, admits of contraries. For example, an individual human-being,being one and the same, becomes at one time light but at anotherdark in color, at one time warm but at another cold, at one timevicious but at another virtuous.38

It is no surprise that Aristotle establishes his position concerning diachronicidentity in the Categories by considering accidental change: the theoreticalframework of the Categories is in no position to account for more radical kindsof change such as the generation and corruption of substances themselves. Aswill become increasingly clear, this is due to the Categories’ tenacious loyalty toa logic of things that refuses to ascribe any significant ontological efficacy tosecondary ousiai. Thus the entire question of change in the Categories istreated on what may be considered the horizontal level. As opposed to thevertical level that points to the universal/individual relationship, the horizon-tal level points to the object/accident relationship. The vertical perspective


accounts for what a thing is, while the horizontal level thematizes what athing has.39 The examples that Aristotle employs in his discussion of changein the Categories refer to changing qualities and confirm that, in this treatise,diachronic identity is considered exclusively from the horizontal perspective.

Given Aristotle’s intense interest in “becoming without qualification”(haplo \s gignesthai) in Physics I.7 and his deep concern to do justice to substan-tial generation and corruption in his biological works, it is remarkable thatdiachronic identity is only addressed from the perspective of accidental changein the Categories. Although perhaps surprising, it is understandable if we rec-ognize Aristotle as engaged in a strategy of evasion that is driven by the lim-itations of the logic of things. Chief among these limitations is the static man-ner in which Aristotle conceives of primary ousia as a hypokeimenon. Thisconception is static, because it seeks to establish diachronic identity by iden-tifying a principle that remains constantly present through change. Theimpulse behind this appeal to the static is not difficult to appreciate: it is theresult of an attempt to do justice to the order of a changing world, to its reg-ularity. Indeed, Aristotle’s concern to account for this order informs his entireontological theory—from the Categories through and including the Meta-physics. Thus in the Categories, when Aristotle claims that primary ousiairemain one and the same while admitting of contraries, there is little doubtthat he wants to locate in it the static principle capable of accounting for orderin change.

Yet this account cannot suffice, for the manner in which the hypokeimenonis thematized is not up to the task. Any account of regularity, of order, mustaccount for the remarkable consistency demonstrated in the coming to be andpassing away of beings. The Categories ignores this issue altogether. Rather, itpresupposes the synchronic identity of primary ousiai in order then to ascribeto them a certain sort of diachronic identity, albeit a diachronic identity lim-ited to the ability to remain the same through accidental changes. The assump-tion that these entities are immediately identifiable, that their synchronicidentity is self-evident without further ado, allows them to play the founda-tional role ascribed to them in the Categories. The priority of synchronic iden-tity determines the meaning of the hypokeimenon in the Categories, for it isonly through the synchronic identity of the hypokeimonon that primary ousiawins its diachronic identity through change.

Thus the most decisive limitation of the economy of principles operatingin the Categories lies in its need to posit the synchronic identity of atomic indi-viduals in order to secure firm ontological footing. Due to this limitation,Aristotle employs a strategy of evasion on two levels. First, he denies the pos-sibility that secondary ousiai can be considered “thisses” in order to secure theprimary ontological status of common objects of experience. Thus althoughthe possibility that there may be a mutually determining relationship betweenprimary and secondary ousiai is suggested, it is mentioned only to be explic-


itly denied. On the other hand, the entire question as to the manner in whichprimary ousiai themselves come to attain their synchronic identity in the firstplace is never asked. Instead, Aristotle simply argues that one of the main rea-sons primary ousiai are in fact primary is that they remain the same throughaccidental change. But the discussion of the nature of primary ousiai ends herewithout ever addressing the generation and corruption of the primary beingsthemselves. This strategy of evasion, however, is not employed without goodreason. Indeed, the evasion of the first issue necessitates the evasion of the sec-ond. As long as the synchronic identity of primary ousiai is merely assumedand never explicitly problematized, the entire question of diachronic identitycan only be addressed on the horizontal, accidental level. However, once theimmediate synchronic identity of primary ousiai is called into question, anentirely new theoretical apparatus is required, for without this assumption, thelogic of things begins to lose its explanatory power.

THE LIMITS OF THE CATEGORIES

Here we are in a position to truly appreciate the limitations of the founda-tional economy of principles operating in the Categories. This economy securesa firm foundation for its ontology in immediately present, fully determinatethings. The term things is here deployed because, although Aristotle’s exam-ples of primary ousiai in the Categories always point to individual livingbeings—“this human-being,” “this horse”—these beings are objectified. Thuswe have spoken of a “logic of things” not in order to argue that the primaryousiai of the Categories are in fact inanimate objects but rather to suggest howthe economy of principles with which the Categories operates perverts thedynamic nature of these beings by emphasizing precisely those characteristicsthat belong to such beings not qua living but qua objects. This means, in short,that these beings are thematized as radically ahistorical—their finitude is sys-tematically obfuscated. Because the hypokeimenon is posited as a static foun-dational principle that itself does not undergo substantial change, it is possi-ble to thematize primary ousia as a self-grounded, independent thing whosesynchronic identity is unproblematic.40 Although we have suggested that thepositive dimension of such an assertion lies in its recognition of the autarchyof beings, of their irreducible singularity, the arche \ ascribed to the primarybeings is fundamentally static and thus incapable of doing justice to their con-tingent finitude. The path of thinking traversed in the Categories has led to adead end that forces a change of direction. We must turn then to the Physics,which introduces a new economy of principles designed to account for thegeneration and corruption of ousiai themselves.


In her book Grund Und Allgemeinheit, Ute Guzzoni captures the importanceof Physics I.7: “[H]ere we have the chance to attend to Aristotle’s teachingconcerning the principles of becoming as such in the process of its cominginto being.”1 The impetus behind the development of this new teaching is theinability of the foundational economy of principles to account for substantialgeneration. The strategy of evasion at work in the Categories is no longer pos-sible in the Physics, where the being of natural beings (ta phusika) is at issue.Although the paradigmatic primary beings of the Categories had always beenliving beings, the economy of principles deployed there was only capable ofthematizing them as mere things, identifiable, ahistorical objects. In thePhysics, this sort of objectification is impossible, for Aristotle is intent on giv-ing an account of natural beings in terms of their becoming. This requires, aswill be seen, a new economy of principles capable of capturing both the beingand the becoming of ta phusika. Yet this new economy is no mere rejection ofthe position put forth in the Categories. Although, to be sure, the new econ-omy develops the distinction between form and matter and ascribes a pow-erful new ontological role to form, it remains loyal to the fundamental intu-ition that however we account for the being and becoming of finitecontingent individuals, justice must be done to their fundamental autarchy.Indeed, this intuition ultimately causes the collapse of the economy of prin-ciples introduced in the Physics. In order to apprehend this, however, we mustattend closely the birth of this new economy in Physics I.7, delineate thestructure of its operation, and trace its ultimate failure in the heart of Aris-totle’s biological account of generation. The intent, then, is not to give a full

31

3

Kinetic Principles and the Hegemony of Form

account of the Physics but to follow the path of Aristotle’s ontologicalengagement with contingent beings as it wends its way deeper into theenigma of finite existence.

TOWARD A HYLOMORPHIC ECONOMY

OF KINETIC PRINCIPLES

In Physics I.7, we find Aristotle somewhat at odds with himself. On the onehand, he remains committed to the basic notion, discovered in the Categories,that an account of continuity through change requires some underlying thingthat remains the same throughout the change—the hypokeimenon. On theother hand, Aristotle seems to have recognized the inability of the logic ofthings to account for the generation and corruption of living beings. The posi-tion offered in the Categories must be revised, for it is unable to negotiate away between the concern for continuity and the recognition of the dynamicnature of life.

Aristotle’s great insight in the chapters leading up to Physics I.7 is that athird principle must be added to the two contraries (enantia) that all of hispredecessors had recognized as principles of change.2 Consistent with theCategories, this third principle is called the hypokeimenon, for it admits of con-traries without itself undergoing change. In the discussion of change in PhysicsI.7, however, Aristotle comes to recognize the limitations of this three-prin-ciple position when it comes to accounting for substantial change—for in sub-stantial changes, the hypokeimenon does not remain the same throughout. Thisrecognition leads Aristotle to formulate the possibility that substantial changemight involve not three principles but two: the form and the hypokeimenon.The shift opens up the possibility of disposing with one of the two determi-nate contraries and replacing it with the concepts of form and its privation(stere \sis), the latter of which is simply understood as the absence of the formalprinciple. This strategic move allows Aristotle to establish a single economyof principles capable of accounting not only for the being of finite individualsbut also for their becoming, for the number of principles involved in both willbe the same—namely, two: form and matter.

This new economy of principles may be called “hylomorphic,” because itis based on the distinction between matter (hyle) and form (morphe \). However,it must also be designated as “kinetic,” because it thinks beings on the modelof a specific conception of motion (kine \sis)—namely, one governed by theframework of technological production. This framework lends itself to a hylo-morphic conception of being in which form takes on ontological primacy andartifacts emerge as paradigmatic ousiai. Such artifacts—the statue, the bronzesphere—are heuristically helpful insofar as their form and matter are readilydistinguishable.3 Yet this distinction, so clear in the case of artifacts, runs the


risk not only of minimizing the role of matter in generation but also ofobscuring the intimate and complex ontological relationship between formand matter that characterizes the being of ta phusika, natural beings.

However, because the hylomorphic economy of kinetic principles the-matizes primary ousia more dynamically in terms of motion, it is far bettersuited to account for the finitude of ousia than is the foundational economy.In fact, with the introduction of the hylomorphic economy of kinetic prin-ciples, Aristotle’s ontological project is both deepened and radicalized. It isdeepened insofar as the primary ousiai of the Categories are shown them-selves to be internally complex—they are now thematized as “composites”(suntheta) of form and matter. It is radicalized insofar as Aristotle is able toestablish a single economy of principles capable of accounting for bothbeing and becoming. However, what makes Physics I.7 so difficult to inter-pret is the reluctance of the logic of things to give way to the new economyof principles. On the other hand, what makes this text so philosophicallyfecund is that, as Guzzoni intimates, in the confrontation between the twoeconomies of principles, we are given the opportunity to directly experiencethe very coming into being of Aristotle’s teaching concerning the being ofbeings that become.

PHYSICS I.7

Chapter 7 of the first book of the Physics may be divided into two parts. Thefirst section (189b30–190b5) offers an account of the nature of qualified oraccidental becoming. Here, as will be seen, Aristotle displays his deep con-cern for continuity through change by positing the hypokeimenon as thatprinciple which secures the diachronic identity of that which undergoeschange. In this, the three-principle model of change is uncritically endorsed.In the second section (190b6–191a24), Aristotle begins to call this three-principle model into question—for he recognizes that it is incapable ofaccounting for more radical forms of change. In attempting to universalizethe model of accidental change to change in general, Aristotle comes upagainst the limitations of the economy of principles operating in the Cate-gories. The second half of chapter 7 is concerned to account for substantialgeneration. To do this, however, the hypokeimenon must itself be thematizedas undergoing change. In the process, so to speak, the hypokeimenon is forcedto relinquish its authority as the ultimate principle, the foundation of syn-chronic and diachronic identity. This gives rise to a new economy of princi-ples in which the hypokeimenon is reconceptualized as the matter that takeson form (morphe \, eidos) which, because it is in some ontologically significantsense permanent and universal, secures continuity through both accidentaland substantial change.

33Kinetic Principles and the Hegemony of Form

Part One: Qualified Becoming

In the first part of Physics I.7, Aristotle, echoing a distinction made at thebeginning of Categories 2,4 differentiates between the “simple” and the “com-posite.” In the example of a not-musical human-being who becomes a musi-cal human-being, Aristotle points to three simple terms: the unmusical, themusical, and the human-being. From this perspective, during the process ofbecoming, the human-being persists while the contrary terms, the unmusicaland the musical, do not.5 From another perspective, however, Aristotle sug-gests that the unmusical human-being and the musical human-being can beunderstood as two distinct composite things existing in their own right. Inthis case, the process by which the unmusical human-being becomes a musi-cal human-being is somewhat more complicated, for the thing generatedseems to be distinct from that from which it is generated. This lack of con-tinuity through change is something Aristotle is concerned to avoid. Inter-estingly, in the first part of Physics I.7, he focuses exclusively on the “simple”perspective, arguing: “Of things that become in the way we say that simplethings become, some persist [through the process of becoming], others donot persist; for on one hand, the human-being persists and is when becom-ing a musical human-being, but on the other hand, the not-musical or theunmusical does not persist either as simple or as combined [with ahypokeimenon].”6 This passage indicates the extent to which Aristotle’s posi-tion here depends on the reification of both the underlying subject and thecontraries. By focusing on the perspective of the “simple,” Aristotle estab-lishes the conceptual and perhaps even the ontological independence of theunderlying subject and each of the contraries. This allows him to clearly dis-tinguish that which persists through change from that which does not. Hethen extends what was discovered at the level of the simple to the perspec-tive of combined things. To do this, he suggests that the underlying subjectpersists through change, even when the contraries are considered combined witha subject.

The guiding principle at work here is that something must remain con-stantly present through change if the changing being is to retain its identity.Aristotle’s expresses it this way:

. . . with respect to all generated beings one may take the following,if one attends carefully to what we say—that it is necessary for some-thing always to underlie that which comes into being. . . . And part[of that which is generated] persists but another part does not per-sist; what is not an opposite persists (for the human-being persists),but the musical or the unmusical does not persist, and neither doesthat which is composed from both persist, i.e., the unmusicalhuman-being.7


The sweeping scope of this passage is remarkable. Although it seems simplyto be a reformulation of the view set forth in the Categories in which thehypokeimenon, itself capable of admitting contraries while remaining one andthe same,8 serves as the foundation for accidental change, this passage seemsto impose the structure of accidental change upon all change, including gen-eration itself.

This is made explicit in the paragraphs that follow. After mentioning afew peculiarities about the way we speak about certain kinds of change, Aris-totle considers two senses of the term becoming.9 The first may be designated“qualified becoming” and the second “becoming without qualification,” orsubstantial becoming. In qualified becoming, there is some underlying sub-ject that accounts for the identity of the thing through change. The reasonAristotle gives for this again echoes the Categories, “because only an ousia isnot said of some other underlying subject, whereas all others are said of theousia.”10 He then goes on to suggest the possibility of expanding the structureof accidental becoming to include substantial becoming: “However, it maybecome (genoito an) evident on further examination that also substances andall other unqualified beings are generated from some underlying subject, forthere is always some underlying subject from which the thing generatedcomes to be, e.g., plants and animals from the seed.”11 In Greek, the optativemood may be used potentially to indicate future possibility or likelihood asan opinion of the speaker; its force, however, ranges from possibility to fixedresolve.12 Here, however, we may take the use of the potential optative(genoito an) to indicate a certain hesitancy on Aristotle’s part; it points towhat may be a presentiment of the inability of the model of accidentalchange to explain the structure of substantial becoming. Aristotle’s uneasi-ness is implicitly expressed both by the use of the potential optative and bythe introduction of the new example of the seed. Here there is a fundamen-tal shift in Aristotle’s thinking. The seed does not seem to underlie change inthe same way as, in the Categories, an individual human-being is understoodto underlie the alteration of accidental qualities. The seed is not somethingconstantly present through the change; rather, it itself develops and is trans-formed as it is in-formed.13

Thus the sentence at 190b1–5 marks the transition from the first to thesecond part of Physics I.7 insofar as it suggests a shift in thinking that, by theend of the chapter, enjoins a shift in vocabulary away from talk about deter-minate contraries toward talk about form and its privation, stere \sis. This neweconomy of principles is introduced in the second part of the chapter. Thepoint here, however, is that the model of accidental becoming is incapable ofaccounting for substantial generation. The inadequacy of this model may betraced to the static manner in which it conceives the hypokeimenon. Thehypokeimenon, as that which remains constantly present through change, isincapable of doing justice to the seed, which itself develops and is transformed


in the process of generation. The hesitancy that Aristotle betrays when heemploys the potential optative in suggesting that all becoming follows themodel of accidental change is a harbinger of what is to come in the secondhalf of the chapter: a break with the static model of the Categories and theintroduction of a new economy of principles designed to account as much forthe becoming of a being as for its being.

Part Two: Substantial Becoming

The second part of chapter 7 continues the discussion of becoming without qual-ification found at the end of the first part, but with a vital difference: now thethree-principle schema of accidental becoming is called into question by theintroduction of the vocabulary of stere \sis, “privation.”14 No longer is primary ousiaconceived simply as an immediately and unproblematically present hypokeimenon;rather, it has become a suntheton, a composite of form and matter:

Thus, it is clear from what has been said that every being in genera-tion is always a composite (suntheton), and there is something that isbecoming, and something which that becomes, and this [latter] intwo senses, either the underlying subject (hypokeimenon) or the oppo-site (antikeimenon). By “the opposite” I mean, for example, theunmusical; but by the “underlying subject” I mean the human-being;and the shapelessness and the formlessness and the disorder areopposites, whereas the bronze and the stone and the gold are under-lying subjects.15

This passage manifests both Aristotle’s dissatisfaction with and his ongoingdedication to the economy of principles developed in the Categories.

In calling that which is in generation a suntheton, Aristotle takes the deci-sive step back behind the notion that primary ousia is an atomic hypokeimenon.This step back marks a fundamental deepening of the theory of the Categories,though not its outright rejection, for Aristotle remains concerned to accountfor determinate individual beings even as he develops a vocabulary by whichto think the grounds for their determination as such. Although it is difficultto interpret precisely what Aristotle is up to in the passage just cited,16 it is rea-sonable to suggest that he is on the cusp of introducing the distinctionbetween form and matter. Such an interpretation gains in credibility when, inthe next sentence, Aristotle qualifies precisely what he means by antikeimenonand hypokeimenon. Formlessness is an antikeimenon, he tells us, and bronze,stone, and gold are examples of hypokeimena. If this is the case, then the econ-omy of principles operating in the Categories and part one of Physics I.7 under-goes an important transformation here.


The three-term model of accidental change is replaced by a two-termmodel in which the hypokeimenon, here reconceptualized as matter, and the formemerge as determining moments of the composite.17 By giving the antikeimenona strictly privative determination—formless, shapeless—Aristotle is able to doaway with one of the determinate contraries that had to be somehow replacedon the model of accidental change. This shift in vocabulary is made necessaryby the shift in the focus of the ontological investigation, which now concentratesnot on the immediate presence of things but on the process by which the beingsthemselves come into being. Such beings are no longer encountered as atomicindividual objects but as finite beings that become—they are not merely ta onta,actually existing things, but also ta gignomena, generated beings. This shiftenjoins a reformulation of the meaning of the hypokeimenon, because the con-stant, static presence of the hypokeimenon through change is itself called intoquestion once being is thought in terms of becoming. The introduction of theexample of the seed already announces this shift, for if the hypokeimenon isindeed like the seed, then it itself must be understood to develop.

However, a recalcitrant dedication to the model outlined in the Categoriesand expanded upon in the first section of Physics I.7 displays itself in the afore-mentioned passage as well.18 The confusion of examples that explicate themeanings of the hypokeimenon and the antikeimenon betrays Aristotle’s reluc-tance to dispose of the three-principle model of change. At first, and consis-tent with both the Categories and the first part of Physics I.7, Aristotle uses the“unmusical” as his example of an opposite and “human-being” as the exampleof the underlying subject. This is familiar from the previous discussion, andthe only peculiarity is that Aristotle now calls the “unmusical” an antikeimenon(opposite) and not an enantion (contrary).19 However, without the slightesthesitation, Aristotle goes on to say that shapelessness, formlessness, and dis-order are opposites, while bronze, stone, and gold are underlying subjects.Here the use of the term antikeimenon gains in significance; for it allows Aris-totle to step behind the tripartite account of principles. Whereas enantiaalways indicated two determinate contraries falling under the same genus, forexample, the black versus the white, the term antikeimenon shifts the perspec-tive by juxtaposing not determinate contraries but rather the form and its pri-vation. This is precisely why the question as to the number of principles provesso puzzling.20 The shift in vocabulary from contraries to opposites along withthe introduction of a new conception of the hypokeimenon suggest that Aris-totle has implicitly recognized the limits of the theory of qualified becoming.Yet he is not quite willing to completely abandon it, for he continues to con-flate two distinct understandings of the hypokeimenon. The first is fundamen-tally static, positing this individual human-being as that which is capable ofreceiving contraries, and thus as that which establishes continuity throughchange. The second, however, is more dynamic, for the seed points to ahypokeimenon that is transformed in the process of its own generation.


Despite Aristotle’s continuing dedication to the logic of things, the intro-duction of the vocabulary of antikeimenon and the dynamic conception of thehypokeimenon mark a fundamental shift in his thinking about becoming andbeing. This shift is threefold: first, there is an attempt to step back behind theontological priority of the immediate presence of things. This involves therecognition—already implicit in the use of the term suntheton—that primaryousiai are themselves complex composites of form and matter. Second, to dojustice to the finitude of these ousiai, the question of generation and corrup-tion is placed at the center of the ontological investigation. This requires anaccount of the being of ousia in terms of its becoming. Third, a single econ-omy of principles capable of accounting for both the being and the becomingof ousiai is developed. Only with this third step can form and matter be under-stood to fulfill the function of what Aristotle means by a principle. Fritscheputs it this way:

. . . for [Aristotle] the alternative is that either all moments of becom-ing are also principles of becoming and being, or none are; for themoments of becoming and correspondingly, the moments of beingcan only be named principles when all moments of becoming andonly these are moments of being, of the being having become.21

The necessity of establishing a single economy of principles that can accountfor both the being and becoming of ousiai drives Aristotle to replace the three-principle model of change with a two-principle model in which form emergesas primary. The core of chapter 7 of the Physics, 190b17–23, introduces thisnew economy.

Turning to this passage, we find Aristotle pointing to the concept of form(morphe \) in order to account for substantial as opposed to accidental becoming:

Thus if there are causes and principles of beings by nature, fromwhich those beings are composed primarily and from which theycome to be not accidentally, but come to be what each of them iscalled according to its ousia, then everything that is generated is gen-erated from (ek) a hypokeimenon and a form (morphe \s); for the musi-cal human-being is composed, in a sense, of a human-being and themusical, since you would be analyzing [the musical human-being]into accounts of each of these two. Clearly, then, beings in genera-tion would come to be from these.22

Although the use of the example of the musical human-being rather than, forexample, that of the seed receiving form suggests that Aristotle still conflatestwo distinct understandings of the hypokeimenon, this passage subtly intro-duces a single economy of principles capable of accounting for the being and


becoming of ousiai. The two principles that emerge here are the hypokeimenonand the form. Yet it remains unclear precisely how these two principles canfulfill the new ontological roles ascribed to them, for there no longer seems tobe something constantly present to serve as the foundation of change.

In fact, however, Aristotle has already intimated how this new economy ofprinciples might function when he clarified the meaning of antikeimenon as“formlessness,” “shapelessness,” and “disorder” in the previous paragraph(190b11–16). This determination suggests that the presence of form will estab-lish and maintain order through substantial generation in the new economy ofprinciples. This is confirmed at the end of Physics I.7, when Aristotle writes:

Therefore, how many principles [there are] concerning the genera-tion of natural beings and how they are so many has been stated; andit is clear that it is necessary for something to underlie the contrariesand that the contraries are two. But in another way this is not neces-sary, for one of the contraries is sufficient to produce the change byits absence (apousia) or presence (parousia).23

The first part of the passage responds to a historical problem that Aristotlehad confronted in Physics I.6. There he had argued that all of his predecessorshad posited contraries as the principles of change, but that this alone wasinsufficient. It was insufficient because contraries cannot act on one anotherbut rather require some third thing on which to act.24 Aristotle introduces theconcept of the hypokeimenon precisely as this third thing, and in so doing hemoves beyond the various theories of his predecessors and establishes thethree-principle model of change. In the aforementioned passage, Aristotleremembers this innovation and in what is perhaps the most important sen-tence of the entire chapter suggests that this view itself may be incorrectly for-mulated, that, in fact, there is a sense in which the principles may indeed bespoken of as two—for the presence or absence (apousia) of one of the con-traries alone is sufficient to produce the change. Here the term apousia corre-sponds to the term stere \sis, “privation,” which Aristotle also introduces in thischapter to further clarify the determination of the antikeimenon as “formless”and “shapeless.” Thus the use of the term apousia suggests that when Aristo-tle introduces “another way” in which one can speak of the principles ofchange, he does not have the conception of determinate contraries in mindbut rather the notion of the presence or absence of form.25 The ontologicalpower of the hypokeimenon is thus transferred to the eidos. The hypokeimenonis no longer responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the identityof the being undergoing change; rather, the eidos is the principle by whicheach being achieves and maintains its identity. Here being and becoming aredetermined by the presence of the form. Once the hypokeimenon is understooddynamically, it must relinquish its position as a foundational principle and give


way to form. The hypokeimenon no longer remains one and the same throughchange, but it itself changes when the form comes to presence in it—indeed,it becomes then for the first time what it is to be.

DOMINATION, FORM, AND THE LIMITS

OF THE HYLOMORPHIC ECONOMY OF PRINCIPLES

The move from the three-principle to the two-principle model of becomingcompletes the turn away from the static theory of the Categories. With this turn,Aristotle’s ontology is set in motion, so to speak, and his conception of nature isborn. While this notion of phusis is not explicitly developed until Physics II.1, thedecisive move has already been made in Physics I.7 with the implicit establish-ment of the priority of the form over the hypokeimenon.26 This priority is affirmedin Physics II.1, when Aristotle criticizes the position of Antiphon, the Eleaticsophist who held that phusis is essentially earth, water, air, and fire—that is, thematerial elements. That Antiphon’s materialist position should be criticized hereis no surprise, for it bears a striking resemblance to the position that Aristotlehimself had developed in the Categories and the first part of Physics I.7. LikeAntiphon’s understanding of matter, the hypokeimenon was thought to persistwhile being continuously acted upon. Both Antiphon’s matter and Aristotle’searly understanding of the hypokeimenon are thought to account for continuitythrough change. However, with the introduction of the more powerful concep-tion of form, the role of the hypokeimenon shifts. It is no longer responsible forthe diachronic identity of ousia. Rather, the form itself fulfills this role, a role forwhich it is particularly well suited, given that form is thought to be intransient,permanent, and immune from the vagaries of the process of becoming.27

Aristotle’s critique of Antiphon in Physics II.1 is part self-critique as well.His insistence that form is phusis to a higher degree than matter accentuatesthe distance that his ontological theory has traversed.28 As Fritsche points out,however, this critique of Antiphon and the establishment of the priority ofform is double-edged:

On the one hand, the individual is saved, on the other hand it ischeated. It is saved because as a single being, it belongs to [a] uni-versal species, which is embodied in it and in which it has its iden-tity with itself and with others, an identity unlike that of hyle whichmerely negates all differences. Further, the single being is saved as anindividual because it is essentially for the sake of the process of thecontinuation of the unmoved species. It is, however, cheated becauseit should only be taken seriously as an individual insofar as it is aninstance of the transportation of the universal, which has no beingoutside of the individual.29


The ramifications of the shift in the economy of principles previously outlinedare therefore twofold. On the one hand, the individual wins its identity as afinite being as a result of the presence of the form in it. By thematizing thesingular as determined by form, Aristotle recognizes it as an individual, iden-tifiable being. When this form is established as one of the irreducible andimmanent grounding moments of the being of the individual, then theautarchy of the individual is recognized as itself mediated. However, thisautarchy is called into question as soon as ontological primacy is ascribed toform, for the individual is then rendered nothing more than a particularinstance of the expression of the universal species. As such, it is thought toexist not for the sake of itself but for the sake of the species. Here the singu-larity of the individual is sacrificed for the sake of the preservation of thespecies. The individual is rendered a mere particular.

Adorno suggests both the significance of understanding form and matteras mediating moments of the composite and the dangers of positing the pri-ority of the one over the other:

However, if one takes seriously the idea of mediation, which issketched but not fully worked out in Aristotle, the idea that form andmatter are really moments which can only be conceived in relation toeach other, the question as to which of them comes absolutely firstor is ranked absolutely higher becomes transparent as a false abstrac-tion. And one will trace the forms of the concrete mediation of thesemoments, instead of treating the product of abstraction which keepsthem apart, as the only rightful source of truth.30

When seen from this perspective, there is something rather pernicious at work inAristotle’s attempt to establish the priority of form over matter in the first booksof the Physics. By ranking form as absolutely higher, the hylomorphic economycuts off its capacity to trace the moments of mediation that constitute the veryidentity of the composite individual. The domination of form subverts the indi-vidual, reducing it to a mere vehicle for the continuing development of the eidos,the species. Here the relationship between Aristotle’s ontology and his biology isquite intimate. Aristotle’s biology, concerned as it is to account for the rigorouscontinuity and order manifest in generation, seems to systematically subvert theautarchy of the individual by reducing it to the movement of the species.

A brief sketch of Aristotle’s account of generation will accentuate theextent to which the hylomorphic economy of kinetic principles is founded onthe dimension of domination, specifically, the hegemony of form. It will also,however, suggest the limitations of this unidimensional understanding of arche \and point us in the direction of yet another economy of ontological principles,one that recognizes the ongoing efficacy of the dimension of dominationwithout eclipsing that of incipience.


CAUSALITY, KINE\SIS, AND BIOLOGY

In Book II of the Physics, Aristotle develops a theory of causality that has hada decisive impact on Western thinking. Although he clearly differentiatesbetween natural beings, which have their principle of movement in them-selves, and artifacts, which have their principle of movement only in another,31 his theory of causes seems to be a projection of the experience of pro-duction onto the totality of finite beings. By suggesting that the four causes—material, formal, efficient, and final—are capable of accounting for “genera-tion, destruction, and all physical change,” Aristotle sets forth the frameworkfrom which the totality of finite beings is to be conceptualized.32 However,because the experience of human fabrication determines this conceptualframework, all causal accounts are inevitably entangled in an understanding ofbeing native to the region of technical production.33 As Schürmann points out,with the exception of the example of the formal cause that appeals to the 2:1ratio of the octave, the examples that Aristotle uses to delineate the causes areall taken from the sphere of human fabrication or action: bronze is the mate-rial cause of the statue, silver of the cup; the advisor is a first cause, as is thefather of a baby, and health is the final cause of walking.34

As early as Physics I.7, this framework of production conditions the text,for when Aristotle asserts that the presence or absence of form is enough toproduce (poiein) the change,35 the model of human technical production inwhich form is imposed upon matter seems to be at work. The major differ-ence for Aristotle between technical production and the movement of natureconcerns the location of the principle, not the causal structure of the motionitself.36 Indeed, the fourfold distinction between the causes is in fact reducibleto the two principles of form and matter that emerge as decisive at the end ofPhysics I.7. After insisting that the physicist must understand all four causes,Aristotle says in Physics II.7: “But three often come to one, for both the what-it-is and the for-the-sake-of-which are one, and the first motion is the samein kind as these.”37 Thus the familiar distinction between form and matter maybe seen already to contain in itself the basic fourfold framework of Aristotle’stheory of causality. However, although the ontological priority of form is herereaffirmed, this consolidation of causes is incomplete, for matter remains irre-ducibly necessary as a determining moment of finite being.

We have suggested that what drives the shift in priority from thehypokeimenon in the Categories to the eidos in the Physics is a concern to accountfor continuity through substantial generation. The hylomorphic economy ofprinciples, which posits form and matter as the two constitutive grounds offinite beings, sees the material principle not as the static foundation of changebut rather as a determinable “heap” that comes to be what it is—that is, a fullydifferentiated individual—only once it has received concrete determinationfrom the form.38 The manner in which this economy of principles operates is


made perspicuous by a brief adumbration of Aristotle’s account of biologicalgeneration, for here the extent to which Aristotle relies on the domination ofform to account for continuity through substantial change becomes obvious.Here too, however, the limitations of the hylomorphic economy of kineticprinciples suggest themselves, for not only is this economy overly determinedby the model of production, but also it seems incapable of capturing the fullcomplexity of an individual’s genetically inherited characteristics.

The preponderant vision of generation found in the first three books ofthe Generation of Animals is clearly determined by the conceptual frameworkof production. Here Aristotle maps the relationship established in Physics I.7between form and hypokeimenon onto that between the male semen and thefemale catamenia. The relationship between the semen and the catamenia isthought in explicitly technological terms:

One may also take from these considerations the manner in whichthe male contributes to generation. For not every male emits semen,but of those that do emit [it], this [semen] is no part of the gener-ated foetus, just as nothing comes away from the carpenter to thematter of the wood, but the shape and the form are generated fromthe carpenter through the movement in the matter; and his soul, inwhich is the form, and his knowledge [of carpentry] move hishands . . . but his hands move the tools and the tools the matter. Sim-ilarly, the nature of the male, in those that emit semen, also uses thesemen as a tool in which there are actual movements, just as in thingsgenerated according to craft (kata techne \n) the tools move, for inthese [tools] there is somehow the movement of craft (techne \).39

Although Aristotle sometimes compares the activity of the form on the mat-ter to the action of rennet on milk such that the milk curdles and solidifies,40

this model does not reinforce the particular point that Aristotle attempts toestablish in the passage just cited, for the material of the rennet itself remainsas the milk solidifies, whereas the semen acts on the catamenia in such a man-ner that no part of its own material makeup remains in the completed prod-uct.41 It is the logos of the eidos that quite literally informs the matter presentedby the female: the male contributes form alone, here understood both asgenetic informer and first mover, but it does not contribute matter; this is therole of the female.42 Thus according to the preponderant view of generation,the form functions both as hegemonic and incipient principle and operatesaccording to the model of human fabrication. Just as the carpenter imposesthe eidos onto the matter by setting to work on and manipulating it, so too themale semen dominates and moves the female catamenia.

However, the story of generation is not as simple as the preponderant,technological model would have us believe. For Aristotle, males are capable of


concocting, forming, and discharging semen, which carries with it the princi-ple of the eidos or species.43 This semen, which Aristotle is careful to insist isthe moving cause with the power to produce (poiein) in itself or in another,seeks to master the female catamenia, which “receives [the semen], but is notable to form or discharge it.”44 The ideal case would be that the semen is hotenough to fully dominate the matter and produce a male specimen as similaras possible to the father. On the technological model of generation, it is diffi-cult to see why this does not simply happen each time the semen comes intocontact with the catamenia. The fact that it manifestly does not leads Aristo-tle to reconsider the preponderant model.

This is done primarily in GA IV.1–3, where a far more complex picture ofgeneration emerges that is designed to account for (1) how male and femalebeings are generated, (2) how family resemblance comes about, and (3) howdeformed beings and monstrosities are born.45 A basic summary of the expla-nation may be given as follows: the semen carries with it genetic informationor capacities (dunameis) corresponding to the particular male from whom itcomes. This information is not only peculiar to the individual male, for exam-ple, Socrates, but it also includes more generic genetic information, for exam-ple, maleness, human-being, animal, and so on. Furthermore, there is alsocontained in the semen capacities related to the genetic makeup of more dis-tant ancestors, for example, Socrates’ father, grandfather, great-grandfather,and the like. These genetic capacities—the most forceful of which are associ-ated with the peculiar individual progenitor himself—seek to determine thecatamenia with which they come into contact.

Aristotle claims that there are two basic ways that these capacities inher-ent in the semen can fail. First, they can relapse or slacken (luontai); for exam-ple, the capacity associated with Socrates might relapse into that of his fathersuch that there will be a male resembling the grandfather. Second, thesecapacities can be mastered (krateisthai) in such a way that they depart fromtheir type and shift over to their opposite. In this manner, females can be gen-erated from males, this being already a sort of monstrosity (teras), accordingto Aristotle, for it marks the first departure from type. Aristotle writes: “Foreven he who does not resemble his parents is a monstrosity in some sense, forin this case nature has departed in some way from the type. But the first prin-ciple [departure] is to become female and not male.”46 Distasteful as it is, Aris-totle’s biology considers the generation of a female specimen as itself a devia-tion from the ideal, that is, as a deformity.

However, the way this process of departing from the type occurs is itselforderly, predicated ultimately on the ontological power of the individual maleprogenitor himself. Here we find an echo of Aristotle’s basic intuition to grantontological primacy to concrete, determinate individuals that emerged for thefirst time in the economy of principles deployed in the Categories. Yet whatwas called “secondary ousia” in the Categories, that is, the genus, is here given


ontological efficacy: “But both the individual (to kath’ hekaston) and the genus(genos) generate, but more the individual; for this is ousia. And that which isgenerated indeed comes to be a being of some sort (poion ti), but at the sametime a this (tode ti) and this is ousia.”47 In this passage, the Categories’ insistencethat concrete individuals are substances to a higher degree than “secondaryousiai” is affirmed even as the ontological efficacy of the genos is endorsed.What emerges is a picture of generation that combines dimensions of thefoundational and hylomorphic economies.48 Yet even here the more genericprinciples are not permitted to eclipse the ontological primacy of the concreteindividual. In fact, the order according to which the so-called relapses andfailures of mastery occur is determined by the hierarchy that posits the indi-vidual male progenitor as most ontologically efficacious. The first failure ofmastery is from the male to the female, and the first relapse is from the fea-tures peculiar to Socrates to those of his more remote ancestors.

To this point, however, we have not said much about precisely how suchrelapses and failures of mastery occur. This is because there lies in this issue amajor problem for the preponderant view, based as it is on the model of tech-nological production. If only the transformation from male to female or fromfeatures peculiar to the sire to those of more distant paternal ancestors is con-sidered, there seems to be little for which the technological model of generationcould not account. Surely the carpenter encounters a resistance in matter thatenjoins the alteration of the original eidos. Such modifications might even besignificant enough to substantially change the eidos itself in a manner similar tothe way in which the capacities operating in the semen are mastered so as todepart from the type. Indeed, as long as we see all of these changes as being ulti-mately determined by the knowledge and movement of the carpenter, thereseems no need to revise the technological model of generation. What compli-cates matters with regard to generation, however, is that there are both malesand females who resemble the mother and her ancestors as well.

In order to account for this obvious phenomenon, Aristotle is forced torecognize movements on the part of the female as well. The first inkling ofthis comes at GA IV.3 768a18, after Aristotle states that demiurgic motionsfrom the father relapse into those nearest to them—the motion of the maleprogenitor shifting first to his father, then to his grandfather, and so on—heclaims, “and in fact in this way also among females, the [motion] of the femaleprogenitor [relapses] into that of her mother, but if not into that, then intothat of her grandmother, and so on up.”49 That the motions from the femaleprogenitor are crucial to the entire account of generation in Aristotle, and notonly the account of matrilineal resemblances, can be seen from the followingpassage in which such relapsing is explained:

The cause of the relapsing of the motions is that what acts also is actedupon by that which is being acted upon; as that which cuts is blunted


by that which is being cut and that which heats is cooled by that whichis being heated, and generally that which moves—except for the firstmover—is in some way moved in return; as that which pushes ispushed back in some way and as that which squeezes is squeezed back;but sometimes, it is even acted upon more than it acts.50

This passage, as C. D. C. Reeve suggests, is unintelligible if the menses areunderstood as purely passive, natureless material. Rather, they are “very muchlike Socrates’ seed; they are ‘seed that is not pure but needs working on’(728a26–27).”51 The matter provided by the female progenitor is itself workedup to some degree and as such has in itself certain capacities that actively con-tribute to the generation of a new being.52 In fact, Aristotle even calls the cata-menia sperma that has not been fully worked up and so requires further con-coction by the male semen. Already in Physics I.7 with the introduction of theexample of the hypokeimenon as sperma, seed, Aristotle indicates a tendency toascribe a certain active force to matter.53

The final indication of this active dimension of the female contributionlies in the explicit vocabulary that Aristotle deploys. Variations on the verbkratein—to rule, hold sway, master, conquer, order—in the active voicedescribe the manner in which the male semen overcomes the female catame-nia. However, Aristotle also speaks of the semen’s “being conquered”(krateisthai) in the passive voice, which suggests that something is being doneto it.54 Elsewhere, like 767b23, he uses a different construction, the negative(ou) along with the active voice of kratein, to characterize what happens to themale principle. We might translate this negative construction as “not con-quer,” thus indicating that although Aristotle had the capacity to distinguishbetween being conquered and simply not conquering, he often speaks of themale principle as “being conquered,” thus suggesting once again a certainactivity on the part of the female principle.55

The fact that the conception of the material principle in the account ofgeneration in GA IV.1–3 involves a certain dimension of activity causes prob-lems both for the preponderant, purely technological vision of generationoffered in the earlier books of the GA and the rather rudimentary hylomor-phic account it receives in Physics I.7. The hylomorphic economy of kineticprinciples is already beginning to show its limitations, for it seems to be pred-icated on a rather simple dichotomy between form and matter in which theform secures order hegemonically.

What has emerged in our investigation of the GA is a more complex con-ception of the relationship between form and matter, one that in fact requiresnot only the presence of matter, but its active engagement with form as adetermining moment of the being of the offspring. This already calls intoquestion the ability of form, on its own, to account for continuity throughsubstantial change. More significantly, however, it also suggests that a model


of generation predicated primarily on the hegemony of form cannot do justiceto the individuality of the individual that manifests itself as a complex con-stellation of both paternal and maternal characteristics. If it is the case that thematerial principle itself is a necessary moment of becoming and being, if thecontinuation and preservation of the species itself depend in significant parton matter, then it makes sense to investigate the degree to which Aristotlehimself denies the material principle in order to establish the ontologicalhegemony of form.56 To the extent that he eschews the necessity of matter,Aristotle undermines the dynamic nature of his ontology and opts, despite therhetoric of the activity of form, for a fundamentally static conception of theuniverse. To the extent that he affirms the irreducibility of matter andattempts to think the finite individual as itself the dynamic relation betweenform and matter, he points to yet another economy of principles, one that, itwill be argued, is of great ontological and ethical significance. In the follow-ing three chapters, an attempt is made to flesh such a dynamic conception ofbeing out of Aristotle’s discussion of sensible ousia in the Metaphysics, for thereAristotle suggests a profound way to understand the finite individual as theactive identity of form and matter without necessitating the reduction of thelatter to the former.


The foundational economy of principles gives way, in the Physics, to a hylo-morphic economy in which form (morphe \, eidos) takes on new ontological sig-nificance. We have already suggested some of the limitations of ascribing suchontological authority to form. Not only does it fail to account for the complexphenomena surrounding the genetic inheritance of specific traits, it alsoundermines Aristotle’s ongoing dedication to the autarchy of beings. Bythinking the identity of the individual in terms of the hegemony of form,Aristotle renders the individual particular: the individual wins its identity onlyas an instance of the universal species. When, in GA IV.1–3, Aristotle turnshis attention to the unicity of the individual itself—that is, to the complexconstellation of inherited characteristics that makes the offspring unique—heis forced to ascribe a certain ontological activity to matter that undermines thesimplistic conception of the hegemony of form on which the hylomorphiceconomy is predicated. Aristotle’s loyalty to the autarchy of beings calls thehylomorphic economy of kinetic principles into question, for it renders theprecise ontological status of the form ambiguous. Thus while the path fromthe Categories to the Physics has led Aristotle’s thinking into fertile new con-ceptual terrain, it has not clarified the precise status of the eidos as an onto-logical principle, particularly as it relates to the composite individual. A moresystematic approach to the entire problem of the relationship between univer-sals and individuals is necessary, for a coherent account of generation, and thusof finite ousia itself, depends upon the clarification of this relationship.

Using the vocabulary developed in the Categories, we might characterizethe eidos of the Physics as a sort of secondary ousia, a general principle that is

49

4

Prelude to a Safe Passage—Two Aporiae

there infused with the ontological power to determine the being of the indi-vidual itself. The Platonic tendency to ascribe such ontological efficacy to gen-eral terms appears already in the Categories when Aristotle insists that sec-ondary ousiai are more than mere qualities, for they determine primary ousiaiin some fundamental way.1 Yet Aristotle’s dedication to the autarchy of indi-viduals remains firm even as form is granted this new ontological role, fornowhere in the Physics is the eidos thematized as existing in separation fromthe individual itself. Rather, Aristotle simply asserts that the immanent pres-ence or absence of the eidos is enough to account for the being and the becom-ing of the individual. By continuing to insist upon the immanence of theontological principle, however, Aristotle seems to sacrifice the permanenceand stability that the eidos needs in order to function as the principle thatestablishes and maintains the synchronic and diachronic identity of the indi-vidual. The tension between the Platonic tendency to grant ontological effi-cacy to universal forms and the Aristotelian loyalty to the autarchy of beingsis not simply a by-product of the clash between Platonic and Aristotelianthinking. Rather, because Aristotle has so internalized the spirit of Platonicthinking, the tension arises immanently out of his own ontological investiga-tions. This tension gives rise to the universal/singular and separate existenceaporiae that animate much of the discussion of sensible ousia found in themiddle books of the Metaphysics. Thus an itinerary for the following chaptersthat trace the trajectory of this discussion may be located in Metaphysics III,and specifically in the manner in which Aristotle formulates the universal/sin-gular and separate existence aporiae.

THE UNIVERSAL/SINGULAR APORIA

If, as the Greek word suggests, an aporia signifies the intellect’s lack of passage,2

then the universal/singular obstacle has proven to be one of Western philoso-phy’s most intractable. Let us cite the most explicit formulation of this aporiain detail:

It is necessary to raise these difficulties concerning principles andalso whether [the principles] are universal or, as we say, singulars (takath’ hekasta). For on the one hand, if [they are] universal, they willnot be ousiai (for none of the things that are common signify a this(tode ti) but only a such, but an ousia is a this; but if that which ispredicated [of many things] in common is a this and can be exhib-ited, Socrates will be many things: Socrates himself and a human andan animal, if indeed each [of these] signifies a this and a unity). So ifthe principles are universal, these things follow. If, on the other hand,[they are] not universal, but exist as singulars, they will not be


known; for knowledge of all things is universal, with the result that,if there is to be knowledge of them, there will be other principles,prior to these principles, universally predicated of them.3

Before turning to a more detailed explication of this aporia, a number of com-ments concerning the translation of key terms must be made.

From Individuals to Singulars

In the Categories, primary ousiai are thematized as atoma—things that are notcapable of being divided.4 Ancient Latin translates this term literally as indi-viduum.5 We have therefore used the term individual interchangeably with“things” and hypokeimena when discussing the Categories, for its foundationaleconomy of principles operates on the assumption that the concrete, individ-ual objects of common experience, when recognized as underlying subjects,are ontologically primary. In discussing the Physics, although we spoke offinite “individuals” in a loose sense, when thematizing the transformation ofthe atoma of the Categories into composites of form and matter, we were care-ful to employ the Greek suntheton. However, in chapter 1, we developed amore rigorous distinction between singulars, particulars, and individuals.There the term singular was reserved for that which escapes determination bythe concept and is thus, strictly speaking, unknowable, “particular” for thatwhich is completely determined by the concept, and “individual,” for thatwhich, though accessible to the concept, is not itself fully captured by it.

In formulating the universal/singular aporia, Aristotle deploys the term takath’ hekasta, which, strictly speaking, has the distributive meaning “the thingsaccording to each.” Because Aristotle suggests that if the principles are “takath’ hekasta,” then they will not be knowable, it seems reasonable to followJoseph Owens in using “singulars” to translate ta kath’ hekasta in the Meta-physics. Owens argues that this is the proper English translation, because itretains an echo of the Latin singuli, the distributive numeral meaning “eachone.”6 Although ta kath’ hekasta is opposed to the katholou, “universal,” it willbe important not to reduce singularity to particularity, that is, to succumb tothe temptation to think the singular merely as an instantiation of the univer-sal. Finally, Aristotle also introduces the term tode ti in laying out the univer-sal/singular aporia. This term will be of decisive importance for our interpre-tation of Aristotle’s engagement with finite, sensible ousia in the Metaphysics.Although the rather awkward demonstrative “this” may be used to translatethe (also awkward) Greek tode ti, two things about the term are important topoint out in this context.

First, what Aristotle ultimately means to designate with tode ti is preciselywhat, in the strict distinction between singular, individual, and particular, we

51Prelude to a Safe Passage—Two Aporiae

would designate as individual, that is, although the tode ti is accessible to theconcept such that it is clearly identifiable as a being of a certain sort, it is notreducible to the concept according to which it is known. Although Adornooften mistakenly identifies the tode ti with that which is immediately givenand so remains wedded to the Categories’ understanding of the term, he alsosuggests its precise importance:

This concept, too, is fundamental to the whole of western thought—since all references to facticity, to “that there,” to that which cannotbe dissolved in concepts and yet for which a conceptual name issought, originate in this word tode ti. Tode ti—and this is very inter-esting with regard to the whole temper of Aristotle’s thinking—isnot really a concept at all, but a gesture; tode ti amounts to “this,” andpoints to something. And Aristotle realized that a concept for this,by its nature, non-conceptual thing could not actually be formed,that it could only be expressed by a gesture.7

While Adorno is correct here to suggest that in the tode ti there is an echo of thenonconceptual, it must also be recognized as something more than a mere gesture,for it is a concept, indeed, the very conceptualization of that which always escapesthe concept. The importance of this rather paradoxical formulation will becomemore clear as we establish the equivocal meaning of tode ti in the middle books ofthe Metaphysics, but its full significance will not come into focus until we addressthe question of ontological knowledge by turning to the Nicomachean Ethics.

The second important thing to note about the tode ti is that by introduc-ing the term in the context of the universal/singular aporia, Aristotle alreadyhints at the vocabulary that will allow him to negotiate a safe passage betweenthe dichotomy itself. If ousia, as a “this,” is neither singular nor universal, thenthe aporia dissolves. To delineate how ousia is in fact a tode ti will be one of thegoals of chapter 6.

The Apparent Convergence of Ontological and Epistemological Concerns

Let us return, then, to the aporia itself. On the face of it, the universal/singu-lar aporia seems to arise out of the conflict between two competing interests,the one ontological, the other epistemological. On the ontological level, theidentity of each singular being must be established by its own principle inorder to affirm its unicity and its distinction from other beings, for if suchprinciples are universal, as Aristotle says, then “Socrates will be many things:Socrates himself, and a human, and an animal.”8 On the epistemological level,however, if the principles of beings are singular and not universal, then therewill be no possible knowledge of these beings, for knowledge is always uni-


versal. Thus the aporia seems to arise out of Aristotle’s attempt to establish anepiste \me \, or science, of being, for if he gave up on the possibility that suchbeings are knowable, then the aporia would seem to dissolve.

This appearance is in once sense correct, for Aristotle most often formu-lates the universal/singular aporia as a conflict between the demands of ontol-ogy and epistemology. However, it is slightly more complicated than thisappearance suggests, for even if, as Aristotle never would, we sequester theepistemological from the ontological concern, a specifically ontological prob-lem would still remain. This can be seen by recalling how the economy of prin-ciples developed in the Categories collides with that established in the Physics ina manner that generates the universal/singular aporia itself. While the Cate-gories locates the foundational principle of being in atomic individuals andgives only secondary status to generic ousiai, the Physics seems to affirm theontological significance of the universal, here not thematized as a secondaryousia but rather as the form. Thus if we deny the priority of what the Categoriescalls primary ousiai, namely, atomic individuals, now understood as singulars,and instead grant ontological significance to secondary ousiai, in the Physicsthematized as “form” and here understood as universal, then the question nat-urally arises as to whether the fundamental ontological principles are them-selves universal or singular. Thus even without the epistemological concern, theuniversal/singular aporia remains in force. This is clear from the formulation ofanother, related but somewhat distinct aporia, in which Aristotle asks whetherthere must exist a principle apart from the singular that accounts for its being.

SEPARATE EXISTENCE—A SECOND APORIA

Aristotle tells us that the question as to whether there must exist a separateprinciple to account for the being of the singular is “most difficult of all andneeds investigation above all.”9 As in the previous aporia, this problem seemsto arise out of an epistemological concern to establish the possibility of knowl-edge of the principles: “If there is not something apart from singulars, andthere are countless singulars, how is it possible to take knowledge of singu-lars?”10 Although the focus of this aporia differs from that of universal/singu-lar aporia, the same either/or formulation is employed: either nothing existsapart from singulars, in which case it is impossible to attain knowledge ofthem, or in order to secure the possibility of knowledge, something must existapart from singulars, in which case the identity not only of singulars but alsoof the genera and species is called into question. However, the interesting ele-ment of the separate existence aporia lies neither in the way it merges onto-logical and epistemological concerns nor in the way it attempts to establishthe condition for the possibility of knowledge, but rather, in the way it ismaintained, even when epistemological concerns are not considered.


The following formulation of the separate existence aporia is posed exclu-sively from the perspective of the ontological question of generation and notfrom the perspective of the epistemological concern for knowledge. Given theprevious discussion of the Physics, it comes as no surprise that this formulationnot only arises out of a consideration of generation but also begins to grapplewith the relationship between form and matter:

But if there is nothing eternal, neither is generation possible. For itis necessary for there to be something that is being generated andfrom which it becomes and the last of these must be ungenerable, ifthere is a stop and generation from non-being is impossible. But fur-ther, since there is generation and motion, it is necessary for there tobe also a limit (peras); for no motion is unlimited, but every motionhas an end, and that which is not able to come into being cannot begenerated, for that which has come into being must exist when it firsthas been generated (pro \ton gegonen). But if matter exists because itcannot be generated, it is yet more reasonable for ousia, which that[matter] at any time comes to be; for if neither the latter [ousia] northe former [matter] exist, then nothing at all will exist, but if this isimpossible, it is necessary for something to exist besides (para) thecomposite (sunholon), namely, the shape (morphe \) or form (eidos).11

This passage is significant for at least three reasons. First, it indicates the con-tinuing influence of a certain form of Platonism in Aristotle. Second, it hintsat a way to speak about the process of generation without positing the radicalseparation of the form from the generated composite. Finally, in this passage,Aristotle formulates the separate existence aporia exclusively from an onto-logical perspective, leaving his epistemological concerns to the side for thetime being.

Like Janus, this passage points in two directions simultaneously. It refersback to formulations found both in what some scholars call Plato’s “laterontology” and in Aristotle’s own introduction of the morphe \, hypokeimenon,suntheton distinction in the Physics.12 On the other hand, it anticipates Aristo-tle’s own discussion of generation in Metaphysics VII.7–9. Aristotle here rec-ognizes that something, namely, form, must exist besides the composite if thegeneration of the composite is to be possible. Clearly a Platonic impulsehaunts him here. Indeed, this is confirmed by Aristotle’s use of the word peras,limit, in close connection with form. In the Parmenides and the Philebus, Platoemploys the vocabulary of peras and apeiron, limit and unlimited, when con-sidering a variety of questions concerning identity and generation. Thisvocabulary is very likely to have been translated by Aristotle into the basic dis-tinction between form and matter, the former corresponding to the peras, thelatter to the apeiron.13 What makes the use of this vocabulary interesting in


this passage is the manner in which Aristotle affirms the Platonic impulsewithout endorsing the Platonic position. He seems at great pains to suggestthat the Platonists were indeed correct in claiming that generation requires anexplanation in terms of eternal principles, or at least that the ground of gen-eration must not itself come to be or pass away.14 However, due to his dedica-tion to what we have been calling the “autarchy of beings,” for Aristotle thiscannot mean that these principles exist in radical separation from generatedcomposites. Aristotle affirms the spirit of the Platonic position insofar as heis not willing to give up the conception that forms themselves are not gener-ated and have ontological efficacy, but he also establishes his own independentposition by refusing to separate forms from the generated beings of whichthey are the principles. Thus the aporia itself already points, albeit obliquely,to a fundamentally new way of thinking about the relationship between formand matter,15 for once Aristotle locates the principles of generated beings inthe beings themselves—once he reaffirms the autarchy of beings—this rela-tionship emerges as the very ontological ground of the composites themselves.

The second important dimension of the aforementioned passage outlin-ing the separate existence aporia is its strange use of the perfect tense in rela-tion to the process of generation. By insisting that generation has a limit andindeed that we can only speak of a generated being once the process of gen-eration has been completed, Aristotle gestures to the very moment of individ-uation and implicitly suggests that this moment cannot itself be completelycaptured by the concept. We can only ever have access to that which hasalready come into its form. The use of the perfect tense here (gegonen) antici-pates the formulation that Aristotle deploys later in the Metaphysics when heattempts to flesh out more concretely the very process by which the individ-ual is generated. In these later passages, Metaphysics VII.8 1033b19 and IX.71049a15–16, Aristotle uses the adverb e \de \, already, to gesture to this momentof individuation that itself escapes the grasp of the concept. Such formulationsallow Aristotle to emphasize the ontological efficacy of form without positingits radical independence from the generated composite.

Finally, third, the separate existence aporia is formulated in the quotedpassage exclusively from an ontological perspective. This is not to say thatAristotle’s epistemological concerns are either unimportant or secondary.Rather, it is only to suggest that the aporia of the separate existence of prin-ciples and the question as to the universal or singular nature of these princi-ples themselves can also be generated from a strictly ontological perspective.Although Aristotle struggles with the epistemological difficulties involved inestablishing the study of being qua being throughout the Metaphysics, in themiddle books, where the being of sensible ousiai is at issue, his ontologicalconcerns tend to eclipse these epistemological considerations.16 Because ofthis it seems wise to follow Aristotle’s lead by focusing primarily on the onto-logical concerns that animate the discussion of the middle books of the


Metaphysics before addressing the epistemological implications of thedynamic economy of ontological principles developed there. This is not tosay that the middle books are conditioned by no epistemological considera-tions, nor is it to insist upon a rigid distinction between the epistemologicaland the ontological. Rather, as we will see in chapters 7 through 9, the safepassage that Aristotle negotiates in the middle books from the ontologicalperspective has important and far-reaching epistemological and, it will beargued, ethical implications. By focusing on the ontological perspective inour discussion of Metaphysics VII–IX, and specifically by tracing the mannerin which yet another economy of ontological principles designed to accountfor the being of finite, contingent beings is introduced, we are able to nego-tiate a safe passage through the thicket of difficulties that these texts present.

This may be accomplished by taking the two aforementioned aporiaetogether. The universal/singular aporia provides an appropriate backdrop fortracing the path toward this new economy of principles in the middle books,for the aporia itself emerges out of the unresolved differences between theeconomies developed in the Categories and Physics, respectively. But if the uni-versal/singular aporia provides this discussion with a backdrop, then the sep-arate existence aporia gives it a sense of urgency. As mentioned, this aporiaarises out of the Platonic tendency at work in Aristotle’s thinking that takesforms as independently existing eternal beings. In the Physics this tendencyhas been shown to threaten the autarchy of ousia. In the middle books of theMetaphysics, Aristotle reasserts the independence of ousia when he claims thatto be separable (cho \ristos) and a tode ti are its primary characteristics.17 ThusBook VII introduces the entire question of the ontological relationshipbetween form, matter, and the composite. But unlike in the Categories, wherethe autarchy of ousia is simply posited, the Metaphysics thoroughly investigatesthe nature of this autarchy. The result is the dense and, as will be suggestedlater, inconclusive discussion concerning ousia found in Metaphysics VII.

Thus the itinerary is set. The next chapter will be dedicated to a non-exhaustive investigation into certain elements of Metaphysics, Book VII. It willbe shown that although important conceptual paths through both the univer-sal/singular and the separate existence aporiae are forged in Book VII, no safepassage is discernible there. Nevertheless, the text sets the stage for thedynamic account of ontological identity developed in Books VIII and IX.Thus in chapter 6, we will trace a twofold strategy by which Aristotle is ableto think the being of the finite composite as the dynamic identity of form andmatter. This involves, on the one hand, the reinterpretation of how form isthought to exist separately from the composite and the development of thetechnical meaning of the term tode ti. On the other hand, it involves thethematization of form and matter as energeia and dunamis, respectively.Finally, this conception of the active identity of dunamis and energeia will beunderstood in terms of the vocabulary of entelecheia, energeia, and praxis that


Aristotle introduces in Metaphysics IX.6 and 8. This vocabulary is important,for three reasons: (1) It provides Aristotle with a way to think continuity andgeneration together without violating the autarchy of the individual; (2) Itsuggests a way to develop a conception of identity that is dynamic withoutbeing anarchic; and (3) It points us toward the discussion of praxis in the Nico-machean Ethics, where a peculiar sort of knowledge is developed—phrone \sis—that will be shown, in chapters 8 and 9, to have deep ontological significance.


Book VII of Aristotle’s Metaphysics has proven to be one of Western philoso-phy’s most controversial texts. It has occupied the attention of some of thistradition’s greatest thinkers, and it remains today open to a wide variety of newinterpretations. Its hermeneutic fecundity is in large part due to theexploratory nature of the text itself.1 In Metaphysics, Book VII, we find Aris-totle at odds with himself, caught between the economy of principles devel-oped in the Categories and that introduced in the Physics. The tension that ren-ders this text so recalcitrant to unequivocal interpretation results fromAristotle’s deep commitment to the autarchy of the finite composite, hisunwillingness to think the individual exclusively in terms of the hegemony ofform and yet his loyalty to the Platonic tendency, expressed in the Physics, togrant form ultimate ontological authority.

It is therefore prudent not to expect definitive conclusions from this textbut rather to approach it as we have approached the other paths of Aristotle’sontological thinking, that is, as a thinking underway. In Book VII, Aristotleallows his thinking to follow various paths in an attempt to develop a coher-ent account of the being of finite sensible ousia. To impose our own desire forunequivocal solutions on this text is, to reverse the traditional metaphor, tolose the trees for the forest. Thus what follows will not be an exhaustive studyof Metaphysics, Book VII, but a peripatetic one. As we walk with Aristotlealong the various paths of his thinking concerning the being of finite ousia,we will turn our attention to a number of the important trees in the forest ofBook VII that anticipate the dynamic account of ousia set forth in BooksVIII and IX.

The tendency to thematize the meaning of ousia in terms of form andmatter, and further to understand these as determining moments of the very

59

5

Toward a Dynamic Ontology

being of the composite, has already been introduced by the discussion of thePhysics in chapter 3. There, however, Aristotle seems to emphasize the onto-logical hegemony of form over matter in order to account for the continuityof the species through the process of generation. The hylomorphic economyof principles operating in the Physics thinks generation in terms of a very spe-cific sort of kine \sis: that of technical production. In the Generation of Animals,the framework of fabrication proved itself incapable of doing justice to theunicity of generated beings. Here the hegemony of form gives way to an activeconception of the material principle according to which a certain ontologicalefficacy is ascribed to matter. Thus although the Physics marked a fundamen-tal improvement over the theory of the Categories insofar as it was able todevelop a single economy of principles capable of accounting for the beingand becoming of finite beings, by suggesting that the presence or absence ofform alone is enough to account for the identity and generation of the indi-vidual, Aristotle grants form absolute ontological priority over matter. Thedomination of form seems to lead directly to the totalizing concept of God,who emerges in Metaphysics XII as the first principle of order, pure activitydevoid of all potency, form without matter. However, between the Physics andMetaphysics XII stand Books VII–IX, whose investigation into the being ofsensible ousia diverts this simple path toward totalization in Aristotle, forthese books resist the temptation to do away with matter and develop adynamic economy of principles that thinks form and matter together as deter-mining moments of the composite.

The process by which Aristotle begins to develop this dynamic economyof principles in Metaphysics VII lends insight into the nature of the principlesthemselves. Specifically, the manner in which the principle of matter resiststhe attempt to establish the absolute hegemony of form indicates the extentto which the dynamic economy is predicated upon the preservation of thedimension of potency. If this potency is obfuscated, the dynamic conceptionof the archai of finite being loses its vitality, and the dimension of incipienceis once again permitted to be eclipsed by that of domination. Thus one way toread Metaphysics VII is as a struggle between the hegemony of form and theautarchy of the composite, with the principle of matter caught in between. Atfirst, Aristotle seems to think that a full account of finite ousia can be given onthe basis of form alone, but just as in GA IV, this direction of thinking leadsto aporia. This failure can be seen by tracing five important moments in BookVII: (1) the development of the active conception of form in terms of to ti e \neinai in chapters 4–6; (2) the logical treatment of definability that attempts toexclude the role of matter; (3) the turn toward the notion of generation, andthe importance of embodiment in chapters 7–9; (4) the ultimate affirmationof matter found in VII.10 and 11; and (5) the incipient recognition of themutual dependence of form and matter upon one another found in VII.17.Along the way, Book VII will be seen to establish the ontological equi-origi-


nality of form and matter that leads, in Books VIII and IX, to a new economyof principles capable of accounting for their identity. Metaphysics VII drawsout the complexities of the form/matter relationship to prepare the way for thesafe passage through the ontological side of the universal/singular and sepa-rate existence aporiae found ultimately in Books VIII and IX.

THE TECHNICAL SENSE OF TO TI E \N EINAI

The Physics entertained an idea that the Categories was at pains to avoid: thatsecondary ousiai, ta eide \, determined the being of a primary ousia in some fun-damental way. If, in the Categories, all being emanated from the individual anduniversals were merely “secondary,” then in the Physics, the idea was developedthat secondary ousiai, there understood in terms of the vocabulary of morphe \and eidos, did indeed have the ontological power to determine the being of anousia. In fact, the Physics is so convinced of the power of form in this regard thatit posits form alone as the determining ontological principle of ousia.2 Thus itis no surprise that when at the end of VII.3 Aristotle considers the meaning ofthe hypokeimenon, he sets aside those senses of the term that point to the com-posite and the matter—for he claims that these are somehow clear—and turnsto the sense in which it indicates the form, for “this is the most difficult.”3

The discussion of form begins with the introduction of what at firstglance seems to be a rather odd phrase: “to ti e \n einai,” the what-it-was-to-be.This term, which has perplexed commentators for centuries, is highly signif-icant and in need of some analysis before proceeding to a general account ofVII.4–6. The phrase itself suggests at once the continuity of Aristotle’s think-ing with that of his predecessors and its innovative divergence from them. Italso marks an important transition in Aristotle’s thinking with regard to therole form is to play as a determining moment of the being of the composite.While the phrase to ti e \n einai determines the trajectory of Western ontologyby its Latin translation essentia, in Aristotle’s own thinking, it indicates twosignificant sorts of retrieval: on the one hand, it marks a historical retrieval oftwo of Aristotle’s most influential predecessors, Plato and Socrates; on theother hand, it marks a retrieval of history insofar as it affirms the historicaldimension of the ontological identity of finite ousiai themselves. Let us tracethese two retrievals in the following two sections before turning to a morethorough investigation of the logical treatment of the ti e \n einai in VII.4–6.

A Platonic Tendency, a Socratic Vocabulary

The development of the concept of form in terms of “to ti e \n einai” is a ges-ture to Platonic thinking. When seen in contrast to the economy of principles

61Toward a Dynamic Ontology

operating in the Categories, this gesture amounts to a retrieval of what we havecalled the Platonic tendency to ascribe ontological efficacy to universals oversingulars. Chapters 4–6 of Metaphysics, Book VII, if nothing else, indicate theextent to which Aristotle has come to give credence to what was consideredfrom the perspective of the Categories a possibility to be avoided: that formsare in some way ontologically responsible for singulars—that being flows in amultidirectional manner, not only upward from atomic individuals but down-ward as well. Although Aristotle seeks to evade this possibility in the Cate-gories, there remains even there a Platonic impulse to ascribe a certain onto-logical significance to universals.

Michael Loux recognizes both the continuity of Metaphysics VII.4–6 withthe project of the Categories and its fundamental divergence from it. He main-tains that the basic project of the two texts is the same: to locate those beingsthat may be considered ontologically primary.4 However, the difference lies inthe fact that in VII.4–6, there is a sort of essentialism that is only embryonicin the Categories and the other writings of the Organon:

. . . the essentialist claim that what basic subjects are is given by theirinfimae species suggests that those species deserve a status the earlyAristotle refused to accord them. Even if we concede that speciesrequire concrete instantiations and hence depend on basic subjects fortheir existence, those basic subjects, in turn, could not exist withoutbeing instances or members of those same species. So, despite the factthat the Aristotle of the Categories grants only lowest-level speciessecondary status as ousiai, the mutual dependence here suggests a moreliberal approach to the whole business of identifying primary ousiai,one that includes in the overall inventory of ontologically basic itemsthose universals that fully mark out basic subjects as what they are.5

Loux’s claim that the “mutual dependence” between species and singularsmarks a fundamental shift in perspective from the Categories to the Meta-physics is consistent with the story that we have told thus far. However, becauseLoux himself is concerned to defend the notion that, ultimately, only sub-stantial forms are primary ousiai, his analysis situates the mutual nature of therelationship between universals and the singulars they determine on theperiphery.6 Nevertheless, the recognition that Aristotle is willing to grantsome ontological power to universals and to entertain the idea that there mayexist a “mutual dependence” between universals and singulars indicates thewaning influence of the Categories’ foundational economy of principles.Whereas the Categories posited atomic individuals as the primary beings andunderstood all of the other beings as ontologically dependent upon them, withthe introduction of the concept to ti e \n einai and its identification with theform, to eidos, Aristotle takes the first step in thinking a more complex econ-


omy of being. In the Categories being ascends exclusively from atomic indi-viduals. Already in Physics I.7, but more clearly here in Metaphysics VII.4–6,Aristotle recognizes the possibility that being may descend as well; that is, thatthe form, here understood as to ti e \n einai, plays a vital role as a determiningmoment of the being of the composite.

This Platonic tendency to ascribe ontological priority to universals oversingulars in VII.4–6 marks an important conceptual development in Aristo-tle’s thinking. Ultimately, the recognition of the mutual dependence upon oneanother of universals and singulars, when combined with the Aristotelianaffirmation of the autarchy of beings, leads not to the notion of separatelyexisting forms determining particulars from above, so to speak, but to athematization of the being of the composite in terms of the two irreducibleand equi-original determining moments of form and matter. Thus althoughthe development of the conception of to ti e \n einai and its identification withform clearly marks a return to a certain dimension of Platonic thought, itremains fundamentally opposed to that component of Platonism that positsthe separate existence of forms. This rejection of Platonism is made more per-spicuous if a second historical retrieval indicated by the vocabulary of “to ti e \neinai” is brought into focus, namely, the retrieval of the legacy of Socrates.

Aristotle names Socrates as the originator of the way of thinking desig-nated by the term to ti e \n einai. Socrates, Aristotle tells us, was the first toseek universal definitions by asking, ti esti, what is it?7 Aristotle formalizesthis basic Socratic question by placing the definite article “to” before theentire question ti esti in order to create the phrase to ti estin—the what it is,often translated as “whatness.” The appropriate answer to the question tiestin, what is it? is the what-it-was-for-that-thing-to-be—to ti e \n einai.8

Aristotle often appends a noun, such as “you” or “Callias,” in the dative caseto the phrase to ti e \n einai. The result is an expression that may be translatedas “the what it was for you to be” (to ti e \n soi einai), or “the what it was for Cal-lias to be” (to ti e \n einai Kalliai).9 One could, without doing too much vio-lence to the phrase, reiterate the noun in the dative, as if it were ellipsed: “thewhat it was for you to be you.” It is possible, therefore, that this technicalAristotelian term arose out of a common practice among the ancient Greeksoriginating with Socrates to seek the definition of things by asking ti estinand pointing to a particular being, such as Callias, to a more abstract concept,such as justice, or even to a common social phenomenon, such as marriage.10

The proper response would have been given by a variation of the phrase “toti e \n einai.” Thus the formulation “to ti e \n einai” seems to have been derivedfrom a common way of speaking about philosophy, ethics, and politics infourth- and fifth-century Athens. It would certainly have evoked the legacyof Socrates. If this way of speaking and thinking can be traced to the histor-ical Socrates, then perhaps there are other specifically Socratic, as opposed toPlatonic, dimensions that are retrieved by the deployment of this vocabulary.


In the two passages in the Metaphysics that mention Socrates, Aristotlereinforces the notion that there is a difference between the philosophical posi-tion of the historical and the Platonic Socrates.11 Both passages insist thatSocrates was engaged with ethical virtues, and that he was the first to seekuniversal definitions in ethical matters. Both passages also suggest thatSocrates did not hold the opinion that forms exist in separation from singu-lars, and that Plato, who is named only in the first passage but clearly impliedin the second,12 developed his opinions concerning the separately existingideas or forms in response to the Heraclitean doctrine that everything is influx.13 Although the first passage only implies it, the second passage brings oneof the fundamental differences between the Platonic understanding of Formsand Socrates’ position into sharp focus. According to Aristotle, in seeking auniversal definition, Socrates, unlike Plato, never looked beyond the thing tobe defined. Thus in XIII.4, Aristotle writes: “But Socrates did not make theuniversals separate things, nor the definitions; but these thinkers [the Platon-ists] separated [them] and called these sorts of things the ‘ideas’ of beings.”14

The Socratic position mentioned here—that the universals and definitions donot exist separately from sensible things—would have resonated with Aristo-tle’s own intuition concerning the autarchy of beings. Aristotle’s critique ofPlato’s conception of “participation”15 and the development of the notion thatthe form does not exist in separation from the composite of which it is theform16 suggest that Aristotle would have been extremely interested in retriev-ing and preserving this dimension of the Socratic legacy.

Furthermore, the vocabulary of to ti e \n einai can be seen to carry in itselfthe concerns of its originator—Socrates. In both passages referring to Socratesin the Metaphysics, Aristotle emphasizes that Socrates developed the ti estinquestion in relation to the ethical matters. Thus the origin of this, perhaps themost important term of Western ontology, can be traced back to the Socraticdiscussions of matters of the utmost ethical significance.17 By emphasizing theethical origin of to ti e \n einai, we anticipate what will be argued in chapters7–9: that ontology is always already ethical, because it implies an encounterwith that which is Other. Every attempt to force ontology to relinquish thisits ethical arche \ risks violating the unicity of the being with which ontology isconcerned by reducing it to abstract theoretical concepts. Indeed, the tensionbetween the autarchy of beings and the domination of form that haunts Aris-totle’s ontological engagement with finite beings is fundamentally ethical inthis sense.

The ethics of Aristotle’s ontology can be discerned by tracing the mannerin which he seeks to do justice to the singularity of the composite withoutreducing it to particularity. In Metaphysics VII, this refusal to reduce singular-ity to particularity manifests itself as a refusal to do away with matter, even asthe ontological significance of form is established. This unwillingness to den-igrate the status of matter forces Aristotle to consider precisely how the com-


posite of form and matter is possible. The problem of the possibility of thecomposite is what leads him to develop the dynamic conception of ontologi-cal identity found in Books VIII and IX. Ultimately, this dynamic conceptionof identity allows him to find a way through the universal/singular aporia andto determine the precise manner in which forms do not exist separately fromthe beings they in-form. To anticipate the path of our current investigation,the ethical origins of to ti e \n einai and the dynamic conception of the finitecomposite to which it points suggest that the thematization of the identity ofthe composite in terms of “praxis” in Metaphysics IX.6 and 8 is no mere coin-cidence. The ethical connotations of “ti e \n einai” and “praxis” implicitly pointto the ethics of ontology and specifically to the need for a conception of onto-logical knowledge capable of doing justice to the dynamic identity of the indi-vidual. Such a conception of knowledge is hinted at in Metaphysics XIII.10 butdeveloped more fully in terms of phrone \sis in Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI.

The Retrieval of History

To insist that ontology is ethical is to affirm the contingency of ontology.Ontology is contingent in the sense that it is always already situated in a par-ticular context through which the very appearance of the beings with which itis concerned is mediated. From this perspective, another dimension of thevocabulary of “to ti e \n einai” manifests itself, for the little word “e \n”—theimperfect of the verb einai, “to be”—embedded in the term itself gestures tothe contingency of this appearance. The precise explanation of the imperfectin this phrase has been the object of much speculation, and the suggestionhere that it points to the contingency of being runs counter to most of it.Frede and Patzig suggest that it should be understood as an example of the so-called “philosophical imperfect,” which indicates a logical priority and not atemporal distinction. Arguing that there is no use of the imperfect in Germancorresponding to the Greek, they translate the term in the present.18 JosephOwens seems to agree that the term should not be rendered literally as “thewhat-was-being.”

. . . the Greek imperfect cannot here be taken as denoting past time.It refers in this phrase to something still present, and applies equallywell to the timeless separate Forms. It indicates “timeless Being,” andso implies exemption from the contingency of matter and change,upon which time follows.19

While this position does find significant justification in Aristotle’s discussionof supersensible ousiai, and particularly in Book XII’s discussion of the primemover,20 it betrays a loyalty to a fundamentally static understanding of being—


here indicated by the priority given to the timeless over the temporal—that isseriously called into question by Aristotle’s ultimate unwillingness to do awaywith matter as he considers finite being in the middle books of the Meta-physics. Thus while Frede, Patzig, and Owens are correct to suggest that theimperfect indicates a certain sort of ontological priority and that it must beconceptualized as “something still present” in the being in which it operates,the historical dimension of the imperfect tense must not be denied, for it isprecisely this historical element that gives the concept of to ti e \n einai its onto-logical significance.

Here, however, the Greek imperfect does not indicate the simple past, nordoes it refer to a dead understanding of the historical past. Tugendhat saysthat the ti e \n einai is not to be understood in a naively temporal way.21 Heclaims that the question ti esti asks after a something itself, that is, after anindependent being. It expects an answer that identifies, speaks to, the being asindependent. The answer, however, could just be the name. For Tugendhat,the imperfect comes from the fact that originally ti e \n einai was contrasted tosumbebekos, that which has come together, or, as it is usually interpreted, the“accidental” property of a being. The self-sameness of the being can only beunderstood as what it was before it took on these accidents, before these things thathave come together were there. The perfect tense in the term sumbebekos thuscorresponds to the imperfect of ti e \n einai. Tugendhat goes on to suggest thatthe formulation does not relate to that which is radically independent, like thePlatonic form, but rather it asks after the concrete individual. Thus thereemerge two sides of the ti e \n einai: (1) it points to the independence of theform in itself; and (2) it points to a new conception of independence, to whichthe simplicity of independently existing forms does not suffice.22 This newconception of independence is the contingent independence of the finite com-posite. The “e \n” points to no naïve temporality but rather to the existentialtemporality of the finite being itself, that is, to its inherent historicity.

Thus while Owens is indeed correct to emphasize the dimension of thepresent in his purposefully odd translation of “what-IS-being,”23 the presentindicated by the phrase to ti e \n einai must be understood as itself alwaysalready saturated by the past. The term announces this other conception oftemporality, one intimately tied up with contingent being.24 If one attends tothe fact that the imperfect “e \n” has a progressive/repeated aspect, then one canhear this historical dimension built into the present. The progressive/repeatedaspect of the “e \n” points to the mediated nature of the present; it suggests thatthe history of a being contributed and continues to contribute to the identity ofthe being itself. Such a being has a to ti e \n einai because it is a historical being;it is a being with a history. Thus part of the answer to the “what is it?” ques-tion is sought in the ti e \n einai, the “what-it-was-(for-a-being)-to-be.” If thisambiguous reference to the historical past endemic to the imperfect built intothe term to ti e \n einai is permitted to be held, then the philosophical signifi-


cance of this term comes into focus: it points to the historicity of every onto-logical determination of the finite composite.

The introduction of the vocabulary of “to ti e \n einai” indicates the distancewe have come from the position of the Categories, which was only capable ofconsidering primary ousia from an ahistorical, purely synchronic perspective.Yet we have also come some distance from the position developed in thePhysics, for there Aristotle simply appeals to the presence or absence of formto account for diachronic identity without recognizing the important onto-logical role that the material principle plays in the ontological identity of com-posites. Although the ontological efficacy of matter is hinted at in the Gener-ation of Animals, it does not really come clearly into focus until MetaphysicsVII and the ultimate failure of Aristotle’s attempt to give a purely formalaccount of the ti e \n einai of finite composites.

THE FAILURE OF A PURELY

LOGICAL ACCOUNT OF TO TI E \N EINAI

Chapter 4 of Book VII announces that the investigation into the nature of theto ti e \n einai will begin with some logical remarks.25 However, in clarifying themeaning of the term, Aristotle uses the concrete example of the what it wasfor you to be you: “The ti e \n einai of each thing is what the thing is said accord-ing to itself (kath’ auto). For the ti e \n einai for you is not to be a musician, forit is not according to yourself that you are a musician. The [ti e \n einai] then is[what you are] according to yourself.”26 Although it might at first appearstrange that after announcing that he will make some logical remarks on thesubject, Aristotle deploys such a concrete and personal example, the genealogyof the formulation outlined earlier accounts for this: the Socratic refusal todisengage the search for definitions from the concrete world of ethical affairscontinues to operate even as the “ti e \n einai” is given a technical and an onto-logical determination. Throughout the next three chapters, Aristotle doesindeed offer a logical account of the meaning of to ti e \n einai by focusing onthe question of definability. While all of the intricacies of this complicatedargument need not concern us here, it is important to highlight one difficultand important case—Aristotle’s favorite example of “snubness”—in order toelucidate the ultimate failure of a purely logical approach to the definition ofconcrete, finite beings. This question, in turn, illustrates the extent to whichAristotle refuses to think the nature of ousia as pure form but rather himselftakes the much more difficult road of affirming both form and matter as irre-ducible principles of ousia.

The story that Aristotle tells us about snubness indicates the first stepstoward the recognition, found in VII.11, that “to try to reduce all things andto do away with matter is a useless effort.”27 Not surprisingly, between this


story and its conclusion lies a discussion of the generation of natural beings,and it is here, in what Ferejohn has called Aristotle’s “physical investigation”into the meaning of to ti e \n einai, that another, more dynamic economy ofontological principles begins to come more clearly into focus.28

The Snub

It is a rare moment in the history of philosophy when wit and theoretical pro-fundity unite in a single example. The case of the snub is such a moment.Aristotle’s appeal to the example of the snub is a not-so-concealed referenceto Socrates, who, we are told, had a snubbed nose and was thought by somenot to have been beautiful because of it.29 One is tempted to imagine the peri-patetic pupils having a laugh about the oddity of it, and Aristotle along withthem. And yet, the issue signified by the snub was of deep philosophicalimportance, a point that Aristotle, once the giggles had subsided, would surelyhave emphasized. This emphasis on seriousness, sequestered from all echoesof laughter, is the inherited vision of Aristotle, but with a little imagination,the humor and the vitality of the example can be retrieved.30

The case of the snub defies formal logic, and this is precisely the point. Ifwe attend to the argument surrounding the aporia of the snub, then we willsoon see that it remains intractable as long as it is approached from a purelylogical, that is, exclusively formal, perspective. Ferejohn argues that the dis-cussion of snubness found in VII.5 leads to problems that are only solved inVII.10 and 11.31 This solution, however, is only understandable when viewedthrough the lens of the discussion of generation found in VII.7–9. He arguesthat while the purely logical account of the attempt to define compositesresults in an unacceptable infinite regress, the physical account introduced inVII.7 avoids the regress by offering a way to refer to the material principle indefining the composite. Thus the path of thinking beginning in VII.5 andproceeding through VII.7–9 to VII.10–11 leads increasingly to the recogni-tion that finite sensible ousia cannot be ontologically determined exclusivelyin terms of form.

VII.5 begins by reaffirming the notion established in VII.4, that thewhat-it-was-for-something-to-be cannot involve reference to an additionalelement external to the thing itself. Thus the what-it-was-for-a-human-to-be-a-human cannot be obtained by reference to any of its accidental quali-ties.32 The denial of this possibility, which Aristotle calls “definition by addi-tion,” seems to suggest that only simple things can have a ti e \n einai. At1030a6–ff., Aristotle makes the following point:

Thus, there is a ti e \n einai of however many things [there are] whoseaccount is a definition. However, there is not a definition if the name


and the account signify the same thing . . . but whenever [the nameand account] signify something primary; but these sorts of things arethe ones that are said not to be predicated of some other thing. Thus,the ti e \n einai will belong to nothing that is not a species of a genus,but only to a species of a genus.

The vocabulary of the Categories resonates in this passage, and yet it seemstransformed. The idea that primary being is not said of something elseremains in force, and so too does the vocabulary of to eidos, which, signifi-cantly, can mean either “form” or “species.” However, here, ontological prior-ity is granted to the eidos, and the position that the atomic individual hasexclusive ontological priority seems to have been relinquished. Given Aristo-tle’s trenchant commitment to the autarchy of beings, he cannot jettison com-pletely the ontological power of the singular. Yet the precise manner in whichthe identification of the ti e \n einai with the eidos can be reconciled with Aris-totle’s own earlier affirmation of the primacy of atomic individuals in the Cat-egories is not immediately clear.

At first glance, the discussion of the snub in VII.5 does not seem tooffer new insights into the possibility of such a reconciliation. Rather, Aris-totle argues that the attempt to define the snub exclusively in terms of formleads to an infinite regress. Whatever the specific problems of the much-debated intricacies of this infinite regress, it appears that Aristotle concludesthis chapter convinced that snubness cannot be defined and thus has no tie \n einai.33 However, if snubness does not have a ti e \n einai, then it is a realproblem, for if only a substance has a ti e \n einai, and beings like the snub areshown not to have a ti e \n einai, then beings like the snub are not substances.Again, at first glance, this conclusion does not seem particularly disturbingor profound. Who would lament the demotion of the snub to sub-ousia sta-tus? It is not as if this argument accuses Socrates himself of being less thana substance, just his nose. Or does it? The ontological implications of thisposition and of the example invoked by the snub become evident when it isrecognized that Aristotle often employs the example of the snub as analo-gous to ta phusika, physical beings. Take this poignant passage from Meta-physics VI.1:

If, then, all physical things are spoken of in a manner similar to thesnub, as for example a nose, an eye, a face, flesh, bone, and in generalan animal, a leaf, a root, a bark, and in general a plant (for the accountof these is not without motion, but always has matter), it is clear howit is necessary to seek and define to ti esti (the what it is) with respectto physical things and why it is [part] of the physicist’s [task] toinvestigate also some part of the soul, namely, that which does notexist without matter.34


The breadth of this analogy is striking. Aristotle moves from the parts of the liv-ing beings to the living beings themselves. The decisive factor, however, seems tobe the role of matter, for matter must be mentioned when the ti e \n phusikois einai,the what it was for natural beings to be natural beings, is sought. However, inVII.5, this turns out to be highly problematic. In fact, it is precisely because thenose (material principle) must be mentioned in the attempt to ascertain the ti e \neinai for the snub that the pernicious infinite regress of noses results. There Aris-totle suggests the ridiculous result of trying to define the snub—which, in virtueof itself, already includes reference to the nose (its matter)—in terms of concav-ity, that is, purely in terms of its form. Concavity and the snub are not the same,for the latter includes reference to matter, while the former does not. If we iden-tify them and talk of a “snub nose,” then we will be redundant, saying the samething twice: a “concave nose nose.” Aristotle concludes: “so it is absurd that a tie \n einai should inhere in these sorts of things [namely, the snub]; otherwise, itgoes into infinity, for in a ‘snub nose nose’ there will be yet another [nose].”35

That there are too many noses may not seem too problematic at first—after all, what larger significance could such a patently ridiculous logicalregression have beyond the sphere of logic itself? However, if we recall theparallel that Aristotle himself draws between physical beings and the snub andfurther, if we recognize that throughout his writings Aristotle holds naturalbeings as the paradigmatic examples of ousiai, then the infinite proliferationof noses must be seen as a profound philosophical problem. Further, it mustbe understood as a problem that, at least in Aristotle’s view, could not besolved from the perspective of the logical analysis of the ti e \n einai alone.Another approach is needed. To suggest such another approach is the func-tion of chapters 7–9 of Metaphysics, Book VII.

THE PHYSICAL TREATMENT OF TO TI E \N EINAI

The origin and status of VII.7–9 within the context of Book VII as a whole isa matter of much conjecture.36 Without becoming mired in the controversy,we may concur with those who believe not only that Aristotle himself insertedthese originally independent chapters into their present context, but also thatthese chapters are of fundamental importance to the argument of Book VII asa whole.37 The discussion found in Metaphysics VII.7–9 must not, however, beseen exclusively within the framework of Book VII but also from the largerperspective of the overall trajectory and direction of Aristotle’s thinking con-cerning finite being. The turn to the question of generation is not only a turntoward what Ferejohn calls the “physical” mode of analysis, although it is thattoo—and importantly so—but it is also the continuation of a path of think-ing running from the Categories through Physics I.7 concerned to think thediachronic identity of ousiai as generated beings.


The problem of the finitude of ousia pushes Aristotle’s thinking towardits most profound discoveries. Ultimately, to account for the diachronic iden-tity of generated ousiai, Aristotle must come up with a dynamic conception ofthe identity of form and matter that, on the one hand, is capable of account-ing for the appearance of the new, and, on the other hand, is able to explainhow this new being is at the same time principled—the result of a predictable,regular process. This dynamic conception of identity is not, to be sure, estab-lished in VII.7–9, but an important step toward it is taken: the explication ofhow, when attempting to locate the ti e \n einai of natural beings, the materialprinciple may be mentioned. As can be seen, this question, rather than beingdisruptive, follows directly upon the discussion found in VII.4–6 and particu-larly upon the problems surrounding the snub. Here, however, a solution tothe problem of the snub is discovered, because the analysis proceeds from a“physical” perspective in which there appears to be a way to make mention ofthe material principle in defining composite ousiai without falling into an infi-nite regress of noses.38

The That-en Example

This possibility is introduced by the question that appears to be in the back-ground of the entire discussion of the snub: must matter be mentioned in theaccount of the composite? Aristotle suggests that a bronze sphere, for exam-ple, can be defined “in both ways” (amphotero \s) by mentioning both (kai) itsmatter and (kai) its form.39 Thus he concludes that the bronze sphere has mat-ter in its formula.40 By addressing the problem of definition from the physicalrather than the purely logical perspective, Aristotle is able to develop a way ofmentioning the matter in a definition without falling into the regress dilemmaof the snub.

This new sort of definition involves the employment of the adjectivederived from the name of the matter out of which the being is generated: “Insome cases, once a thing has been generated, that from which, as matter, it isgenerated is called, not ‘that’ but ‘that-y’ (or ‘that-en’) [ekeininon]; for exam-ple, the statue is called not ‘stone,’ but ‘stony.’”41 Immediately after making thisstatement, Aristotle considers a complication of this position. In some cases,this peculiar linguistic phenomenon does not seem to occur. The example towhich Aristotle appeals is that of the sick person who becomes healthy. Insuch cases, after the change has occurred, it is linguistically impossible inGreek as in English to point to the material principle by the adjectival for-mulation. Aristotle is clear in the following:

. . . the cause [of this] is that [the sick human-being] comes to behealthy from the privation and the underlying subject (ek te \s stere \seo \s


kai tou hypokeimenou), which we call “matter” (for example, both thehuman-being and the sick become healthy), but [the human-being]is called healthy more from the privation than from the underlyingsubject, for example, [the human-being] becomes healthy from beingsick rather than from being a human-being.42

Here Aristotle seems to have in mind the model of qualified or accidentalbecoming, discussed in Physics I.7.43 According to this model, one determinatecontrary, in this case the “sick,” is replaced by another, the “healthy,” while thehypokeimenon, the “human-being,” remains throughout the change. Here asthere, Aristotle attempts to establish a parallel between this sort of becomingand substantial becoming, between alteration and generation. Thus he arguesthat because in most cases of generation there is no clear name for the priva-tion, it makes sense that the adjectival formulation is constructed, and that thematerial principle comes to play the role of the “that from which.” In this way,the linguistic practice of employing the adjectival reference to matter whendefining a composite ousia that has been generated is explained by the morefamiliar and perhaps heuristically more accessible example of accidentalchange. Thus as he had attempted and failed to do in Physics I.7,44 Aristotleagain suggests that there is an analogy to be made between the sick/healthychange and the generation of composites:

So, just as a healthy human-being who became so from being sick, isnot called a sick human-being, so the statue is not called wood but(by varying the word) wooden, not bronze but brazen, not stone butstony, and the house [is called] not bricks but brick-en; for when onelooks carefully, he would not say simply [the bronze becomes a statueor the bricks a house] for it is necessary for that which becomes tochange and not remain.45

As suggested in chapter 3, this analogy is fundamentally misleading, and itpoints to a persistent, albeit waning, unwillingness on Aristotle’s part to thinkthe fundamental difference between alteration and generation.46 As long as heremains faithful to the logic of things, that is, to the three-principle structureof alteration that was called into question already in Physics I.7, then this dif-ference will remain eclipsed. The dynamic identity of the composite itself onlycomes into focus once Aristotle sheds his loyalty to the model of alteration.

The attempt once again, as in Physics I.7, to give an account of finite, gen-erated beings by an analogy with mere alteration indicates the continuinginfluence of the logic of things and the foundational economy of principlesdeveloped in the Categories. Aristotle seems unwilling to recognize that themodel of change differs significantly from that of generation, although thereare structural similarities. The difference between alteration and generation is


not made completely evident until Metaphysics, Book IX, when Aristotlefinally develops the distinction between motion (kine \sis) and activity(energeia). However, this distinction has already been suggested by the discus-sion of generation found in GA IV.1–3, where the kinetic model, founded asit is on the framework of fabrication, was shown to be limited because of itsinability to account for the full range of inherited characteristics endemic to agiven individual. At this point, however, one element of the differencebetween alteration and generation can be seen in what we may thematize asthe step back behind the immediacy of things. The discussion of generationmust address beings from a perspective that locates the determining momentsof finite being in the beings themselves. Thus the real significance of theadjectival formulation introduced in VII.7 is that it offers a way to recognizematter as itself a determining ground of the composite. The point to whichAristotle’s thinking leads is that matter and form are the two irreducibledetermining moments of ousia; that it is, as he himself finally says in VII.11,a “useless effort” (periergon) to reduce all things and do away with matter.47

From this perspective, however, the impetus behind the analogy betweenthe alteration from the sick to the healthy and the generation of the statue outof wood, though misguided, is recognizable: it is driven by a concern to main-tain continuity through change. Indeed, the main reason these two examplescan be seen as analogous is that they both establish continuity by appealing toa static, foundational principle. The health example appeals to the human-being as the hypokeimenon and the statue example to the idea in the mind ofthe sculptor as the persistent eidos. Aristotle’s reliance on the models of alter-ation and fabrication, for all of its drawbacks, does have the virtue of securingcontinuity through change. This seems to be the single greatest obstacle hin-dering the development of a more dynamic conception of ousia.

However, the adjectival approach to defining generated composites seemsto open up the possibility of affirming continuity through change while at thesame time granting a definite difference or discontinuity between the first andthe second state. Such a discontinuity is precisely what the models of alterationand fabrication lack and the phenomenon of generation demands. Thus in theexample of the sick person becoming a healthy person, the hypokeimenon, thehuman-being, does not itself change. Rather, it remains constantly presentthroughout the change, and to this extent it can secure the identity of an objectthrough accidental change. If, however, the phenomenon of generation is takenseriously, then this model will not do, for some account will have to be givenfor the fact that the hypokeimenon itself changes. In such cases, the adjectivalreference to the material principle has the distinct advantage of indicating bothcontinuity and difference. The statue does not remain constantly presentthrough the change as the human-being does in the aforementioned example.Rather, it is generated as form and matter enter into relation. In such cases, thematter itself changes, and this change is reflected linguistically in the adjectival


formulation: we do not say that the statue is “wood” but that it is “wooden.”The variation of the word indicates that there is both a continuity betweenwhat the composite substance was, namely, wood, and what it has become, thatis, a wooden statue. Thus there is a gesture to the history of the statue itself, agesture which, from the perspective of the material principle, mirrors what thedevelopment of the concept of to ti e \n einai established from the perspective ofthe formal principle. Here, as there, the concern is to locate a principle that isdynamic without being anarchic, to suggest that part of what it means for afinite being to be is to have been generated out of some identifiable matter, andthis to such a degree that this matter must somehow find its way into the def-inition of the being itself. So just as the very notion of the ti e \n einai served toaffirm the historicity of finite beings from the perspective of form, the adjecti-val reference to matter in the definitions of such beings affirms the same his-toricity from the perspective of their material principle.

With this, the path back behind the static framework of the Categories isfurther pursued. However, an ambivalence remains. In Physics I.7, Aristotlebetrays his own uncertainty about the analogy between alteration and gener-ation by employing the potential optative when he suggests that all beings aregenerated from some underlying subject the way “human-being” underlies thealteration from being unmusical to being musical (or, as here, from being sickto being healthy).48 Here the same analogy is made once again, but its limita-tions are more evident. While it is true that the role of the hypokeimenon mustbe affirmed insofar as it secures continuity through change, the manner inwhich this is understood in the two cases is quite different. On the model ofalteration, the hypokeimenon remains throughout the change; on the model ofgeneration, however, the hypokeimenon must be understood dynamically, for ititself changes. In the face of this dynamism, Aristotle attempts to appeal tothe hegemony of form to secure continuity. Thus in order to elucidate thenature of generation, he constantly refers to examples taken from the regionof technological production, for here the manner in which the form plays thisfounding role is relatively obvious. With the introduction of the “that-en”vocabulary, Aristotle seems to recognize, as he had in GA IV.1–3, that mattertoo plays an ontologically determining role, and that a full account of thebeing of the individual cannot be given on the basis of the hegemony of formalone. Here again the problem of continuity through substantial change rearsits head, for the form can no longer fulfill its function as the ultimate staticfoundational principle.

To address this concern for continuity, there seems to emerge an implicitappeal to the historicity of each being. The suggestion here is not that Aris-totle himself explicitly developed the ontological implications of this sort ofhistoricity, but rather (1) that there is a notion of historicity implicit in thevocabulary of “to ti e \n einai” and in the introduction of the vocabulary of“ekeininon” that can be employed to address the problem of diachronic iden-


tity, and (2) that the appeal to the historicity of being in attempting to addressthe concern for continuity is fundamentally more philosophically fecund thanAristotle’s ultimate answer to the same concern: the positing of a single foun-dational, hegemonic principle—God as pure form. The notion that each beinghas its history, and this in the double sense that both the formal and materialprinciples determine the being of ousia, allows for continuity through changewithout relying on a static, foundational conception of either thehypokeimenon or the eidos. This requires, however, the development of themore dynamic economy of principles introduced in Metaphysics, Book VIIIand IX, in which the principles of matter and form, there translated into thevocabulary of dunamis and energeia, emerge as grounding moments of thecomposite. Here, however, it is important to follow the path of the argumentfor the irreducibility of matter to its conclusion, for in VII.10 and 11, Aristo-tle comes to recognize form and matter as equi-original grounding momentsof the finite composite.

FORM AND MATTER:EQUI-ORIGINAL GROUNDING MOMENTS

In Metaphysics VII.10–11, Aristotle addresses a question that he attempts toavoid in the Categories. In chapter 5 of the Categories, he warns: “Let us not beconfused by the thought that the parts of a substance are in the whole sub-stance as if present in a subject and be forced to say that those parts are notsubstances.”49 Clearly Aristotle has no desire to address the real problems thatsuch a “confusion” would generate for the foundational theory of the Cate-gories. In Metaphysics VII.10–11, however, he is in a better position to addressthe issue because he has recourse to the form/matter distinction. Indeed, with-out this distinction and the equally important discussion of finite, generatedsubstances in VII.7–9, the problem as to precisely how ousiai are to be under-stood as having parts would remain intractable. In the end, Aristotle was rightto evade this issue in the Categories.50 However, with the form/matter distinc-tion in mind, and further, by returning to the paradigm example of the snub,Aristotle is able to develop a functional analysis of ousia grounded in themutual dependence of form and matter upon one another. He begins his dis-cussion by drawing a distinction between two senses according to whichsomething may be said to be a part:

. . . in one sense even matter is called “a part” of something, while inanother sense it is not, but [the only parts] are the things out ofwhich the account of the form [consists]. For example, flesh is not apart of concavity (for flesh is the matter in which concavity comes tobe), but it is a part of snubness; and of the composite statue the bronze


is a part, but it is not a part of that which is called “the form” of astatue. (For what must be said is the form or the singular as havingthe form, but the material part should never be stated by itself ).51

The examples of concavity and snubness from VII.5 return here with a newsense of optimism: they no longer signify the ominous prospect of infiniteregress; rather, they are used by Aristotle to clarify two ways of understandingmatter: (1) as radically separated and independent from the form and (2) asintimately related to the form. Concavity clarifies the first, primarily logical,approach to the question of definition, for in defining what-it-was-for-con-cavity-to-be-concavity, one arguably does not need to mention matter at all.52

Snubness clarifies the second, primarily physical, approach to the question ofdefinition, for snubness is used as an example of something whose ti e \n einairequires the mention of matter. The question Aristotle faces here concernshow it is possible to give an account of the formula of those sorts of beingsthat display the structure illustrated by snubness—that is, of beings “essen-tially” composed of form and matter. In order to answer this question, the pre-cise ontological role that matter plays in the being of the composite must bedelineated. Aristotle begins to clarify this by developing a functional analysisof the composite:

And since the soul of animals (for this is the ousia of an ensouledbeing) according to its account (logos) is the ousia or the form or theti e \n einai of this sort of body, each part of the latter, when it isdefined well, will not be defined without its function (ergon), and thisfunction cannot inhere in that part without sensation; the result isthat while the parts of the soul, either all or some of them, are priorto the composite animal (and similarly in other singulars), but thebody and its parts are posterior to this ousia, and it is not the ousiabut the composite that is divided into these parts as into its matter.On one hand these [material parts] are prior to the composite, buton the other hand, they are not. For it is not possible for them to existhaving been separated [from the whole]; for the finger of an animaldoes not exist in any manner whatsoever, but it is only equivocally[called “a finger”] if it is dead.53

This passage is cited at length not only because of its significance in address-ing the question of the role matter plays in the definition of a composite, butalso because it elucidates what seems to be an ambiguity in Aristotle’s think-ing concerning the precise way to think about this role. Aristotle posits twosenses of “parts” here. The first refers to the parts of the account, that is, in thispassage, to the possibility that the soul—which is the ousia according to theaccount (logos) of living beings—may itself have different parts. Let us, with


Aristotle, leave aside the difficult question of the parts of the soul.54 The sec-ond, and, in this case, more germane, sense of “parts” refers to what Aristotlecalls “parts as matter.”55 The ambiguity concerning matter manifests itself inthe second sense of parts, for, as the passage suggests, there is a sense in whichthese parts are both prior and posterior to the composite.

Aristotle seems to suggest that, on the one hand, the proximate matter“out of which” a composite is generated has an independent existence prior toits being worked up into a composite. Thus taking the standard—that is, inap-propriate but heuristically helpful—example of the statue, the bronze of thestatue has an existence independent of the composite (i.e., the statue itself )before it is worked up into being a statue.56 So too, employing a more germaneexample, the female menses has an independent existence before the “periodof ‘Love’”57 during which it encounters and is worked up by the male semen.However, on the other hand, Aristotle goes on to argue that in another sensethe “parts as matter” are not really what they are until they have been workedup into a composite. Thus the flesh and bone that will make up the finger ofa body is not truly a finger until it has been worked up by the form and has afunction in the context of the organism as a whole. Conversely, the finger isnot truly what it was once it has been cut off from the organism, that is, onceit is no longer in its function—en-ergeia, actual. The function, ergon, of thepart with respect to the whole is so fundamental that when separated, the partitself ceases to be what it was.

The ontological significance of this functional analysis lies in its recogni-tion that the composite is only what it is as long as form and matter maintaintheir relationship with one another, and further, that this relationship must beunderstood actively. Here, ousia is beginning to be thought dynamically. Thusit is no surprise that in VII.16, when Aristotle thematizes ousia in terms ofdunamis, he emphasizes the relation between form and matter as that whichis responsible for the “working up” of the composite:

It also appears that most of the things that seem to be ousiai arepotentialities (dunameis). These are the parts of animals (for none ofthem exists as having been separated, and whenever they are sepa-rated, even then, they all exist as matter), and earth, and fire, and air;for none of them exist as one, but they exist like a heap until they areworked-up (pephthe \) and some unity is produced out of them.58

Here Aristotle seems to suggest the importance of the motion of the form. Itis form that “works-up” or concocts the matter, rendering it something deter-minate, and not just a mere heap. It is the motion of form that acts as theincipient principle of the newly generated composite. However, it is equallyevident here that the matter is necessary, for indeed, if there is nothing to be“worked up,” then there will be no composite substance in the first place. This


fact had been recognized by Aristotle in Book VII, chapter 8, where he inti-mated that the form itself depends on matter, that it does not indeed exist inseparation from that which it in-forms:

It is clear from what has been said that, on one hand, what has beencalled form or ousia is not generated; on the other hand, the com-posite, which is spoken of according to that [ousia], is generated, andthat in all generated beings there is matter, there is [one dimension]that is this [i.e., matter] but another that is that [i.e., form]. Does asphere, then, exist apart from these [material parts], or a house apartfrom the bricks? Or, would [the composite] never be generated if[the form] thus existed apart as a this (tode ti)? But [the form] signi-fies a such, and this is not a this and a definite thing; and what [theartist] makes and [the man] begets is a such from a this, and when-ever there is generation, there exists a such this. Thus, the entire thisis Callias, or Socrates, just as [in the other example, the entire this] isthis bronze sphere; and generally, the human-being and the animalare like the bronze sphere.

He concludes the chapter, saying:

But when the whole has already (e \de \) been generated, such a form inthis flesh and these bones is Callias or Socrates; and this is other than[that which generated it] (for the matter is other), but it is the samein species (since the species is indivisible).59

This passage indicates the extent to which the existing finite composite, likeSocrates or Callias, depends as much upon matter as upon form. In this sense,form and matter are co-determining moments of the being of the composite,for the composite only first becomes a tode ti—that is, an identifiable, inde-pendently existing individual—once the form has been fully taken over into thematter. As long as the form acts on the matter from without, the process ofindividuation remains incomplete. As Furth has suggested, the precisemoment at which this occurs—precisely when the form has been taken intothe matter—may be in principle indiscernible.60 However, rather than con-cerning himself with this precise moment, Aristotle uses the adverb e \de \,“already,” to indicate that it has already occurred, that is, to indicate that thebeing there present has taken its principle into itself; it is already what it hasbecome.61 Thus unlike Aquinas, who, pointing to this passage, posits matter asthe principle of differentiation between individuals of the same species, weshould read this passage as indicating that the identifiable individual firstbecomes what it is once the form no longer acts on the matter as somethingexternal to itself.62 It is not just the matter that renders the individual distinct


but the form having been taken over into the flesh and bones. As species, theform in some sense seems to be able to remain in existence even after thedeath of the composite, not as numerically one and the same thing but as oneand the same in species. Yet even at this more abstract, intergenerational level,matter remains the condition for the possibility of the form as species, forthere is no species without actively existing members. Thus in the end, eventhe intergenerational existence of the form depends on the active relation ofform and matter as co-determining, grounding moments of the composite.

By recognizing that form and matter constitute the generated compositeas its grounding moments, Aristotle opens up the possibility of thinking thevery being of the composite ousia as the dynamic relation between form andmatter. In so doing, he also recognizes the important and, indeed, irreduciblerole that matter plays as a condition for the possibility of the composite sub-stance itself. Book VII.11 makes this clear:

And so to try to reduce all things and to do away with matter is use-less effort (periergon); for surely some things exist as a this in a this[that is, a form in a matter], or as disposed in such-and-such a man-ner. And the comparison Socrates the younger habitually made doesnot hold well; for it leads away from the truth and makes the assump-tion that it is possible for a human-being to exist without his parts justas a circle does without the bronze. But the two cases are not similar;for an animal is something sensible and cannot be defined withoutmotion, and so [it cannot exist] without its parts existing in some way.For a hand is not in any manner whatsoever a part of a human-being,but only when it is able to perform its function (ergon), so it must beensouled; if it is not ensouled, it is not a part.63

Here the inadequacy of the purely logical mode of analysis is emphasized andit is recognized that to attempt to provide a definition of certain kinds of beingswithout mention of their matter is futile. It is not surprising that here too Aris-totle recognizes the disanalogy between artifacts and living beings. The notionof ergon, function, provides Aristotle with a way to think the role that matterplays in determining the what-it-was-for-the-composite-to-be without fallinginto the infinite regress of the logical investigation found in VII.5. There theproblem arose because Aristotle did attempt to do away with matter and todefine the snub in terms of its form alone. In so doing, he missed the funda-mental difference he later establishes between those beings analogous to con-cavity and those analogous to the snub, for the first do not seem to require anyspecific matter in which to exist, while the snub most certainly requires a nose.64

Here, at VII.11, on the other hand, Aristotle points to this difference andargues that human-beings are not like circles, for they are living beings thatrequire a certain sort of matter organized in a certain manner in order to be.


The transition from Book VII.4–6 to VII.10–11, then, may be seen as anattempt to begin to come to terms with the notion that form and matter areco-determining moments of the finite composite. This must have been a dif-ficult journey for Aristotle, given that the Platonists with whom he had stud-ied for so long were concerned to posit the separate and independent existenceof the forms. Indeed, one senses the difficulty of it at the end of VII.11, whenAristotle summarizes what has been discussed.65 There he suggests again thatin one sense there is no formula of a composite substance, because it mustinclude matter. He appeals to the infinite regress generated by the snub noseand suggests that things existing as matter or things that include matter arenot the same as their ti e \n einai and therefore cannot count as primary ousiai.Based on this, it is difficult to understand how one could interpret Book VIIto suggest that anything other than the substantial form is primary ousia.However, this summary fails to refer to chapters VII.7–9, which is one reasonfor the assumption that these chapters were inserted later. If it is true thatAristotle himself inserted them, then it is not difficult to surmise why heinserted them where he did, even if, as Frede and Patzig suggest, it seems todisrupt the flow of the argument.

The discussion of generated ousiai found in VII.7–9 suggests the properway to understand how to include matter in the account of generated beings.The introduction of the adjectival formulation of the material principle offersthe conceptual apparatus by which to think both the continuity and differenceendemic to the process of generation. This does not mean that matter andform cannot also be called ousiai, but rather that any account of the meaningof sensible ousia must recognize the profound importance of the process ofgeneration according to which such composite ousiai come to be what theyare. To do justice to the fact of generation—indeed, to the fact that ousiai arenot things but, rather, finite beings—form and matter must be reconceptual-ized. Ute Guzzoni clearly formulates the nature of this reconceptualizationwhen she writes: “That the hyle [matter] is contained in the logos of thingsmeans that these things themselves are understood differently, no longer withrespect to their universal eidos alone but, rather, as the relationship of twogrounding moments (Grundmomente), as the interplay (Zusammenspiel) of hyleand eidos. With this, the hyle-eidos-relationship now constitutes the actualstructure of horismos [definition].”66 Matter is not understood as determinedby the composite but as determined to the composite by the form. However,the form itself is not the ground of the matter; rather, as Guzzoni puts it, thecomposite is constituted in the interplay between form and matter, the twogrounding moments of the finite ousia. Here we call both matter and form“grounds” of the composite, because they are, together, the identifiable equi-original determining moments of the composite itself. However, that they areequi-original by no means implies that they function in the same way, for aswe have seen, the form is the principle of determination, while the matter is


that which is determinable, though not purely passive; yet we insist upon theirequi-originality in order not to permit the historical infatuation with form(and its domination) to eclipse the equally important role played by matter asa ground of the composite.

RETHINKING THE FORM/MATTER RELATIONSHIP

The next chapter will trace Aristotle’s attempt to think the interplay of formand matter as grounding moments of the composite. For now, however, it isimportant to recognize how Aristotle sets the stage for this theoretical movetoward a more dynamic economy of ontological principles. By insertingVII.7–9 into the argument of VII.4–11, Aristotle disrupts the progression ofthe purely logical approach to ousia and forces it to address the problems asso-ciated with generation. By introducing the functional analysis of ousia, he callsinto question the possibility of giving an account of finite beings based exclu-sively on form taken in isolation from matter. Here the meaning of ti e \n einaicomes further into focus, for the ti e \n einai cannot be simply identified withthe form. As Guzzoni suggests, the ti e \n einai is not a ground like form andmatter are; it does not name a determining, constitutive moment of the com-posite. Rather, it is the ground for the fact “that a being is as this determinatebeing, it is the determinateness of the being posited as the ground of thisbeing.”67 Traditional ontology posits this determinateness as itself the objec-tive ground of the being of the composite, thus systematically obfuscating thisits own thetic maneuver. The tendency to simply identify form with to ti e \neinai and to point exclusively to it when determining the meaning of the beingof the composite further obscures the extent to which the concept is incapableof completely capturing the being of that with which it is concerned. How-ever, as D. M. Balme has suggested, form and ti e \n einai do not always coin-cide, for “the form is structural, the essence [ti e \n einai] functional,” that is, theform names a grounding, constitutive moment of the composite, the ti e \neinai, the composite as a definite, functioning being.68 This further clarifies theuse of the imperfect “e \n” in the phrase, for a determination of the function ofa being requires experience with its way(s) of being. Because of this, discern-ing what a being is can only be given on the basis of its what-it-was-to-be, itsti e \n einai. Being finite, ontological judgment always comes too late; it canonly determine what it was for a being to be, for it only has access to thatwhich “has already,” to use Aristotle’s formulation, been worked up into a con-crete composite.

The discussion of generation and the role that matter must play in estab-lishing the ti e \n einai of generated beings not only reinforces this point butalso seriously calls into question the possibility of understanding form andmatter in strict separation from one another. Indeed, in Book VIII, as will be


seen, the question of the separability of form is fundamentally qualified inorder to do justice to the mutual (although perhaps not symmetrically recip-rocal) dependence of form and matter upon one another as groundingmoments of the composite. Increasingly, then, the discussion of Book VII hascalled for a thematization of the precise manner in which this ontological rela-tionship is to be thought.

The final chapter of Book VII both testifies to the inconclusive nature ofBook VII as a whole and indicates the extent to which the problem of therelationship between form and matter has become an issue of vital importanceto Aristotle’s consideration of sensible ousia. To this extent, VII.17 acts bothas a summary of the preceding analysis and an introduction to the discussionthat follows in Books VIII and IX. It begins this way: “Let us again continueto speak from another starting-point, so to say, and [to identify] what weshould call an ousia and what sort of thing it is.”69 The previous discussionseems to be unsatisfactory, so another starting point is required. This otherbeginning turns out to be a reconsideration of precisely how the question ofthe meaning of ousia had been asked up until this point. Aristotle goes on toclaim that the original way the question was phrased, namely, in the familiarlySocratic manner “What is F?” is misleading. Rather than asking, for example,“ti estin anthro \pos?,” “What is a human-being?,” Aristotle suggests that themore proper way to phrase the question is “Why (dia ti) is the matter someone thing?”70 This shift in perspective is of vital importance. It marks a shiftaway from the logic of things toward a thematization of the groundingmoments of the identity of the composite itself. The clear answer to the ques-tion “Why is the matter some one thing?” is eidos.71 However, the clarity ofthis answer leads directly to a more interesting and profound question, a ques-tion that will occupy Aristotle in the next two books: how is the composite ofform and matter possible? What is the nature of their interplay such that theirrelationship constitutes some one being?

These are the questions with which we are left at the end of Aristotle’s dis-cussion in Book VII. L. A. Kosman recognizes this quite clearly:

The attempted accounts of substance as matter and form . . . surrenderto the more obvious fact that substance is the compound of matter andform. But at the end of book Z (Met. Z.17), in one of the most elegantarguments of that book, Aristotle sets out to show that matter andform cannot be elements in the being of a substance, and the relationbetween them cannot be one of the joining of elements. We are there-fore left with the question: In what sense is substance a compound?72

Kosman is correct to point out that the relation between form and matter isnot a relation between elements, for Aristotle suggests that form is not an ele-ment (stoicheion) at all but rather a principle (arche \), while matter is, in fact, an


element. The distinction between stoicheion and arche \here is important, for, asKosman suggests, the relationship between form and matter cannot be a sim-ple material relation between elements. Aristotle makes this point by suggest-ing that the composite substance is not just a conglomeration of elements, thatis, it is not like a “heap” (so \ros) but rather like a syllable which, when the rela-tionship between the letters disintegrates, itself ceases to exist.73 That whichgives the elements their structure and holds them in it is the form, the prin-ciple, as opposed to the material elements. The significance of this vocabularyis that it at once establishes the difference between the role of form and that ofmatter, and it also affirms their mutual dependence upon one another asgrounding moments of the composite. The form may “work up” the matterinto the composite; it may be the active principle according to which a beingmay be said to be what it is—thus Aristotle can call the form “to ti e \n einai,”for the composite would never function as it should without having been soworked up—but there is no composite at all and, therefore, no form either,without the matter. Thus the final chapter of Book VII affirms the argumentthat in the discussion of sensible ousia Aristotle ultimately refuses to do awaywith matter and instead attempts to understand the identity of the compositeas the interplay between form and matter. With this, the fundamental ques-tion of Books VIII and IX can be addressed: how does the relationshipbetween form and matter ground the composite?


Together, Metaphysics Books VIII and IX develop a dynamic economy of prin-ciples capable of responding to the question that reveals itself at the end ofBook VII concerning the ontological grounds of the composite. A passagefound at the end of Book VIII suggests the contours of this new economy:“each individual is something one, and that which is in potency and thatwhich is in actuality are somehow (po \s) one.”1 These rather perplexing wordspoint already to the investigation into the various meanings of potency andactuality, dunamis and energeia, found in Book IX. Yet the claim that dunamisand energeia somehow—pos—exist as one appears only after Aristotle has clar-ified the qualified manner in which form and matter exist separately from thecomposite. Taken together, this clarification of the meaning of separation andthe thematization of the ontological grounds of the composite in terms ofenergeia and dunamis constitute two stages of a unified ontological strategy.

In a preliminary manner, this strategy can be seen as an attempt to nego-tiate a third way between the oppositions expressed in the two aporiae outlinedin chapter 4. There the question arose as to whether ousia should be under-stood as either universal or singular and, in a related problem, whether or notit should be understood to exist in strict separation from the being of which itis the ousia. The either/or dichotomy of these two aporiae obfuscates the iden-tification of a safe passage. Aristotle locates a path between these extremes bydeploying a strategy that (1) clarifies the equivocal meaning of the tode ti andseparation as they apply to form, matter, and the composite and (2) translatesthe grounding moments of the composite—form and matter—into the moredynamic vocabulary of energeia and dunamis, respectively. Taken together,these two strategic moves constitute Aristotle’s most sophisticated attempt tothink the dynamic identity of the composite. Insofar as he succeeds in this,

85

6

The Dynamic Economy of Principles

Aristotle’s engagement with finite ousiai lends insight into the present attemptto rethink the nature and function of ontological principles, for here Aristotledevelops an economy of principles in which the dimension of domination,although always operational, never eclipses that of incipience.

THE FIRST STAGE: CLARIFYING THE

MEANING OF TODE TI AND SEPARATION

In Metaphysics VII.3, Aristotle had established the two fundamental featuresof an ousia: “for to be separable (to cho \riston) and a this (tode ti) is thought tobelong most of all to an ousia.”2 Although in VII.3 Aristotle had simplyposited these dimensions of ousia as fundamental, in Book VIII he clarifiesprecisely how these terms apply to form, matter, and the composite, respec-tively. What emerges, however, is a vocabulary of equivocation that allowseach of the three in its own way to qualify as a tode ti and separable.

This sort of equivocation is typical of Aristotle. It is symptomatic of hiswillingness to draw out shades of meaning and multiple answers dependingon the nature of the phenomenon with which he is concerned. This frustratesthose who approach Aristotle’s thinking as a system of thought intent onestablishing the definitive, univocal answer to the question of being. To relaxthe strict conception of to cho \riston is not, contrary to what some have sug-gested, to engage in an intellectual “cheat” or a “sophistical dodge.”3 Rather, itis to introduce flexibility into an approach that has proven itself too rigid toaccount for order while affirming the ultimate autarchy of sensible ousiai. Inorder to appreciate the subtlety and sophistication of this development, it isnecessary first to introduce the equivocal meaning of the term tode ti, for oncethis term is unpacked in all of its complexity, the impetus behind the relaxingof the strict meaning of separability comes into focus. Far from being an intel-lectual cheat, the equivocation concerning the tode ti and to cho \riston indicatesthe elasticity of Aristotle’s thinking. It suggests the extent to which Aristotleis prepared to revise even his most basic assumptions in the face of their philo-sophical inadequacy.

The Equivocal Meaning of Tode ti

The precise translation of “tode ti” has been a topic of much debate for manyyears. However, the translation is, as all translations are, only meaningful whensituated within the context of the thinking in which it finds expression. Fredeand Patzig translate “tode ti” as “Dieses von der Art,” literally, “this of thespecies,” throughout their two-volume study of Metaphysics VII. They take“tode” as a demonstrative pronoun that points to a specific instance of a class


designated by “ti.” This translation and its corresponding interpretation, how-ever, already assume an ontological hierarchy that the term itself may bedesigned to undermine. Any translation of this two-term complex that takesone or the other of the term’s component parts as picking out a specificinstance, or as designating a specific member, of a class indicated by the othercomponent assumes that the being designated as a tode ti itself is nothingmore than a particular—the instantiation of a universal.

J. A. Smith, however, argues against any interpretation that understandsthe tode ti in terms of the species-particular relationship. He suggests thatthere are two basic traditional interpretations of tode ti in the literature. Thefirst takes a ti as indicating a class of “somewhats” and tode as a term singlingout a member of this class; the second takes the tode as indicating a class of“thisnesses” and takes ti as an indefinite article that renders the phrase itselfindefinite: something like “any thisness,” “a thisness,” or “some thisness.”However, Smith objects to both of these translations/interpretations, becausethey “have this in common, that either ti or tode is a highly generalized class-name, and that the other word restricts it to a single instance of the classnamed, taken at random. Neither interpretation is satisfactory.”4

Smith’s conclusion here seems justifiable for two reasons. First, it chal-lenges the assumption that Aristotle thinks finite ousia exclusively or at leastprimarily as an individuated instantiation of some universal, that is, as partic-ular. Any such interpretation remains wedded to an ontological hierarchy thatfails to recognize both the importance of Aristotle’s insistence that no univer-sal is ousia and his loyalty to the autarchy of beings.5 Second, Smith’s inter-pretation recognizes the possibility that the term itself might be deployed tocircumvent the universal/singular aporia. He goes on to suggest what heunderstands to be the proper meaning of the term: “‘anything which is both athis and a somewhat,’ the two characterizations being co-ordinate: x is tode ti,if it is both (a) singular and so signifiable by ‘this’ and (b) possessed of a uni-versal nature, the name of which is an answer to the question ti esti in the cat-egory of ousia; in other words, it is pro \te \ ousia.”6 This interpretation has theadvantage of recognizing that there is, embedded in the term tode ti itself, acertain complexity that renders an unequivocal identification of it with theuniversal or the singular inappropriate. At the same time, it also suggests thatthere is a strong sense in which the tode ti is itself singular, and thus that anydesignation of its universal nature must attend to the identifiable singular des-ignated by the term. Thus Smith’s interpretation does not render the tode ti amere particular. This is possible, however, only if the universality ascribed tothe “nature” of the being designated by tode ti is not thought to exist indepen-dently of the tode ti itself—for this would lead us back to the Platonic ten-dency to give priority to universals over singulars.7 The precise manner inwhich we may say that the nature of the tode ti is “universal” can only beapprehended once the Aristotelian notion of activity is clarified, and even

87The Dynamic Economy of Principles

then, the sort of universality we can predicate of an existing composite—thetode ti—is always itself ultimately dependent on the activity of the tode ti itself.

Joseph Owens offers another suggestion concerning the significance ofthe tode ti. For him, “tode ti” in Aristotle must be understood as a technicalterm: “The interest in this term is solely to find an Aristotelian expressionthat will characterize a form which is neither singular nor plural.”8 Owensis primarily interested in how the term applies to form, for he is dedicatedto the position that ultimately form is ousia in Aristotle. For Owens, thatform is in fact called a tode ti cannot be adequately explained by arguingthat the form is a tode ti only in virtue of the composite, or that the formexists only for the sake of the composite: “Such an interpretation would runcounter to the whole development of Z in which the role played by theform is always primary, and that of the matter and the composite only sec-ondary.”9 Owens, like Loux, locates the primary meaning of ousia in theform alone. However, as has been suggested, the “whole development” ofBook VII does not so clearly relegate matter and the composite to sec-ondary status—the development of the book itself suggests that an ade-quate conception of finite ousia cannot be sought exclusively in terms ofform.10 Furthermore, the path of thinking initiated in Book VII is not fullytraversed until Books VIII and IX, where the conceptual apparatus is intro-duced that allows the composite to take on a certain primacy as the activeidentity of energeia and dunamis.

Ernst Tugendhat has recognized the priority of the composite in Aris-totle’s investigation. For him, the term tode ti expresses that which is onto-logically independent. The sort of ontological independence endemic tofinite sensible ousia, however, is twofold, being at once determinate andindeterminate. The indeterminate character of the tode ti expresses the tran-sitory finitude of the composite.11 Its determinate character expresses thecomposite’s concrete presence. Although either the material or the formalprinciple of the composite, thought independently, may be called a “tode ti”in a qualified sense, neither is a tode ti in the strict sense that the compositeis. Tugendhat intimates that it is first on the basis of the encounter with thetode ti “that the question concerning the relationship between one (univer-sal) presence and the many singulars can be meaningfully asked.”12 Thisalready indicates the manner in which the universal/singular aporia can becircumvented by the deployment of the vocabulary of the “tode ti”: the apo-ria is misguided insofar as it assumes the independent existence of the prin-ciples prior to their manifestation in the composite. Aristotle begins withthe composite and thinks his way back to its ontological grounds. Thesegrounds, however, can only be said to be once they are recognized as havingalready come together—that is, only on the basis of the encounter with theconcrete presence of the composite itself can anything like its ontologicalgrounds become accessible.


Aristotle insists on the priority of the composite in the following passagefrom Metaphysics VIII.1, where he clarifies the equivocal meaning of the todeti and separation:

But an ousia is an underlying subject (hypokeimenon); and in one sense,this is matter (by “matter” I mean that which is not a tode ti in actu-ality but is potentially a tode ti); in another sense, it is the account orthe form, which, being a tode ti, is separable in notion; but in a thirdsense, it is the composite of these, of which alone there is generationand destruction, and which is separate without qualification.13

It is clear that Aristotle employs tode ti to indicate some sort of independence.In its strongest and strictest sense, he uses it to refer to sensible composites ofform and matter. Let us now begin to call the composite that is most strictlya “tode ti” an “individual” in order to distinguish it in some way from the termkath’ hekaston, which we have been rendering in English as “singular.” Wechose the term singular because it not only captures the distributive sense ofthe Greek kath’ hekaston but, more importantly, because it suggests that thebeings designated by this term are not able to be grasped by episte \me \, for allepiste \me \ is universal. Individuals, unlike singulars, may be knowable in a cer-tain sense, though perhaps not in the strict sense of apodeictic episte \me \.

A composite then is, strictly speaking, separate, and thus it embodies thestrictest sense of what it is to be a tode ti, an identifiable individual with astrong sort of ontological independence. Thus it is no surprise that Aristotleuses the term tode ti to characterize the primary ousiai of the Categories, forthey too were said to be ontologically independent. However, in MetaphysicsVIII.1, unlike in the Categories, these beings are explicitly characterized asbeings that become (and are destroyed) and to this extent are juxtaposed withform and matter. Thus there is at once a continuity and a discontinuity withthe foundational economy of principles operating in the Categories. There isa continuity insofar as concrete individuals are said to most straightforwardlyexhibit the fundamental characteristics of being an ousia (each is withoutqualification a tode ti and separable); there is a discontinuity insofar as theseindividuals are now understood not only as composites of form and matterbut also as beings that are generated and destroyed. In fact, as we have seenin our discussion of the Physics, the reconceptualization of the ousiai of theCategories as composites of form and matter was necessitated by an attemptto account for generation. Yet even in the Physics, Aristotle remains intent ondesignating the finite composite as ousia. This loyalty to the concrete indi-vidual runs like Theseus’s thread through the labyrinth of Aristotle’s onto-logical thinking.

It is surprising, however, that Aristotle continues to speak of the “tode ti”when referring to matter and form. Form is called a tode ti, but only insofar as


it is separable in logos, notion, or definition. We may gain some insight intohow to understand this by turning for a moment to a parallel passage in thesecond book of the De Anima:

Now one genus of things we call “ousia,” but of these, one [we regard]as matter, which is not a tode ti according to itself, another [weregard] as shape (morphe \) and form (eidos), according to which some-thing is called a “tode ti,” and a third, the composite of the above two[i.e., matter and form].14

The form is that “according to which something is directly called a ‘tode ti’”—a being is called a tode ti by referring to its form. Caution must be used here,because there is a tendency to give this a Platonic interpretation by suggest-ing that the form alone renders the composite a tode ti. However, because it isseparable in notion only, and not separable without qualification like the com-posite, the form, like matter, is itself not a tode ti without qualification. Nev-ertheless, the form may be called “tode ti” in the distinctive sense that throughit an account of the individual composite can be given. Separating the formfrom the composite in logos allows one to highlight one dimension of thetwofold nature of a tode ti strictly so-called, that is, the dimension of its deter-minateness. There is, however, a tendency to point to this determinatenessitself as the essential and exclusive ground of the composite. This tendency,which manifested itself already in the hylomorphic economy of principles thatsought to account for finite ousia in terms of the hegemony of form, must beresisted, for it is incapable of doing justice to the individuality of the concretecomposite. Taken by itself, abstracted from the composite, the form may bethematized as a grounding moment of the composite, but not as its onlygrounding moment.

Aristotle tells us that matter also may be conceptualized as an onto-logical ground of the composite. As such, however, it too deserves to becalled a tode ti in a derivative way: it is potentially a tode ti. The full signif-icance of the vocabulary of potency remains somewhat shrouded until thedetailed discussion of energeia and dunamis found in Metaphysics IX. Hereit is used to isolate the material from the formal principle to draw into reliefthe way matter itself functions as a grounding moment of the composite.Both form and matter can, in qualified ways, be called “tode ti,” becauseeach in its own way operates as a ground of the composite. The compos-ite—a tode ti without qualification—only exists insofar as form and matterhave already come into relation with one another, and it persists only to theextent that this relationship is actively maintained. Therefore, form andmatter function together as ontological grounding moments of the individ-ual. As such, they are themselves neither universal nor singular, for thisdichotomy follows only after and is, indeed, an imposition upon the actual


existence of the composite individual. Interestingly, what seems to havepermitted this position to come to the fore is a loosening of the strict con-ception of separability.

Relaxing the Meaning of Separability

In clarifying the equivocal sense of “tode ti,” Aristotle amends the meaningof separability. Here a distinction emerges between strict separation andseparation in logos. As mentioned, this distinction has been indicted as anintellectual cheat. Indeed, when read from the perspective of the populationproblem, which seeks not three but one answer to the “what is ousia?” ques-tion, the equivocal meaning of separability simply muddles the account. Yetthere is something naïve about such a judgment, for what from one per-spective seems to be a cheat is from another perspective an important philo-sophical advance. If it is recognized that a rigid conception of separabilityleads to intractable knots—for example, the separate existence and univer-sal/singular aporiae—then it makes no philosophical sense to pull the knottighter. Aristotle in fact loosens the knots by letting up on the tension gen-erated by the rigid conception of tode ti and separability. Far from being an“intellectual cheat,” this philosophical flexibility testifies to Aristotle’s intel-lectual acumen, and more importantly, it allows his thinking to develop innew directions.

Qualifying the notion of separability with regard to form opens up onesuch new direction. It allows him to thematize form as an ontological groundof the composite ousia without reifying it into a strictly independent-exist-ing thing. On the other hand, by arguing that there is a sort of separabilitythat can be ascribed to matter—namely, potential separation—Aristotle isalso able to thematize matter as an ontological ground of the composite.Here he thinks from the identity of the finite existing composite ousia backto the conditions for the possibility of this identity, and yet, he does thiswithout reifying these conditions into fully determinate things existing inde-pendently of one another or of the composite. This already gestures towardthe dynamic economy of principles developed in Book IX, for it thematizesthe ground of the ousia as the interplay of the relationship between form andmatter, which themselves only exist in separation from the composite inqualified ways.15 The precise manner in which such principles should beunderstood requires an elucidation of the second step of what we have iden-tified as Aristotle’s twofold strategy: the translation of the principles of formand matter into the vocabulary of actuality and potency, energeia anddunamis. This new conceptual vocabulary allows Aristotle to develop aneconomy of principles that is able to think the composite dynamically as theidentity of form and matter.


Aristotle begins to focus his thinking on precisely this issue at the end ofBook VIII when, grappling with the Academy’s tendency to posit separateforms, he turns his attention to the problem of identity:

What is it, then, that makes a human-being one, and why is [ahuman-being] one and not many, such as an animal and also a biped,if indeed there exists, as some say, Animal Itself and Biped Itself? Forwhy are these things themselves not a human-being, so that human-beings might exist by participating not in Human-being nor in one[idea] but in two, Animal and Biped?16

Here Aristotle recognizes that the attempt to ground singulars in separatelyexisting universal forms leads to absurdities:

It is clear that by proceeding in the manner in which they areaccustomed to define and speak, it is not possible to answer or dis-solve the difficulty. But if, as we maintain, the one is matter and theother form, and the former exists in potency but the latter in actu-ality, that which is being sought no longer appears to be a diffi-culty. . . . What then causes that which exists in potency to be inactuality aside from that which produces (to poie \san) in the case ofthings that are generated? Nothing else causes that which is poten-tially a sphere to be a sphere in actuality, but this is the ti e \n einaiin each.17

This passage points to the second stage of Aristotle’s twofold strategy, for itsuggests that by thematizing form and matter in terms of energeia anddunamis, respectively, a solution to the problem of the ontological identityof the individual may be discovered. However, the process Aristotledescribes here is not the activity whereby the individual itself maintains itsown identity—that is, this is not an account of the autarchy of the compos-ite. Rather, it is the activity by which the individual receives its principlefrom another; it describes the efficient cause of the individual. Aristotlelocates the productive cause of the individual in the ti e \n einai, a conceptwhose historical dimensions uniquely qualify it for this role. The ti e \n einaipoints to the continuing ontological efficacy of this efficient cause, to thevery historicity of the composite. However, this passage also suggests theextent to which Aristotle continues to think generation from the perspectiveof technological fabrication, finite individuals on the model of the artifact.What the reformulation of the meaning of tode ti and the loosening of theconcept of cho \riston have made increasingly urgent is the need to locate aneconomy of principles according to which an account of the autarchy ofousia can be given.


THE SECOND STAGE: THINKING BEING AS ACTION

We return, then, to the little Greek word “po \s,” “somehow,” that appeared in theperplexing passage at the end of Book VIII: “The last matter and the form arethe same and one, the former in potency, the latter in actuality . . . for each indi-vidual is something one, and that which is in potency and that which is in actu-ality are somehow (po \s) one.”18 Precisely how form and matter are to be thoughtas one and the same is suggested but not fully worked out. By translating formand matter into the vocabulary of energeia and dunamis, Aristotle already hintsat how these latter two terms, when properly understood, account for the iden-tity of the finite composite. As long as these two principles, form and matter,remain separate—abstracted from the being whose identity they constitute—as long as they are thought primarily from the perspective of their reified inde-pendence, then the question concerning the ontological identity of the compos-ite remains mired in both the separate existence and the universal/singularaporiae. If, however, as has been suggested, form and matter, rethought in termsof energeia and dunamis, are themselves understood not entitatively as sepa-rately existing things, but rather in their essential relationship as groundingmoments of the composite, then these aporiae dissolve.

The discussion of the various meanings of dunamis and energeia found inBook IX of the Metaphysics is directed toward delineating precisely such anew, dynamic conception of ontological identity. Aristotle begins, just as hehad in the Categories and later in the Physics, by considering the structure ofaccidental change. Here, however, he writes:

. . . let us determine the meaning of potentiality (dunamis) and actu-ality (entelecheia) and first [let us determine the meaning] of thatwhich is called “dunamis” in the most proper sense, although it is notmost useful for what we now want. For “dunamis” and “actuality”(energeia) are said of more things than those that [exist] according tomotion (kine \sis).19

Given that Book VIII had ended with the urgent problem of understandingthe precise manner—the po \s, “somehow”—in which form and matter are oneand the same, it is very likely that the “what we now want” of which Aristo-tle speaks in this passage is to locate a model according to which the identityof form and matter may be thought.20 This requires an investigation into themeaning of energeia and dunamis. However, the most proper sense of the termdunamis seems to apply to those beings that are in motion. Here, finally, Aris-totle recognizes that the model of motion is “not most useful” in the attemptto think the identity of form and matter.

Thus Aristotle suggests that the structure of motion provides us with onlyan analogy for the primary meaning of the unity of energeia and dunamis;


indeed, there exists an activity beyond the order of motion. Book IX as awhole, then, can be understood as proceeding in the typical Aristotelian man-ner of looking to what is more familiar or first for us in order to discover whatis first by nature: the model of motion, that which is more known and famil-iar to us, is investigated in order then to uncover another, less familiar butphilosophically more significant model according to which energeia anddunamis may be thought together. This second model is that of activity oraction that gives expression to a dynamic economy of ontological principlescapable of thinking the composite individual as the active identity of energeiaand dunamis.21

The Model of Motion

The distinction between motion, on the one side, and activity, on the otherside, is based on a parallel ontological distinction between artifacts and nat-ural beings found in the Physics. Although both artifacts and natural beingsmay more or less adequately be described by Aristotle’s four causes, there is afundamental difference: natural beings have their principle of movement(arche \), their beginning, in themselves, while artifacts depend on an externalforce for their existence. There he writes:

Of [natural] things, each has its principle (arche \) of motion and ofstandstill in itself, whether [this be] with respect to place or increaseor decrease or alteration. But a bed or a cloak or a thing in someother genus of this sort, insofar as each of them happens to be calledby a similar predicate and exists in virtue of art, has no natural ten-dency for changing.22

Here the distinction between artifacts and natural beings is determined bythe location of their beginning, their principle. In this passage, beings areconsidered from the perspective of their beginning, and natural beings seemto differ from artifacts in that natural beings are able to take over theirbeginning, they are able to take their principle into themselves and make ittheir own—natural beings have the power of beginning in themselves. Theartifact, on the other hand, cannot do this; it does not have this ability totake its principle of movement into itself. Thus Antiphon’s bed, whenburied, does not produce another bed but, rather, wood.23 This is an indica-tion that the bed does not have a principle of movement in itself accordingto which it can determine itself and others—in short, a bed cannot, in turn,be the parent of another bed. There is, however, a similarity between naturalbeings and artifacts, for both originally have their origins (principles) out-side of themselves—the artifact in the builder, the natural being in its prog-


enitors. Thus with regard to the beginning, the arche \, it is not so much theinitiation of the motion that distinguishes artifacts from natural beings butrather the ability to take this principle into itself, to take over and pass onits beginning, its principle.

The distinction we find between motion and activity in Book IX is basedon a similar consideration of the difference between artifacts and naturalbeings, although this time not only is the status of the beginning (arche \)emphasized but along with it the status of the end (telos). By focusing his dis-cussion of motion on the status of the end, Aristotle is able to bring out thedifference between natural beings and artifacts more strongly, for the formerdo, while the latter do not, have their ends in themselves. This having-taken-over-the-end is understood in terms of entelecheia, which is strongly distin-guished from motion or kine \sis. Thus Book IX marks at once an advancebeyond and an ongoing loyalty to the hylomorphic economy of principlesdeveloped in the Physics. By thematizing form and matter in terms of the moredynamic, less reified notions of energeia/entelecheia and dunamis, Book IXmanifests an important advance beyond the hylomorphic economy. However,by continuing to think the nature of motion in terms of the model of produc-tion—the building of a house, losing weight, learning from a teacher—BookIX remains loyal to the basic vision of kine \sis developed in the Physics.

Aristotle tells us that such motions are incomplete, for two reasons. First,they have their principle of movement outside of themselves: “Hence, all artsand productive sciences are potencies; for they are principles that cause achange in another thing or [in the artist himself ] qua other.”24 Here the begin-ning (arche \) is not thought together with the activity itself; rather, even inexamples such as the self-healing doctor or the person trying to lose weight,the agent acts on the patient not as itself but as another, that is, the agent andthe patient remain distinct. As will be clear in a moment, Aristotle stressesthat the model of motion retains this distinction between agent and patientthroughout. Second, a motion is incomplete because its end (telos) remainsexternal to the activity itself. Thus once the process of building a house iscompleted, the product produced, its end, has been reached, and the motioncomes to a stop, it ceases to be. During the process itself, its end does in somesense exist, however, it exists externally in the mind of the builder as the ideaof the product, the ultimate goal of the production. Motion, therefore, is aprocess of moving toward an end that exists outside of the process of motionitself. Based on this model, dunamis and energeia are distinct, for as long as thebricks and stones lie in a heap, they are only potentially a house; however, oncethe process of building is completed, the house exists in actuality and nolonger in potentiality.25 Kosman puts this in a strikingly clear way:

It is because the exercise of an ability qua ability and the realizationof that ability as the end other than itself to which it is directed are


distinct in the case of motions, that a motion cannot both sustainitself and achieve its end. In order fully to be itself, a motion mustcease to be. Because of this auto-subversive character, a motion is, soto speak, on a suicide mission. A motion is fully realizable onlyposthumously; while alive, it has not yet fully achieved its being.26

The conception of motion in Aristotle, then, seems to lend itself to those sortsof beings that are precisely not alive, that is, to those beings that are techni-cally produced. Such beings come alive, so to speak, when acted upon by aforce outside of themselves. Thus when discussing the meaning of motion inMetaphysics IX, Aristotle always uses the appropriate example of artifacts.Fabricated things provide the proper topos for the analysis of motion.

The analysis of motion is archic in both senses of the Greek arche \: theagent begins the motion in a patient and is thus the principle in the sense ofincipience, but because this initial cause continues to govern the motion fromwithout, that is, maintains dominion over the patient during the entire extentof its motion, it is also the principle in the sense of domination, command,ruler. Furthermore, however, the hegemonic meaning of arche \ dominates theaccount of motion, for when the goal of motion has been reached (and if, asAristotle likes to say, nothing prevents it, i.e., there is no other force moredominant), the motion is stopped, its end accomplished. Thus the efficientcause dominates the material cause (the patient) to such an extent that it isable to become the final cause as well—the being of a motion has its begin-ning and its end outside of itself; it is dominated from beginning to end.

Aristotle often thinks generation on this model of motion. This is notsurprising because the generation of natural beings bears a similarity tomotion, for the agent, which, in generation is understood as the father, beginsthe process of generation by acting on the patient, the mother. To this point,all is analogous with motion, and yet this kinetic picture is disrupted by thecreated living being itself, for the living being is able to take this principle ofmovement from the hands of its progenitor(s) and make it its own.27 In Meta-physics IX.7, Aristotle insists that prior to taking its principle into itself, a liv-ing being does not yet, strictly speaking, even exist in potentiality:

[. . .] for example, the seed is not yet [potentially a human-being] (forit must [be placed] in another and change), and when it is already(e \de \) the sort of thing [that acts] through its own principle, then it isin potency; but prior to this, it has need of another principle. Just asthe earth is not yet a statue in potentiality, for it needs to change andbecome bronze.28

Despite the fact that Aristotle again conflates production and natural repro-duction with the example of the statue, the point here is important; strictly


speaking, the semen cannot even be considered potentially a human-beinguntil it enters into relation with the matter and indeed metabolizes.

Aristotle’s conflation of natural and technological generation in this pas-sage is particularly unfortunate. It is symptomatic of his continuing unwill-ingness to recognize the active role of matter in natural generation and histendency to think all generation on the model of production, that is, in termsof the hegemony of form. Aquinas, commenting on a passage from Meta-physics VII.9 (1034a9–10) in which Aristotle seems to grant an active role tomatter in generation, suggests that the distinction between what he calls“violent generation” and “natural generation” depends on more than justwhether the principle is internal or external. The issue, rather, is determinedby the extent to which matter is active: “For if there were no active principlein the matter of those things which are generated by nature, the process ofgeneration of these things would not be natural but violent; or, in otherwords, there would be no difference between artificial generations and nat-ural ones.”29 Richard Lee has suggested that the distinction is based on a spe-cific understanding of how form comes to be in the matter in both cases: “Wecould say that in natural generation the agent educes the form from the mat-ter, while in violent generation the agent imposes the form on the matter.”30

While Lee is correct to suggest that the form does not dominate the matterin natural generation in the same way it does in violent generation, what heidentifies as an “eduction”—the manner in which the agent of natural gener-ation draws out the form lying latent in the matter—is understood by Aris-totle in a slightly different way in both the Metaphysics and the biologicalwritings. Rather than thematizing the agent as that which, while remainingexternal, draws out the form lying latent in the matter, the semen is said toconcoct (pettein) the matter in such a way that it itself is transformed. Theagent is itself no longer what it was at the beginning of the process. Thebeing generated is something new, neither the form nor the matter, the agentnor the patient, yet also somehow both.31

Our discussion of Aristotle’s account of biological inheritance has sug-gested the complex manner in which the features and characteristics of bothparents and their ancestors are expressed in the new being. In natural genera-tion, the form ceases to act as an external cause in the manner that the agentof a production or violent generation does. Montgomery Furth suggests thatonly once the semen has completed its concoction of the matter—that is,completed the gradual process of differentiation leading up to the matter’sbeing completely informed—do we have a fully individual offspring, a tode tiin the strict sense.32 Furth argues that this moment of individuation may notbe fixable, even in principle. Remarkably, Aristotle himself does not even seekto fix the moment of autarchy. Rather, in the passage cited earlier from Meta-physics IX.7, he merely gestures to it, saying: “when [the semen] is already (e \de \)the sort of thing [that acts] according to its own principle, then it is in


potency.” Here Aristotle deploys a temporal clause combined with the adverb“e \de \,” “already,” to indicate that the moment of complete individuation hastaken place. This sort of gesture to the dimension of individuation thatescapes the grasp of the concept has been seen before. It was at work alreadyin the use of the perfect tense found in Aristotle’s formulation of the separa-bility aporia in Metaphysics, Book III (999b12). It appeared again in the littleadverb “e \de \” within the context of the discussion of generation in MetaphysicsVII.8 (1034a5–7). These formulations are symptomatic of a thinking implic-itly aware of its own finitude. The moment of autarchy cannot be completelycaptured by the concept. Yet its trace can be designated by the use of the per-fect tense and the adverb “e \de \,” for the very appearance of the tode ti indicatesthat the moment of autarchy has already occurred.

This moment of autarchy is fully eclipsed by the logic of violent gener-ation and the model of kine \sis on which it depends. The coming into beingof the tode ti cannot be fully explicated in terms of the hegemony of form.Another model is required, one that remains cognizant of its own limita-tions, open to that which escapes the grasp of the concept, even as it seeksa conceptual understanding of the individual. This other model would refuseto do away with dunamis, the potency of the tode ti that renders it recalci-trant to all definitive conceptualization. It would instead think dunamis inits fundamental relation to energeia. In chapter 6 of Book IX, this othermodel is introduced.

The Model of Action

At the beginning of Metaphysics IX.6, Aristotle reminds us that the discussionof dunamis from the perspective of the nature of kine \sis was only preliminary.He then turns his attention to the meaning of energeia:

Since that which is called dunamis with respect to motion has beendiscussed, let us determine the meaning of what energeia is and whatsort of thing it is. For by distinguishing this, it will be at the sametime clear with respect to dunamis, that we mean by this dunamis notonly that whose nature is to move another or to be moved by another,either simply or in some other way, but also something else; and it isbecause we seek this [latter sense of dunamis] that we have gonethrough [the former senses].33

This “something else” is the sense of dunamis endemic to the identity of thecomposite tode ti. Thus in a clear line of argument beginning with the po \s atthe end of Book VIII, through the beginning of Book IX, where the discus-sion of dunamis and energeia is framed, to this passage inaugurating the dis-


cussion of energeia itself, Aristotle remains focused on the problem as to howto think the composite as the identity of energeia and dunamis. The entire dis-cussion of dunamis and energeia in Book IX.1–8 is guided by this question, butit is only in IX.6–8 that Aristotle finally hits upon the economy of principleshe seeks.

Aristotle suggests that in order to grasp the meaning of energeia mostproper to the identity of the composite, it is helpful to proceed by analogy andto look first to the more familiar role that energeia plays in the logic of motion:

As that which builds is to that which is capable of building, so is thatwhich is awake to that which is asleep or that which is seeing to thatwhich has its eyes shut, or that which has been separated (apokekri-menon) from matter to matter, or that which has been worked-up(apeirgasmenon) to the un-worked-up (anergaston).34

Aristotle designates the first element in each analogy as an “actuality,”“energeia,” and the second as a “potentiality,” “dunamis.” Here again, no differ-ence between natural and technological motion is discernible. The point sim-ply seems to be that a distinction must be made between having an abilitywithout using it and using that ability. The first, Aristotle wants to call adunamis, the second, an energeia. On the model of motion, therefore, theredoes seem to be a sense in which potentiality and actuality are the same, forwhen the builder is not merely capable of building, but is actually building, heror his potential to build and her or his activity seem to be one and the same.35

This Aristotle had already suggested in his treatment of motion in the Physics,where he argues that a motion is to be understood as existing both in the mov-able object as well as in the agent that moves the object. There he claims thatthere is a certain unity in activity:

And that which sets [something] into motion and the energeia arenot distinct; for there must be one entelecheia in both; for by dunamisthere is a putting into motion, but by energeia there is motion, butthis is the actualizing of the movable, so it is alike one energeia inboth, just as it is the same interval from one to two and from two toone and the same going up as coming down. For these things are one,though the account is not one.36

Here Aristotle attempts to think the unity of actuality and potentiality fromthe perspective of the model of motion. However, because he begins with theseparate existence of the agent and the object moved, he is never quite able toachieve the strong conception of identity that the problem of ousia requires.To put it another way, the model of motion, because it is determined by a logicof things that forces it to begin with two separately existing independent


objects only then to posit the unity of the two in the activity itself, thinks thewrong way around. If, however, we begin with the concrete presence of theindividual and abstract from it the concepts of form and matter, a new per-spective emerges, for it will then be recognized that an ousia only appears asalways already composed of form and matter, that its identity manifests itselfas the active tension of this relationship, and that what had been thematizedas independent ontological principles are rather co-determining, groundingmoments of the individual.

Aristotle fleshes out the meaning of this active conception of ontologicalidentity at the end of chapter 6 of Book IX by contrasting the model of activ-ity with that of motion:

These things are motions and incomplete; for one is not walking andat the same time has walked, nor is one building and has built, nor isa thing being generated and has been generated, nor is it beingmoved and has moved, but they are distinct; and moving [is distinct]from having moved. On the other hand, the same thing has seen(heo \rake) and is seeing at the same time, and is thinking and hasthought (nenoe \ken). I call this sort of thing an “energeia,” but the for-mer “a motion” (kine \sis).37

The use of the perfect tenses throughout this passage establishes the distinc-tion between something that is in motion and therefore has its end outside ofitself and something that is active and has its end in itself. Activities such asseeing and thinking are ends in themselves—they are not essentially deter-mined by an external goal. The full significance of the use of the perfect tensehere in this passage will be suggested later, however, for now it is important tounderstand that Aristotle uses this phraseology—“is seeing and has seen”—toindicate the fundamental identity of potentiality and actuality in the activityitself. To be sure, matter, existing potentially, is activated by form, but the exis-tence of the individual, its diachronic and synchronic identity as the being itis, depends upon its capacity to actively maintain the relation between formand matter. To remain the being it has always been, this activity must be quiteliterally at work—energeia. Another way to say this might be that the what-it-was-to-be for this being is its being-at-work, its ti e \n einai is to be en-ergeia,not form alone, but the active identity of form and matter. Taken abstractly,matter and form are distinct, the one existing as potentiality, the other as actu-ality. However, as long as these two notions remain separate, they express anempty abstraction.

Interestingly, the passage just quoted clearly places generation on theside of kine \sis. This is understandable, because Aristotle’s treatment of gene-sis is designed to account for the continuity of the species and so conceptu-alizes individuality exclusively in terms of particularity. However, as has been


seen, the kinetic economy of ontological principles, grounded as it is on thehegemonic functioning of the eidos and a purely passive conception of mat-ter, is not capable of accounting for the unicity of the concrete composite.Composites are autarchic; they have their principle of being in themselves.Of course, we may abstract a form from the composite in logos; indeed, wemay even identify this form as that which causes motion in another. How-ever, once the principle has entered into relation with its other, it ceases to bewhat it was—namely, the principle of the originator—for it has been takenover by the progeny. Scaltsas has put this well: “The form unifies the com-ponents of a substance, not by relating them (which would leave their dis-tinctness intact), but by reidentifying them, that is, by making them identity-dependent on the whole.”38 This process of reidentification is what we havebeen thematizing as the taking of the principle into itself—the moment ofautarchy. Once this occurs, an account of the identity of the being in ques-tion requires a more dynamic economy of principles than that offered by gen-esis, which is itself grounded not only in kine \sis but ultimately in the experi-ence of poie \sis, fabrication.

Aristotle lends some determination to the meaning of this more dynamicconception of identity when he links the meaning of energeia and entelecheiain IX.8:

The matter is still in dunamis because it might come into the form(eidos); but indeed whenever it is in energeia, then it is in the form.But it is similar in other cases as well, and even (kai) with thosethings whose end is motion, for just as teachers believe that they haveaccomplished their end when they display their students at work, itis likewise with nature. . . . For the work (ergon) is an end (telos), butthe work is the being-in-work (energeia), and so the name “being-in-work” is said according to its work and points toward the being-in-its-end (entelecheia).39

On one level, it makes sense for Aristotle to establish a similarity betweenmotion and activity here, for by beginning from the perspective of matterprior to its coming into the form, he must operate with the hylomorphiceconomy of kinetic principles, since matter is determined from without.However, once he alters his perspective—after the temporal clause, “butindeed whenever it is in energeia, then it is in the form”—he begins to thinkenergeia as the identity of form and matter, that is, as an identity that hastaken its principle into itself. This is illustrated quite clearly by the exampleof the teacher, for although teaching may be a sort of motion insofar as theprinciple remains outside of the process (the teacher and the student remaindistinct), once the students have demonstrated that they have in fact takenthe principles into themselves by acting on their own, then the teacher’s work


is done—the motion of teaching is transformed, so to speak, into an activ-ity.40 The principle no longer needs to dominate from without; it has beentaken over by the student, has become internal. Here the distinction betweenagent and patient falls away.

The self-directed activity of the student manifests the same autarchy asnatural beings do once they have taken over their own ends. The notion ofentelecheia cannot be understood to refer to an external end, a destination sep-arate from the activity itself; this is the end appropriate to motion and pro-duction. The end of entelecheia is rather an ongoing process of determinationaccording to the internal purposiveness of the activity itself. The very natureof the composite ousia is to exist as this active identity of form and matter.

Aristotle expresses this new dynamic conception of identity not only injuxtaposition to the model of motion, but also by a strange and highly signif-icant formulation whereby an iteration of a verb in the perfect tense is placednext to and identified with an iteration of the same verb in the present tense.The passage must be quoted at length:

Since of the actions (praxeo \n) that have a limit none is an end (telos)but they are for the sake of an end, for example, with respect to theprocess of losing weight it [i.e., the end] is thinness, but wheneverone is losing weight in this way one is in motion, and because thatfor the sake of which [a motion exists] does not inhere in the motion,this [motion] is not an action (praxis), or at least it is not complete(teleia), for it is not an end. But the end and action belong to thatother kind. For example, one is seeing and at the same time one hasseen (heo \rake), and one is practically wise (phronei) and one has beenpractically wise (pephrone \ke), is thinking and has thought (nenoe \ken);but it is not the case that one is learning and has learned or that oneis being cured and one has been cured. Also, one lives well and at thesame time has lived well, and one is happy and at the same time hasbeen happy. If not, it is necessary [for the action] sometime to stop,as in the process of losing weight, but in these cases it does not, butrather, one lives and has lived.41

Again, here the difference between a motion, such as losing weight, and anaction or activity, such as living, is determined with respect to the status of theend, telos. A motion tends toward an external end, while an action has takenover its end (telos); it is complete (teleia) at each moment of its existence. HereAristotle attempts to think the telos as internal to the action itself.42

However, this sort of activity is thematized not only as having its end initself, that is, as an entelecheia, but also as at the same time having its begin-ning, its arche \ in itself. This is captured by the strange formulation that placesthe perfect tense of a verb next to an iteration of the same verb in the present


tense: the same being has seen and is seeing, has lived and is living.43 This for-mulation resonates with those passages that deploy the perfect tense and theadverb e \de \ to gesture to the moment of autarchy. For here, as there the per-fect tense, with its completed aspect, should be understood to point to thefact that the arche \ has always already been taken up into the being of thecomposite. By placing this perfect form of the verb next to the present tense,with its progressive aspect, however, Aristotle finds an expression for theunity of the past and the present in the activity itself. 44 Based on this model,to be is to exist as the active identity of past and present; it is to be deter-mined by the past, but not exclusively so, for there remains in this formula-tion an emphasis on the activity of the present that infuses the structure ofthis identity with a certain dimension of openness. This openness is furtheraffirmed by the recognition that the end or telos of the action is in the actionitself. To think ousia as praxis is to hold the tension between past and futurein the activity of the present; it is to recognize the tode ti as determined bythe past and directed toward the future, that is, as having taken its arche \ andtelos into itself.

The concept of history—which finds its expression here in the use of theperfect tense, but throughout the middle books of the Metaphysics generally inthe “ti e \n einai” formulation—answers the concern for continuity. Just as thehypokeimenon of the Categories and the intransient form of the Physics hadsecured order through change in their respective economies, the historicaldimension of praxis accounts for continuity in the dynamic economy of prin-ciples. The history of a being, like the hypokeimenon of an object or its intran-sient form, accounts for the diachronic identity of ousia. A being is what it hasalways been as long as it continues to function according to its own internalpurposiveness—that is, as long as it remains en-ergeia, at work. Thus althoughthe history of a finite ousia ultimately includes something of its long genealog-ical heritage, it begins as the history of this composite only once the principlehas been taken up into the individual. This moment of autarchy, however, isfar more complex than the mere imposition of form, for it always alreadyinvolves the interplay between form and matter. Thus the present-perfect for-mulation gives expression to a sort of reversal in Aristotle’s thinking: whereasthe view found in the Categories posited the primacy of synchronic identity inorder to give an account of diachronic identity, the Metaphysics’ suggestionthat ousia is praxis sees synchronic identity through the lens of diachronicidentity, for a being only is what it is at any given time insofar as it continuesto function as the being it always already has been. In fact, the present-perfectformulation itself opens up a conception of temporality different from thatdeveloped in the Physics on the model of motion.45 The finite temporality ofthe tode ti, its presence, is saturated with the past and directed toward thefuture. As praxis, the tode ti is complete at every moment of its existence; itsti e \n einai is entelecheia.


The Priority of Energeia

Once this important new meaning of energeia or praxis is introduced, Aristo-tle turns his attention in IX.8 to establishing the various senses of its priorityover dunamis. Unfortunately, because the term energeia can be used to refer tothe “form” in distinction from the “matter” as well as to their dynamic iden-tity, it is often unclear precisely what sense of energeia is intended in Aristo-tle’s discussion of its priority. We may gain some orientation, however, fromScaltsas’s suggestion that although in the nominative energeia can refer eitherto the concrete substance or the substantial form, in the dative, energeia onlyrefers to the composite.46 Let us keep this in mind as we investigate the pri-ority of energeia in Metaphysics IX.8 more closely, for it not only offers someorientation through a very difficult text, it also allows us to bring into focus acertain tension in Aristotle’s thinking at this juncture. To anticipate, althoughwith the equivocal meaning of tode ti, the deployment of the vocabulary ofenergeia and dunamis, and the distinction between kine \sis and praxis, Aristotlepoints to a dynamic economy of principles capable of doing justice to theunicity of finite ousia that also responds to his concern for continuity andorder, there remains in Aristotle a tendency to retreat back to the hylomorphiceconomy of kinetic principles to secure, once and for all, the order of things.We will see that this tendency expresses itself most clearly in Aristotle’s dis-cussion of what he calls the “priority of energeia in ousia.” Although it is notalways perspicuous what sense of energeia Aristotle has in mind, it is clear thathe intends to argue that energeia is prior to every sense of dunamis. He claimsthat energeia is prior in logos, ousia, and time. Let us take these in the order inwhich Aristotle presents them.

He begins with the priority in logos of energeia. He suggests that we cometo know the dunamis of something by attending to it in energeia. The logos oraccount of dunamis depends on and is derived from that which exists in energeia.He says: “that which is primarily capable is capable because it is possible for itto be in actuality.”47 Aristotle uses a dative articular infinitive of the verbenergazesthai to express the priority of energeia here. The force of the dative iscausal, but it also points to the precise sense of energeia that Aristotle has inmind here, for it is not the form in separation from the matter that concernshim, rather, he intends to highlight the action itself. Although he includesexamples of both kine \seis (building) and praxeis (seeing) in this discussion, theseexamples are designed to bring out the priority of the activity over the capacity.Here dunamis is known through direct encounter with the energeia. This makesgood sense from the perspective of the dynamic economy of ontological princi-ples, for we can only designate matter as a tode ti in potency by abstracting itfrom the activity of the concrete ousia through which it is manifest.

Aristotle’s discussion of the priority of energeia in time reinforces thenotion that he is here establishing not so much the priority of form over mat-


ter as the priority of the composite tode ti understood as energeia. For Aristo-tle, there is one sense in which energeia is not prior to dunamis, and another inwhich it is. When viewed from one perspective, it is true that dunamis is in asense prior in time to energeia, for the seed and the matter are potentially achild before they are in energeia. However, prior to these things, there mustexist something in energeia (used in the dative) from which these things aregenerated. Aristotle puts it this way:

. . . but prior in time to these [potential things] there existed otherbeings in actuality from which these [potential] things were gener-ated. For it is always by a being in actuality that another beingbecomes actualized from what it was in potency; for example, ahuman-being [is actualized] from a human-being, the musical fromthe musical, as there is always a first mover, and this mover alwaysexists in actuality.48

Although here Aristotle returns to the kinetic account, he is clear to insistthat although the intergenerational transferal of form must be given accord-ing to the economy of kinetic principles, it is important not to forget thatprior to this kinetic transaction, there is a being that exists in energeia, thatis, as the active identity of form and matter. Although he appeals to thenotion of the first mover, he does not seem to have the ultimate prime moverin mind, for he is clearly speaking of the proximate mover of the individualnew human-being, namely, the father. Thus here too there is a priority of theconcrete being in energeia over dunamis. Interestingly, however, this perspec-tive seems to be somewhat at odds with what Aristotle had said in the chap-ter before. There he claimed that it might not even be possible to call the seed“potentially” a human-being before it has entered into relation with the mat-ter.49 Although at the beginning of IX.8 Aristotle was clear to explicitly statethat energeia is prior to every sense of dunamis, not only that which is said tobe a principle of change in another qua other, but also “of every principle ofmotion and rest,”50 there may be a sense of dunamis that escapes this deter-mination, namely, that sense of dunamis endemic to the conception of praxis,itself irreducible to motion. This is the dunamis that remains operative evenin the energeia of the being itself, the dunamis that appears the moment thebeing takes its principle of being into itself and becomes, for the first time,what it is.

That this is in fact the case may be seen if we look more closely at thepriority of energeia in ousia, for in much of this text, it is clear that Aristo-tle has the composite individual as the identity of energeia and dunamis inmind—indeed, much of our understanding of the meaning of the activeidentity of energeia and dunamis has already been drawn from this discus-sion. However, as we will see, in the end, when Aristotle establishes the


“most dominant” sense of the priority of energeia in ousia, he retreats to theeconomy of kinetic principles and to the ultimate prime mover in order to,as he readily admits, assuage the concerns of those who worry that the uni-verse might be worn out by its activity and cease to exist, having been over-come by dunamis.

Aristotle establishes the priority of energeia in ousia first by reasserting theposition established with respect to time: the adult (male) human-being isprior to the child, and the human-being is prior to the seed, for “the formeralready has its form (eidos), but the latter does not.”51 Here, as we saw earlier,that which is in energeia is understood to be already in possession of the eidos,that is, to have already taken the eidos into itself. This suggests, however, thatthe being itself is complete, finished, completely developed as soon as it hastaken its principle of being into itself. As long as we think these terms accord-ing to the economy of kine \sis, the account makes no sense, for surely the beingdevelops and changes even (and especially) after it has taken its principle ofbeing into itself. Thus Aristotle must establish a conception of the activity ofbeing that is capable of developing and changing without allowing the modelof motion to subvert that of action.

He does precisely this when he delineates two different sorts of ends, oneappropriate to the model of kine \sis, the other to that of energeia. We havealready suggested that the meaning of telos with respect to praxis had to bedifferent than that applied to kine \sis, for kinetic ends remain external to themotion itself, while praxeis are said to be their own ends. The distinction thatAristotle establishes in Metaphysics IX.8 is between two sorts of ultimateends: one, proper to kine \sis, is said to be external to or, as Aristotle puts it,over and above (para) the process itself, and the other, proper to energeia orpraxis, is said to be other (allo) than but not over and above the praxis itself.52

Aristotle makes this clear with reference to his paradigmatic examples ofmotions and actions. The function or ergon of building a house does not liein the process itself but in something over and above the process, namely, inthe house. Here the house is said to be the end over and above (para) theprocess of building.53 However, with respect to praxeis, the function is notsomething over and above the process but rather, internal to it; thus althoughthere may be determinate results identifiable during the process, these resultsare not, strictly speaking, over and above the action itself. Indeed, as Aristo-tle says, “In those cases in which there is no other function beyond theenergeia, the energeia exists in that which has it, for example, seeing is in thatwhich sees and theorizing is in that which theorizes and life is in the soul,and so happiness too, for it is a sort of life.”54 Here the function is the endinternal to the action itself. Strictly speaking, a praxis does not come to a con-clusion, like a kine \sis, but it can begin, end, and give rise to different, identi-fiable results during its lifetime. What we cannot say is that the action itselfwas for the sake of these results considered as something external to that


action. This distinction between ends that are para and those that are notallows Aristotle to speak of life as a development without positing an exter-nal end toward which it must always be directed. Thus he is able to do jus-tice to the autarchy of being, to its ontological independence from the processthrough which it was produced, for ousia is no mere product. Once it takesits principle into itself, it no longer depends on an external principle to main-tain itself in existence, and although it remains always in dunamis, thispotency cannot be understood in separation from the activity that constitutesits identity. This is the very conception of the identity of energeia and dunamisthat Aristotle had sought when he began Book IX.

Throughout most of IX.8, Aristotle can be seen endorsing the priority ofthe energeia of the concrete composite ousia. However, immediately afterreasserting the distinction between kine \sis and energeia/praxis, Aristotle revertsto the kinetic economy to secure the ultimate order of things. In so doing, heturns once and for all away from the concrete, finite, contingent individualtoward the ultimate cause of the universe. He does this by returning to thequestion of temporal priority in which the composite adult existing in energeiawas seen to be prior to the child. He introduces a temporal regression into thediscussion, and in order to posit an end to this regress, he takes refuge in theultimate prime mover: “and as we said, one energeia always precedes anotherin time, until we come to the eternal prime mover.”55 Aristotle seeks ultimatesolace in the security of the energeia of the prime mover. This energeia is eter-nal, constantly present, necessary, always dominating all beings from without,so that, indeed, Aristotle can say:

And so the Sun and the stars and the whole heaven are always active,and there is not the fear, which those concerned with nature do fear,that they will stop. Nor are they worn out by this activity, for theirmotion does not come from a potentiality of two contradictories, asin destructible beings, which results in the continuity of such motionbeing subject to wear; for the cause of weariness is ousia in the senseof matter or dunamis, and not in the sense of energeia.56

This desire to allay the fear of discontinuity ultimately forces Aristotle toturn away from the conceptual resources that his own intense ontologicalengagement with finite contingent beings uncovered. These resources—to tie \n einai, tode ti, praxis, and entelecheia—are capable of accounting for conti-nuity without resorting to the absolute hegemony of the first mover. As con-tingent, the continuity established by these concepts forfeits the timeless,permanent security of the continuity posited by the appeal to the primemover. What is gained in this sacrifice, however, is the opportunity to criti-cally consider the very process by which the identity of the individual is itselfconceptualized as continuous.57


THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE DOUBLE STRATEGY

We are now in a position to appreciate the results of Aristotle’s double strat-egy for overcoming the two aporiae with which we have been concerned. Thetode ti, as an equivocal term, was seen to have three senses, one applicable tomatter, another to the form, and a third to the composite. All three senses nowtake on a new significance when determined by the dynamic economy ofontological principles. The composite is a tode ti in the most strict sense,because it is separable without qualification—it clearly has its own indepen-dent, autarchic existence. This existence itself, however, has now been con-ceived in terms of energeia, entelecheia, and praxis, that is, as the active identityof form and matter that results from its having taken its beginning (arche \) andend (telos) into itself. Indeed, once this activity ceases, the tode ti ceases to bewhat it was. From this perspective, the significance of suggesting that matteris potentially a tode ti comes into focus, for it points to the necessity of theactualization of matter—that is, matter is a tode ti only insofar as it is capableof coming into relation with form. By saying that it is potentially a tode ti,Aristotle is able to abstract matter from form in order to thematize it as oneof the grounding moments of the composite. Similarly, the second sense oftode ti, in which the form is said to be a tode ti and separable in logos, alsoallows Aristotle to isolate the form as an ontological condition for the possi-bility of the composite. As we have seen, Aristotle has the tendency to iden-tify the form as the active principle that initiates the activity of ousia by enter-ing into the matter and metabolizing. Thus it can be apprehended as in somesense prior to the existence of the individual. However, as long as this prior-ity is understood according to the economy of kinetic principles, then theautarchy of the new being remains eclipsed. The form is not a hypokeimenonin the sense that it remains constantly present throughout the change; rather,upon entering into relation with matter, it itself is reidentified according to theidentity of the whole as the new being takes its principle into itself. Indeed, asthe active principle and cause of the composite, the form is itself not some-thing singular and capable of independent existence save through abstraction.However, neither is this abstraction to be reified into something universalwith its own real existence external to the identity of the composite in whichit is actualized. This is the significance of the equivocal use of the term tode tiin reference to form. Form is a tode ti insofar as it can be separated in logos andtherefore thematized as an active internal cause. There is, then, no need tolook to an external cause for the identity of form and matter in the individualcomposite, for the active existence of the composite is itself the cause.

Thus Aristotle attempts to solve the aporia of identity by first steppingbehind the static structure of thought that led to it, and second by translatingthe vocabulary of form and matter into energeia from dunamis, respectively.Once this has been established, Aristotle introduces the notion of praxis


which, along with energeia and entelecheia, names the active identity of energeiaand dunamis. To understand the identity of the composite in terms of praxis isto locate the ontological grounds of that which is considered a tode ti in thecomposite individual itself. The universal has no independent existence apartfrom this identity.

From this perspective, the ontological side of the universal/singular apo-ria seems circumvented, for as the grounds of the composite, form and matterare, strictly speaking, prior to the distinction between the universal and thesingular that is only first established on the basis of the presence of the tode titaken in its most strict sense as the independently existing concrete individ-ual. However, even if this account of the safe passage through the ontologicalside of the universal/singular aporia is accepted, the epistemological sideremains, for it seems that by affirming the ontological priority of the com-posite individual, Aristotle has rejected the possibility of establishing ontologyas an episte \me \. The extent to which this both is and is not the case is one ofthe main focuses of the next chapter.


Even with the establishment of the dynamic economy of principles, the uni-versal/singular aporia remains only partially circumvented. In fact, the force-ful argument found in VII.13 that ousia cannot be universal and Aristotle’sinsistence in Book VIII that the strict meaning of tode ti is applicable only tothe composite suggest that Aristotle has abandoned the attempt to establishan episte \me \ of finite ousia.1 As has been seen, technically, the substantial formand the matter are neither universal nor singular, for the universal/singulardichotomy itself is ultimately parasitic upon the concrete presence of the todeti. Further, in Metaphysics IX.8, the composite individual, whose ontologicalidentity is praxis or energeia, takes on both an ontological and an epistemo-logical priority, for energeia is said to be prior not only in time and ousia butalso in logos, by which it was shown that knowledge of what exists in energeiais prior to the knowledge or account of what exists in dunamis. If this is thecase, however, then Aristotle seems simply to have relinquished the possibil-ity of establishing a genuine episte \me \of finite ousia, for such a science requiresuniversal knowledge, a knowledge that it is denied in the case of matter andform, because they are not universal, and in the case of the composite, becauseit is singular.

Yet this conclusion is merely apparent. In the enigmatic and—as Julia Annasso aptly puts it—“tantalizing”2 tenth chapter of Metaphysics, Book XIII, Aristo-tle suggests a possible way to resolve the epistemological side of the universal/sin-gular aporia. This solution is, like that of the ontological side of the problem,more a circumvention than a resolution, for it entails renouncing the legitimacyof the Platonic assumption that the episte \me \ sought is universal. Further, as with

111

7

Knowledge in Actuality and the Ethical Turn

the ontological side of the aporia, the epistemological side finds its ultimate solu-tion in the equivocal meaning of the term tode ti and the conceptual distinctionbetween energeia and dunamis. The sort of knowledge that Aristotle points to inMetaphysics XIII.10 is explicitly directed toward that which is a “tode ti” 3—thatis, toward finite ousia understood no longer as singular but now as a compositeindividual, a unity of form and matter, energeia and dunamis, the name for whichis praxis.

The parallels with the account of the middle books of the Metaphysics areimportant, for they suggest that although Aristotle leaves the meaning of thissort of knowledge underdeveloped, he seems to have recognized that someway around the epistemological side of the aporia was possible based on thedynamic understanding of ousia itself. Furthermore, with these parallels, Aris-totle points us in what at first glance appears to be a rather surprising direc-tion: to the heart of the Nicomachean Ethics, and specifically to the technicaldiscussion of phrone \sis, the peculiar form of knowledge designed explicitly toaddress matters of praxis. On further reflection, however, this direction shouldnot be all that surprising. First, Aristotle explicitly deploys the term praxis—the very theme of the Nicomachean Ethics—to name the dynamic identity ofousia in Metaphysics IX.6–8. Second, the distinction between praxis and kine \sisestablished there closely parallels that between praxis and poie \sis developed inNicomachean Ethics VI.4. This suggests that praxis in the two texts has thesame technical sense. Finally, the middle books of the Metaphysics engagedfinite, sensible ousia, a being contingent in its very nature. It should not, there-fore, be unexpected to find some important insight into the nature of theknowledge of such contingent beings in the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aris-totle addresses, as he himself put it, beings that can be otherwise. To trace thisundeveloped but nevertheless discernible and promising itinerary from themiddle books of the Metaphysics through XIII.10 to the heart of the Nico-machean Ethics is the purpose of this chapter.

KNOWLEDGE AS ENCOUNTER

It has been widely recognized that Aristotle’s revision of the Platonic assump-tion that all knowledge is universal found in Metaphysics XIII.10 marks animportant advance with respect to the epistemological side of theuniversal/singular aporia. Owens considers it “Aristotle’s express answer to theproblem,”4 while Frede and Patzig suggest that with the distinction betweenactual and potential knowledge, Aristotle both solves the aporia and funda-mentally revises his conception of knowledge.5 Annas argues that XIII.10marks a discussion separate from the rest of Book XIII, and that it is directedat the universal/singular problem, though she insists that the passage does notsolve all of the difficulties.6


Yet although its bearing on the universal/singular aporia is vitally impor-tant, the true significance of XIII.10 lies in its insistence on the epistemolog-ical primacy of the direct encounter with the tode ti. The doctrine that Aris-totle hits upon here and leaves tantalizingly underdeveloped is quiteconsistent with what has been called his “empiricism.” As has been frequentlyrecognized, Aristotle’s empiricism is not that of the moderns, for neither doeshe believe that sense perception alone acquaints us with universals, nor doeshe assume something like a Lockean tabula rasa.7 Rather, for Aristotle, it isalways a direct encounter that is the starting point of genuine knowledge. Thisis as true of the discussion of episte \me \ in Posterior Analytics II.19 as it is ofactual knowledge in De Anima II.5 and phrone \sis in Nicomachean Ethics VI.8

In Metaphysics XIII.10, the object of knowledge is explicitly thematizedas a tode ti, which in its strictest sense refers to the concrete, composite indi-vidual. As knowledge of the individual, the episte \me \ of XIII.10 points in thedirection of the Nicomachean Ethics, and specifically to the discussion ofphrone \sis, which itself is thematized as knowledge of the individual.9 Thus ifwe are to appreciate the full significance of the path of thinking indicated butnot pursued in XIII.10, then not only will we need to show how it satisfacto-rily dissolves the epistemological side of the universal/singular aporia but alsohow it points us toward the discussion of phrone \sis in the Ethics.

The Objects of Knowledge in Actuality

In one sense, the account introduced in XIII.10 is nothing new, for it coin-cides with what Aristotle generally has to say about how universal knowledgeis derived from the direct experience of individuals. After rehearsing the basicproblems that arise from the universal/singular aporia and claiming that thisproblem pertains not only to those who speak of forms but also to those whodo not, Aristotle suggests the possibility that the assumption that all knowl-edge is of the universal is in one sense true and in another not true:

For knowledge, just as “to know,” is twofold, of which one is indunamis, the other in energeia. Dunamis, being, as matter, universaland indefinite is of the universal and indefinite; energeia being defi-nite is of that which is definite, being a tode ti is of a tode ti; but sightsees the color universally only by accident, because this [individual]color which it sees is a color, and that which the grammarian inves-tigates—this [individual] alpha—is an alpha.10

Knowledge of the universal is potential and depends on the actual encounterbetween the knower and the object of knowledge. The examples that Aristo-tle deploys are, as usual, telling. He seems to have in mind the direct encounter

113Knowledge in Actuality and the Ethical Turn

between a specific color and the eye that sees, a specific letter and the gram-marian. On the basis of this encounter, the eye and the grammarian can thenlook through this individual instance to its more universal nature.

The process envisioned is not unlike what Aristotle calls epago \ge \ in whicha passage is made from individuals encountered directly in experience to uni-versals. As Engberg-Pedersen has put it, epago \ge \ involves “acquiring insightinto some universal point as a consequence of attending to particular cases.”11

The approach is empirical and roughly analogous to what Aristotle developsin the final chapter of the final book of the Posterior Analytics. There he sug-gests how one comes to grasp the universal through sense perception(aisthe \sis), which, acquainting itself directly with individuals, generates amemory, and from many memories, a single experience (empeiria) is producedthat then may be applied to other individuals of the same sort.12 As Allan Bäckwrites: “When we apprehend this phantasm [the single memory producedfrom sensation] as universal, sc., as applying to all similar cases, even beyondthose actually experienced, we have apprehended the universal. Aristotle callsthis ability to grasp the universal ‘nous.’ ”13 Here nous names the capacity todiscern the universal through the individual, that is, to see the individual as aparticular. In XIII.10, this universal is indefinite, potential, ultimately receiv-ing concrete determination only in the actual encounter with the individual.

But the doctrine of XIII.10 is only “roughly analogous” to Posterior Ana-lytics II.19, because the former, unlike the latter, speaks neither of nous, nor ofempeiria, nor, indeed, of aisthe \sis. Indeed, where Posterior Analytics II.19 seemsto speak of the direct apprehension of the universal via nous,14 XIII.10 insiststhat the universal exists merely as potency and thus remains dependent on theactual encounter with the object. However, the basic model is the same: uni-versal knowledge is derived from the actual encounter with the individual. Itis peculiar, though, and quite significant, that Aristotle speaks not of aisthe \sisin potency and actuality, as he does elsewhere,15 but of episte \me \, knowledge.

For Owens, this term poses no real problem, for he takes the tode tiinvolved in the direct encounter to be the substantial form itself—its very tie \n einai—which, according to him, is neither universal nor singular butresponsible for the singularity of the individual.16 Thus according to Owens,Aristotle’s very deliberate use of the term tode ti in this passage points specif-ically to the substantial form. He writes: “the term ‘this,’ which can applyeither to a singular or to a physical form (separate in notion), is used. A ‘this’is either a what-IS-being or a singular composite expressed according to itswhat-IS-being. It is not a universal. It may or may not be a singular.”17

Although Owens endorses the translation of the term kath’ hekaston as “sin-gular,” and he is indeed quite correct to insist on the importance of the appear-ance of the term tode ti in this passage, his assertion that what is directlyencountered is the substantial form, while possible, is not the most naturalreading of the text. In order to appreciate this, and to recognize that Aristotle


deliberately uses tode ti not in its qualified sense—as referring to form sepa-rate in notion—but in its strict sense—as referring to the composite separatewithout qualification—we must recall not only the dynamic economy of prin-ciples developed in the previous chapter but also the manner in which Aris-totle formulates the aporiai with which he is concerned in XIII.10.

Aristotle formulates the separability aporia at the beginning of XIII.10 inthe following passage:

For if someone does not posit ousiai to be separate, and in the waythat individual existing beings (ta kath’ hekasta to \n onto \n) are said [tobe separate], he will do away with ousia as we want to speak [aboutit]; but if someone posits separate ousiai, how will he posit the ele-ments and the principles of them?18

The precise answer to the latter question is answered in the middle books ofthe Metaphysics by the twofold strategy outlined in the previous chapter. Whatis important about the present formulation of the aporia is the explicit use ofthe phrase “ta kath’ hekasta to \n onto \n” to clarify the meaning of “separate.” Thissignifies, as Owens himself readily admits, that Aristotle has the unqualifiedsense of separate in mind, the sense in which composite individuals are said tobe separate.19 However, when he comes to suggest a solution to the epistemo-logical side of the aporia, Aristotle intentionally shifts the vocabulary by say-ing that there is actual knowledge not of a “kath’ hekaston” but of a “tode ti.” ForOwens, the shift in vocabulary signals a shift in that which is signified, for nolonger is the actually existing composite designated as the object of concernbut rather the substantial form.

There is solid textual evidence for this reading. Not only is there a shiftin vocabulary from “kath’ hekasta” to “tode ti,” but the manner in which Aris-totle presents the problem immediately before introducing the potency/actu-ality distinction makes it clear that he is concerned with the principles ofbeings—tas to\n onto \n archas.20 Thus according to Owens, tode ti must be takento mean “separate in notion” and not separate in an unqualified manner. Theadvantage of this reading is that it quite simply explains how the transitionfrom the direct encounter with the individual substantial form to the univer-sal happens. Owens writes: “The grammarian knows actually this a. It is notactually a universal. But his knowledge of the a according to its what-IS-being,which is the source of its ‘thisness,’ can be applied to any other a whatsoever.It is able to be applied universally, and so is potentially universal.”21

The problem remains, however, as to why Aristotle’s examples point notto the substantial form but to concrete, determinate individuals. Aristotleinsists that what sight sees is this very color before it, tode to chro \ma; the gram-marian too knows not the form but this alpha before him, tode to alpha. ForOwens, examples of this color and this alpha can be used to illustrate the


direct knowledge of the substantial form: it is the form as seen in the singu-lar, not the singular as such that is directly known. Thus Owens envisionsknowledge in actuality as a sort of nous that is capable of directly apprehend-ing the substantial form through the singular as such. Of course, Owens iscareful to insist that this sort of direct knowledge of the form is not a noeticapprehension of a universal but the direct knowledge of the singular accord-ing to its form, which then can be potentially applied to other individuals withthe same form. For Owens, unlike for Frede and Patzig, who appeal to thispassage as evidence for the fact that forms are individual and not universal, theform is neither universal nor singular but a tode ti.22

There is little doubt that Owens is correct in maintaining that Aristotleintentionally uses the term tode ti in his formulation of knowledge in actual-ity. However, it is less obvious that the term is meant to signify the form,which is a tode ti in the highly qualified sense that it is separable in logos.Nowhere in XIII.10 does Aristotle suggest that this specific usage is in play.In fact, the most natural reading of the text points more directly to the tode titaken in its unqualified sense as a determinate, demonstrable, composite indi-vidual. Two main pieces of textual evidence suggest this. First, as has beenmentioned, Aristotle has already claimed that the sort of separability neces-sary for the resolution of universal/singular aporia is that of the singular exist-ing being.23 Of course, the switch from “ta kath’ hekasta” to “tode ti” and theconcern to discover a way to know the principles of existing being could sig-nify a shift of perspective from the concrete individual to the form, as Owenssuggests. It is more likely, however, that the term tode ti is deployed in orderto emphasize the demonstrable presence of the object of knowledge, that is,the fact that it is precisely this being here that is actually known. Here thedemonstrative dimension of the tode ti takes on decisive significance: it under-scores the determinate presence of that which is known. What is so present,however, is not the form but the composite individual. The direct encounterwith the composite individual actualizes knowledge. Universal knowledge isonly potential, ineluctably fettered to the direct encounter with the actualpresence of the concrete tode ti. The use of tode ti in this context reinforces theimportance of this direct encounter.

The second piece of textual evidence that supports the suggestion that thetode ti refers to concrete individuals involves the examples that Aristotle uses.The object of knowledge in actuality is explicitly “this alpha,” tode to alpha, or“this color,” tode to chro \ma. This is the typical use of the demonstrative “tode,”deployed to delineate that which is in the immediate vicinity of the speaker,that which is encountered as actually present. Nowhere does Aristotle suggestthat it is the alpha or color according to its form that is directly known. Obvi-ously, however, neither a concrete letter nor a concrete color is the sort ofbeing that Aristotle is in the habit of calling ousia, for neither seems to becomposite in the manner of an individual existing being. Yet they retain a sim-


ilarity to such beings insofar as they are encountered as determinate individ-uals capable of being demonstrably designated. This is the dimension thatAristotle seems to want to emphasize in appealing to them as examples.24

The most natural reading of the text seems then to be that the term tode tiis meant to designate the concrete individual and not the form, for without anyexplicit indication that it is the substantial form that is directly known in thisencounter, it is most reasonable to take tode ti in its unqualified sense as refer-ring to the concrete individual. Of course, problems remain on this view as well.It is not exactly clear why this sort of direct encounter with the concrete indi-vidual deserves to be called an episte \me \ at all; rather, it would seem more appro-priate to call it an aisthe \sis. However, the text is truncated. Just as Owens’s inter-pretation seems to require something like the direct noetic apprehension of theindividual form to make sense of a text in which the word nous does not appear,so too the interpretation offered here seems to require something like inductionbased on direct experience in a text in which neither aisthe \sis nor epago \ge \appear.25 Both readings could indeed appeal to the use of the term episte \me \ tojustify importing any of the aforementioned notions into the interpretation ofthe text, but the truth is, Aristotle speaks of none of them here.

The Nature of Knowledge in XIII.10

Julia Annas is less confident than Owens that Aristotle has indeed circum-vented the universal/singular aporia with the introduction of the distinctionbetween potential and actual knowledge in XIII.10. She raises two importantissues that Aristotle’s account leaves unclear. These issues provide an excellentframework from which to investigate the limitations of the solution that Aris-totle offers in XIII.10. They also point to the sort of knowledge that may infact offer safe passage.

We begin with the second problem she introduces. Annas asks how theclaim that the elements and principles are knowable is to be reconciled withthe claim that they are individuals. She writes:

Aristotle has shown that there is a sense in which the individual isknown by the actualization of the (merely potential) knowledge ofthe universal. But if we apply this to knowledge of the first principlesor elements, we find that these do after all have universals prior tothem in some way (since knowledge of them is necessary for there tobe knowledge of the elements), and we seem to be back with the sec-ond horn of the original dilemma.26

The second horn of the original dilemma is, of course, the fact that if the prin-ciples are singular and not universal, then the elements will not be knowable.


Interestingly, Owens’s interpretation offers a relatively simple solution to oneaspect of this question: knowledge of the first principles is not knowledge ofthe singular (kath’ hekaston) but of the tode ti, which for him is, strictly speak-ing, neither universal nor singular. For Owens, we have direct, actual knowl-edge of the form as tode ti that provides the basis for further knowledge ofother beings with the same form, though this knowledge remains only poten-tial because it “is able to be applied indefinitely to all things in which that formhappens to be found.”27 Yet if we take the term tode ti to refer to the individ-ual, as we have suggested, and as Annas seems to assume, then the problemthat Annas introduces apparently remains.

It seems, however, that Annas does not take seriously Aristotle’s assertionthat there can be a sort of knowledge of individuals. Two features of her for-mulation of the problem suggest this. First, she glosses the meaning of theepiste \me \ in actuality of individuals as the actualization of potential knowledgeof the universal. The problem with this formulation is that it renders the uni-versal and potential prior to the individual and actual. This vision of thingsmay operate in the Posterior Analytics, at least on a reading of that text thatemphasizes the syllogistic notion of apodeictic episte \me \ in which universalprinciples are brought to bear on individual instances in order to generate nec-essary conclusions.28 However, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle is quite clear neverto give the universal epistemological or ontological priority, and whenever thequestion as to the priority of potentiality or actuality emerges, he unequivo-cally sides with actuality.29 Annas’s insistence that actual knowledge is theactualization of a merely potential knowledge, however, implies that thepotential universal has some sort of priority over the actual individual, that theindividual is nothing more than an actualization of the universal—a particu-lar. She reinforces this vision of things when she insists that principles “. . . doafter all have universals prior to them in some way (since knowledge of themis necessary for there to be knowledge of the elements).”30 Such statements,however, fail to recognize the radical departure from the Platonic conceptionof knowledge that Aristotle suggests in this text.

The whole thrust of the text is designed to establish the possibility thatthere is genuine knowledge precisely of individuals. Everything is designed toaffirm the priority of the actually existing individual and to suggest that it isonly through the actual knowledge (episte \me \ energeiai) of the individual thatits principles can be known—that is, these principles can be thematized asprinciples only on the basis of this concrete encounter. We have already sug-gested how Aristotle’s thinking sets the stage for this new conception ofknowledge in actuality by rejecting the Platonic conception of separatelyexisting forms, by delineating the various meanings of the tode ti and, mostimportantly, by establishing the notion of ontological praxis according towhich an account of the autarchy of the concrete individual can be given. Tosuggest that knowledge of the principle is separate from and independent of


the direct knowledge of the individual, that there must be some universal priorto the individual, is to fail to appreciate not only Aristotle’s strong critique ofPlatonic forms but also the radical implications of the dynamic ontologydeveloped in the middle books. Thus XIII.10 is important precisely because itintroduces the possibility of developing a conception of knowledge appropri-ate for this new understanding of being. It is therefore difficult not onlybecause it is underdeveloped, but also because it announces a fundamentallynew conception of knowledge.

However, because the conception of knowledge offered in XIII.10 is aradical departure from the Platonic notion, the precise sense in which it maybe called an episte \me \ remains unclear. The first problem that Annas introduceswith respect to this text grapples with exactly this issue. She argues that whatAristotle is calling an episte \me \ is, in fact, merely the recognition of an individ-ual. She then asks:

But are we entitled to call this simple recognition an instance ofknowledge at all? Aristotle’s examples which indicated that knowl-edge must be of universals (1086b34–7) involved reasoning and con-nections between concepts, not the mere recognition of instances ofa single concept. Further, the paradigms of knowledge offered thereseemed to be instances of necessary truth, whereas “this is an A” is asimple matter of fact. The examples in terms of which Aristotleoffers his solution are so different from those he employs in settingthe problem that he seems unclear about what the conditions forknowledge are to be.31

Rather than being unclear about the conditions for knowledge, it could be thatAristotle is in the process of rethinking these very conditions. The introduc-tion of the potency/actuality distinction is intentionally designed to suggest away of thinking about knowledge unburdened by the Platonic assumptionthat all knowledge is universal. Thus while Annas is quite correct to questionthe right by which this vision of knowledge in actuality claims for itself thename episte \me \, the answer might involve a reconsideration of the nature ofepiste \me \ itself.

Annas assumes, with plausible textual evidence, that Aristotle has apode-ictic knowledge in mind when he speaks of episte \me \ in energeia. Her justifica-tion for this assumption lies in the examples that Aristotle uses to illustratethe ramifications of the postulate that the principles are singular. After assert-ing that the elements will not then be knowable because all knowledge is ofthe universal, he offers the following: “This is clear from demonstrations anddefinitions, for there is no deductive argument [sullogismos] that this triangle[tode to trigo \non] has angles equal to two right angles unless every triangle hasits angles equal to two right angles; nor that this human-being is an animal


unless every human-being is an animal.”32 Annas notes that these examples aresomewhat surprising, for in a discussion of the possibility of direct knowledgeof individuals, one might expect Aristotle to point to examples of general con-cepts such as redness as opposed to the perception of individual red objects.What we get, however, are examples of connections between concepts. ForAnnas, this suggests “that by knowledge Aristotle has in mind predominantlywhat is (1) knowledge of what must be the case, not what contingently hap-pens to be the case, and (2) knowledge of connections or inferences.”33 If thisis true, then the solution to the aporia is unsatisfactory, for it points merely tothe possibility of direct knowledge of actual individuals and in no way explainshow the sorts of necessary connections between concepts required of apode-ictic knowledge are established. Put simply, because episte \me \ in energeia isdirect knowledge of the individual, it cannot be apodeictic, but if not apode-ictic, then what sort of episte \me \ is it?

If Annas is correct and Aristotle’s examples can be taken to mean thathe intends to establish a sort of apodeictic knowledge by introducing thedistinction between episte \me \ in potency and that in actuality, then what heexplicitly states in XIII.10 is insufficient. However, if his reconsideration ofthe Platonic assumption that all knowledge must be universal is taken moreseriously, and Aristotle is seen to be rethinking the fundamental meaning ofontological knowledge itself, then perhaps episte \me \ in energeia can be seennot as just another sort of apodeictic knowledge but rather as a genuineknowledge of contingent individuals. Annas’s claim that Aristotle seeksboth necessary knowledge and knowledge of connections or inferences isbased on his formulation of the aporia, not on his suggestion of a solution.Once Aristotle challenges the validity of the “all knowledge is universal”assumption, he implicitly calls into question the wisdom of trying to foistapodeictic knowledge onto an ontology of contingent beings. It appears thatas long as ontological episte \me \ is presumed to require apodeictic certainty,the universal/singular aporia will continue to be the “most difficult” toresolve.34 However, if apodeictic certainty is no longer required of ontologi-cal episte \me \, then the knots of the epistemological side of the aporia beginto dissolve.

Annas is correct: Aristotle’s examples do lead one to believe that he issearching for apodeictic knowledge of ousiai. One senses that he would likenothing more than to be able to rest secure in the certainty of demonstrativeknowledge concerning concrete individuals. Yet Aristotle’s greatness lies inhis unwillingness to sacrifice the phenomena in the face of pleas for theblessings of order.35 By introducing the possibility that there may be a gen-uine episte \me \ of individuals, Aristotle opens a space within which to recon-sider the very nature of ontological knowledge. The limitations of thisinchoate suggestion have been made clear by Annas. Not only is XIII.10woefully inadequate if one assumes that Aristotle aims to establish a sort of


apodeictic knowledge, but it remains inadequate—though somewhat lesswoefully—even when one does not make such an assumption. If Aristotleintends to rethink the very nature of ontological episte \me \, and in so doing herelinquishes the hope of establishing apodeictic knowledge of contingentsensible ousiai, then it still remains to be seen how the direct encounter withindividuals deserves to be called an episte \me \ at all. Based on this reading,Aristotle’s appeal to individual instances, “this color” or “this A,” is not as oddas Annas would have us believe, for it confirms Aristotle’s interest in devel-oping a sort of knowledge suitable to the being of concrete individuals. How-ever, Annas’s question “But are we entitled to call this simple recognition aninstance of knowledge at all?” remains valid. Our perplexity over this questionis deeply rooted in a philosophical heritage—determined in part by Aristo-tle’s own concern for order and reinforced by the modern obsession with cer-tainty—that posits apodeictic knowledge as the only sort of knowledge wor-thy of the name.

The text of XIII.10 remains tantalizing, because this other, contingentknowledge remains decisively underdeveloped. Aristotle points to it andabruptly leaves off the discussion. However, if a valid resolution to the episte-mological side of the universal/singular aporia requires not only an account ofthe possibility of knowledge of individuals but also a renunciation of apodeic-tic certainty, then perhaps some insight into the sort of knowledge most befit-ting contingent ousiai may be found elsewhere in the Corpus Aristotelicum. Infact, precisely this sort of knowledge is developed in the Nicomachean Ethics(NE) under the name “phrone \sis.” In NE VI, Aristotle distinguishes phrone \sisfrom apodeictic episte \me \ precisely because it, unlike episte \me \, concerns thatwhich can be otherwise and is directed toward the individual. Because of this,phrone \sis cannot be apodeictic, yet it remains nonetheless a genuine form ofknowledge. This suggests that the sort of knowledge necessary for a resolutionto the epistemological side of the universal/singular aporia—namely, directknowledge of contingent individuals—may be provided by Aristotle’s discus-sion of phrone \sis.

To be clear, we are not suggesting that Aristotle himself envisionedphrone \sis as the solution to the universal/singular aporia—there is no explicittextual evidence to support such a suggestion. The claim here is only that hisdiscussion of phrone \sis provides the requisite conceptual apparatus to addressthe aporia, whether Aristotle recognizes it or not. Further, however, there isgood textual evidence for linking the discussion of sensible substance in themiddle books of the Metaphysics—specifically that of IX.6 and 8—to the dis-cussion of phrone \sis and praxis in the Nicomachean Ethics. This evidence fur-ther justifies the appeal to the Ethics to address the epistemological side of theaporia. Therefore, before we turn to a detailed investigation of the potentialontological significance of phrone \sis, it is necessary to establish the textual evi-dence that links the Metaphysics to the Nicomachean Ethics.


THE ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE METAPHYSICS

There is little doubt that Aristotle considered the inquiry of the Metaphysicsdistinct from that of the Ethics, though perhaps not as independent as thoseenthralled with the so-called fact/value distinction might like to believe. Inthe Metaphysics, Aristotle seems to hold out hope for a genuine, rigorousepiste \me \of being qua being,36 whereas in the Ethics, he is clear to insist that weshould expect only so much accuracy from a discipline as its subject matterwill permit.37 Where the Metaphysics seems intent on delineating the necessaryprinciples of being, the Ethics remains firmly focused on contingent existence.However, such strictly oppositional characterizations of these texts are at bestschematic, at worst, misleading.38 As has been seen in the previous chapters,the central portion of what the ancient editor, Andronicus, ordered under thetitle “to \n meta to \n phusika,” “Of the Things after the Physics,” concerns finite,contingent beings—beings for whom apodeictic knowledge is quite impossi-ble. Further, although the distinction established in the Ethics betweenepiste \me \ and phrone \sis is developed explicitly in terms of necessary and contin-gent knowledge, even in the Posterior Analytics, where Aristotle is concernedto delineate the nature of apodeictic knowledge, he tends to blur the radicaldistinction between the necessary and contingent by insisting that there maybe demonstrative knowledge also of what holds “epi to polu,” that is, “for themost part.”39 It has already been suggested that in Metaphysics XIII.10, Aris-totle points to a sort of episte \me \ that cannot be apodeictic, because it isdirected toward the encounter with the concrete individual. All of this sug-gests that however strange it might sound to the orthodox reading of Aristo-tle, there is some justification for turning to the Ethics for insight into theontological knowledge of that which is contingent.40 Indeed, by weakening hisinsistence on exactitude in the Ethics, Aristotle seems to open a space for pre-cisely such a conception of contingent knowledge. In order to justify the con-nection between the Metaphysics and the Ethics we are suggesting, it is neces-sary to look more closely at the relationship between Metaphysics IX.6 andNicomachean Ethics VI, and specifically the manner in which they establish theenergeia/kine \sis and praxis/poie \sis distinction, respectively.

Linking Metaphysics IX.6 to Nicomachean Ethics VI

Ethical vocabulary is rife in Metaphysics IX.6. Three of the five examples Aris-totle uses to distinguish energeia from kine \sis in this text are central topics ofdiscussion in Aristotle’s Ethics—phronein, eudaimonein, and eu ze \n. Further-more, the specific word that Aristotle uses to name the special sort of energeiahe develops in Metaphysics IX.6 is praxis, itself a key concern of the Ethics. Inorder to establish a link between IX.6 and the Nicomachean Ethics in general,


and Book VI in particular, it is necessary to defend the thesis that not only thewords themselves but the meaning attached to them is the same in both texts.While it is simple enough to point out that these terms appear in both texts—in NE VI, the verb phronein never appears as such, although the noun phrone \sisderived from it is the central topic of the book—it is quite another thing tosuggest that the concepts are used in the same manner. With eudaimonia andeu ze \n, this second step is rather straightforward, for the terms carry withthem an inherent ethical meaning that praxis and phronein/phrone \sis do not.Let us consider these later terms before turning to the concept of praxis.

Werner Jaeger has traced the trajectory of the changing significance ofphrone \sis as a philosophical concept.41 According to Jaeger, it was Socrates whomade the ordinary understanding of the term into an important philosophicalconcept. For Socrates, phrone \sis was, quite simply, the ethical power of reason,and because Socrates was primarily concerned with ethical questions, phrone \sisbecame an important part of his philosophical vocabulary. In appropriatingthe term for philosophy, however, Socrates retained the ethical connotations italways had in ordinary language. However, Jaeger writes, “It was then takenover by Plato, who strongly emphasized the element of intellectual knowledgein it, and examined the special nature of this ‘knowledge.’”42 At this point,phrone \sis became closely connected to nous, as it is, for example, throughoutPlato’s Philebus and Timaeus.43 It became, according to Jaeger, pure theoreticalreason, losing its ordinary ethical meaning almost completely and taking onsignificance as the most divine power of reason in human-beings, the facultyby which the True and the Good may be directly apprehended. Jaeger arguesthat although Aristotle was deeply influenced by this conception of phrone \sis,by the time Aristotle writes the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, themeaning of phrone \sis seems to have been returned to its Socratic sense.44

Jaeger’s account of the changing meaning of phrone \sis is insightful. It isquite likely that Aristotle would have been influenced by the Platonic use ofthe term—an influence that might not have ended as abruptly after the Pro-trepticus as Jaeger suggests. Indeed, the fact that there is a role for nous to playin phrone \sis even in NE VI points to the ongoing influence of the Platonicposition. The important question here, however, is precisely how we are tounderstand its use in Metaphysics IX.6. Does the phronein that appears as apraxis there signify the purely theoretical, Platonic sense of the term or theethical, more Socratic sense developed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics?

It seems likely that there is a combination of both meanings at work inIX.6. Having been sandwiched between horan and noein, phronein seems tolean toward the Platonic determination. Seeing, as the opening lines of theMetaphysics famously suggest, has always been of particular importance for theGreeks as a model for knowledge, particularly the immediate sort of knowl-edge involved in the direct apprehension of the Truth.45 Nous, in the Eleatictradition of philosophy, is the name for the power by which the Truth is


directly apprehended.46 In this company, the Platonic understanding ofphronein seems to come to the fore. However, even in the Ethics, phrone \sisretains a close relation to nous. Furthermore, the role that nous plays inphrone \sis as developed in NE VI is itself intimately bound up with, if not col-lapsed into, aisthe \sis.47 Thus the appearance of phronein between horan andnoein does not necessarily imply that the former term is used in its purely Pla-tonic sense.

On the other hand, its appearance, in close conjunction with eudaimoneinand eu ze \n, which are inherently ethical concepts, points to the possibility thatphronein may indeed retain its Socratic connotations. Furthermore, the over-all point of appealing to phronein in Metaphysics IX.6 is consistent with the useof phrone \sis in the NE, for in both texts the term refers to an activity that is anend in itself. Indeed, in his translation of the Metaphysics, Hippocrates Apos-tle does not hesitate to give phronein the technical translation it receives in theNicomachean Ethics: “we are engaged in acts of prudence and have been soengaged.”48 Although it supports the thesis that IX.6 is closely related to theNicomachean Ethics, a translation that emphasizes the ethical dimensions ofthe term—which has here too been used—is perhaps a bit strong. It is prob-ably true that Aristotle does not intend the term as it appears in IX.6 in thefull technical sense it receives in NE VI. However, even if this full technicalsense of phronein is not intended in this passage, its ethical undertones areamplified as it echoes off “eudaimonia” and “eu ze \n,” on the one hand, and“praxis,” on the other hand. For the purposes of the argument offered here,there is no need to defend the stronger thesis that phronein has the full tech-nical meaning that phrone \sis receives in NE VI. It is enough to recognize it asembedded in a constellation of concepts that play decisive roles in the Ethics,for what we seek are signs pointing us clearly in that direction. It can hardlybe denied that the appearance of “phronein” in IX.6 is one such indicator.

A second indicator is, of course, the use of the term praxis in distinguish-ing energeia from kine \sis. Aristotle uses praxis in a variety of places outside ofhis ethical writings, where it receives its firm technical sense as an end initself.49 A brief and by no means comprehensive survey of some of the othercontexts in which the word is found will clarify the extent to which, in IX.6,praxis is used in a very specific, technical sense, a sense that finds a close par-allel in NE VI.

In the De Caelo, Aristotle describes how that which is best has its goodwithout praxis.50 He suggests that the stars should be understood to enjoy acertain sort of life and praxis, and that humans have the greatest variety ofpraxeis. Here, however, a praxis is clearly understood as directed toward an endbeyond itself, for the best being has no need of praxis, precisely because it isan end in itself, while a praxis is said to require a means and an end.51 Thus inthe De Caelo, praxis is what Metaphysics IX.6–8 would describe as a kine \sis. Infact, some of the examples that Aristotle deploys to illustrate the meaning of


praxis in De Caelo II.12 are precisely the ones he uses to illustrate kine \seis indistinction from praxeis in IX.6, namely, becoming healthy and losingweight.52 Interestingly, however, praxis is closely conjoined to the concept oflife in the De Caelo. In this, it retains an affinity with all of the senses of praxisfound in Aristotle.

In the Generation of Animals, Aristotle ascribes praxis to plants, linking itclosely to the idea of function, ergon, and associating it with the generation ofseed.53 This link to the life process, and specifically to procreation, is rein-forced almost everywhere that Aristotle uses the term in his biological works.For example, in the History of Animals, he ascribes actions to animals, wherebyhe means primarily their habits, what they manifestly do.54 Often, however,praxis is used explicitly to refer to the function of procreation. At 539b21,Aristotle calls procreation itself “te \n praxin te \n genne \tike \n,” “the generativeaction,” and at 589a4–10, he divides actions into two parts, one concerningprocreation and the other feeding. However, even in the biological works,praxis is linked closely to character and circumstance, as it is in the Ethics.55

In the Metaphysics itself, the term is most often used in a nontechnicalsense. In Metaphysics I.1, Aristotle insists that all praxeis and generations,geneseis, concern individuals and not universals—a doctrine that is quite con-sistent with that developed in the Ethics.56 However, elsewhere, praxeis arequite simply identified with other changes that have their ends outside ofthemselves.57 In Metaphysics IV.6, Aristotle seems to use praxis in the samemanner it was used in the History of Animals (i.e., to refer to what is manifestlydone).58 Interestingly, however, a more subtle vision of praxis begins to emergein Metaphysics V.20. In defining the various meanings of disposition (hexis),Aristotle begins to link praxis to energeia and hesitates when identifying praxiswith kine \sis, calling it instead a “sort of motion” (tis he \ kine \sis).59 What makesthis passage even more interesting, however, is the manner in which Aristotleuses the term praxis to name that which is shared between the active and pas-sive partners in an actual relationship. In explaining the meaning of praxis inthis sense, he writes: “for whenever there is a making and that which is made,there is a making between them; so too, whenever there is [a person] holdinga garment and a garment being held, there is a having (hexis) between them.”60

Although this is a strange formulation, it suggests that Aristotle has hit upona way to think the identity of the active and passive in the action itself, anaction that is called “praxis” in a more strict sense. This is precisely the senseof praxis that we find used in IX.6 to understand the dynamic identity ofenergeia and dunamis. In fact, in this passage, Aristotle claims that there is nohaving of this having that is a praxis, for if there were, then there would be aninfinite regress. Thus even here praxis signifies something primary, a relationprior to which it makes no sense to speak of another relation.

Thus although praxis has a number of different senses in Aristotle’s vari-ous writings, the specific sense in which it is used in Metaphysics IX.6 has


much more in common with the technical meaning of the term developed inthe Ethics than it does with the nontechnical understanding of the term foundelsewhere. Of course, one thread that links all of the senses of praxis is theconcept of life, which itself can never be actual without being in potency aswell.61 However, the connection between the meaning of praxis in IX.6 andNE VI is far more intimate, for in both texts, praxis takes on a specific tech-nical meaning that separates them from the casual usages found elsewhere.

In order to further solidify the argument that “praxis,” as it is deployed inMetaphysics IX.6, has the same technical meaning developed in NE VI, andthus that there is a connection between the two texts strong enough to justifybringing the ethical concept of phrone \sis to bear on the epistemological side ofthe universal/singular aporia, let us briefly identify the common conceptualcontent of these texts. This common content concerns the distinctions estab-lished in IX.6 and NE VI.4–5, respectively, between energeia/praxis andkine \sis, on the one hand, and praxis and poie \sis, on the other hand.

A number of commentators have simply assumed that the distinctionbetween energeia/praxis and kine \sis found in IX.6 is fundamentally the same asthat between praxis and poie \sis found in NE VI.4–5.62 Such an assumptionseems reasonable not only because the technical meaning of praxis appears inboth texts but also because the manner in which it is distinguished fromkine \sis and poie \sis, respectively, seems fundamentally the same. Yet althoughthe affinity between the two texts is often assumed, it is rarely defended by adetailed investigation into the two texts themselves. Once such an investiga-tion is undertaken, it will be clear that the term praxis is used in the same nar-row sense in both texts.

Although the ontological impetus behind the introduction of the vocab-ulary of praxis in Metaphysics IX.6 has been clarified—Aristotle seeks anexpression capable of conceptualizing the peculiar manner in which energeiaand dunamis may be said to be one and the same—the first use of the term israther abrupt and general. Aristotle first uses the term praxis to classify com-mon motions: “of the actions (praxeo \n) that have a limit none is an end (telos)but they are for the sake of an end, for example, with respect to the processof losing weight it [i.e., the end] is thinness.”63 He then quickly qualifies this,saying that losing weight is a kine \sis and not a praxis, or at least not a com-plete (teleia) praxis. As we have seen, the point is that unlike a kine \sis, whichhas its telos outside of itself and thus has a definite limit, a teleia praxisincludes its telos in itself and thus has no determinate limit toward which itis directed from outside. Aristotle then proceeds to speak of praxeis in thestrict sense, using the peculiar present-perfect formulation. This formulationand the examples it highlights—horan, phronein, noein, and so on—aredesigned to illustrate the meaning of teleia praxis.64 What these examples sug-gest is that such praxeis differ from kine \seis not only because they do not havea determinate end outside of themselves, but also because they are homoge-


neous in themselves—that is, they may not be said to be more or less com-plete at any given time as kine \seis are.65 Whereas a kine \sis approaches closerto its end as time goes on, this sort of variability with respect to the end isimpossible for praxis, precisely because it is always already its own end. Thusalthough Aristotle introduces the distinction between kine \sis and praxis interms of the notions of limit, peras, and completeness, teleia, and further,while the present-perfect formulation helps clarify the difference in terms ofhomogeneity, the concept upon which all of these distinctions depend is thatof the location of the telos. Ultimately, it is the fact that a praxis has its endin itself that generates all of the other distinctions between it and a kine \sis.As Hagen puts it, “. . . the location of the telos is obviously key in the Meta-physics passage.”66

Turning then to the passage in the Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristo-tle establishes the distinction between praxis and poie \sis, we may ask if thedistinction is similarly established with reference to the location of the telos.At the beginning of NE VI.4–5, Aristotle is far less equivocal about thenature of praxis than he is in Metaphysics IX.6. It is as if in IX.6 Aristotle isin the very process of determining the more narrow and technical meaningof praxis that is fully established and unequivocally used in the Ethics. Thusthe distinction between praxis and poie \sis is established more decisively thanthat between praxis and kine \sis in IX.6. Aristotle asserts: “That which admitsof being otherwise may be some object of production or action. But produc-tion and action are different . . . with the result that a practical dispositionwith reason is different from a productive disposition with reason. Because ofthis, they exclude one another; for no praxis is a poie \sis, and no poie \sis is apraxis.”67 No such definitive statement occurs in IX.6 in relation to the dis-tinction between praxis and kine \sis. Aristotle goes on to suggest the closeaffinity between poie \sis and techne \, and to insist that these are both distinctfrom praxis. The key to this distinction is that while poie \sis and techne \ con-cern contingent beings just as praxis, unlike praxis, they are specifically con-cerned with those sorts of contingent beings that do not have their principlesof movement in themselves—that is, they are concerned with things whose“beginning is in the producer and not in that which is produced.”68 HereAristotle explicitly distinguishes the objects of poie \sis both from things thatexist or come to be of necessity and those that do so by nature, for these lat-ter, he insists, “have their beginning in themselves.”69

Although Aristotle here speaks explicitly about the location of the begin-ning, arche \, not of the telos, or end, to distinguish poie \sis/techne \ from praxis, themanner in which the distinction is established echoes the manner in whichthe distinction between praxis and kine \sis is established in IX.6 insofar as it isthe location of the principle in the activity itself that is decisive. The parallelis even stronger, however, when Aristotle turns his attention to the meaningof phrone \sis, the sort of knowledge appropriate to praxis:


. . . phrone \sis would be neither episte \me \ nor techne \; it would not beepiste \me \because it is possible for the practical object to be otherwise;it would not be techne \ because the genus of praxis is different fromthat of poie \sis. What remains then is this: A practical disposition withtrue reason concerning the good and bad for humans. For the end ofpoie \sis is another thing, but of praxis there would be no [end beyondthe action itself ], for a good action (eupraxia) is itself the end.70

In the final analysis, the location of the end distinguishes a praxis from apoie \sis. The telos of poie \sis is in some other thing, namely, the product, whichcomes into being only as the process of production reaches its conclusion. Itis otherwise with praxis. A praxis is an end in itself; its very activity is its ful-fillment. Again, two different sorts of ends are at work here. The first is quitefamiliar; it is the end of poie \sis, telos as goal. The second is more difficult todiscern, for it refuses to submit to the means/ends logic of production withwhich we have become so familiar. This is the telos of praxis, telos as internalpurposiveness. Aristotle himself signals this shift in the meaning of the telosin NE VI.5 when he writes: “The beginnings of practical things are that forthe sake of which (to hou heneka) they are done.”71 The shift in the meaning oftelos from goal to purpose suggests that here praxis takes on the sense of func-tion that it had in a number of the passages cited from the biological works.72

The praxis of a being is its very function, its purposeful activity. This concep-tion of praxis is ontological in the sense that to be engaged in praxis is for abeing to exist in accordance with its own internally determined function.

Although this teleological conception of praxis is here called “ontologi-cal,” it is not metaphysical in a grand sense. A number of recent scholars havesought to rescue Aristotle’s biological teleology from what might be called the“grand cosmological vision of teleology.” Stephen Salkever has suggested, fol-lowing Martha Nussbaum, that living organisms, themselves neither purelypotential nor purely actual, exhibit characteristic behaviors discerniblethrough direct empirical research. A functional explanation of such behaviors“presupposes only that living things are . . . organized around a norm or nor-mal way of life which allows us to make judgments about whether membersof a particular species are young or old, healthy or ill representatives of theirclass.”73 Thus Salkever agrees with Balme, who writes: “The novelty in Aris-totle’s theory was his insistence that finality is within nature.”74 Balme goes onto argue that there is no room in Aristotle’s cosmology for any force actingupon the sublunary realm. As long as we do not assume the traditional, cos-mological (and totalizing) vision of teleology, the appeal to natural teleologyhas certain advantages. As Martha Nussbaum has suggested: (1) it “sets theprocess to be explained in a wider context of an integrated pattern of behav-ior,” and (2) it is able to account for the plasticity of behavior, that is, to givea unified account of the very different ways living beings operate.75


Thus when Aristotle says that a praxis has its end in itself, he means thatit expresses purposeful behavior based on its internal principle of being.76 Thisis the teleological sense that praxis came to have in IX.6, where examples weredeployed to illustrate the proper functioning of a given being: an eye is seeingand has seen, the mind thinks and has thought, indeed, a human-being ishappy and has been happy. This is true because these beings are engaged inthe very activity of existing as the beings they are—as long as they are soengaged, they may be said to exist; once their praxis stops, they no longer arewhat they were, they have lost their ti e \n einai, the what-it-was-for-them-to-be. Thus the existence of an eye as eye requires that it be engaged in the praxisof seeing, of a mind as mind that it think, and, indeed, of a human-being ashuman that it live. This is not teleological in the sense that each being isdetermined by an overall cosmic purpose—an external telos that would reduceall being to a sort of poie \sis or kine \sis. Rather, it is teleological in the sense thateach being is what it is as long as it continues to perform the praxis that is itsvery existence, as long as it holds its energeia and dunamis together in such away that it continues to manifest its own peculiar purposive activity.

The reason the distinction between praxis and poie \sis is more clearly anddecisively established than that between praxis and kine \sis, however, is thatAristotle recognizes that kine \sis is intimately bound up with the purposiveactivity of natural beings. Thus even if we can map the meaning of praxisdeveloped in the Metaphysics cleanly onto that developed in the NicomacheanEthics, it is not possible to suggest that all kine \seis are also poie \seis.77 AlthoughAristotle often thinks kine \sis on the model of poie \sis, even in Metaphysics IX.6he offers other illustrations of kine \sis that cannot be reduced to the categoryof poie \sis. Such examples include walking and becoming healthy. Our investi-gation into NE VI.4–5 has suggested precisely why such a reduction is unjus-tified. It concerns the location of the beginning, for Aristotle explicitly statesthat a poie \sis has its beginning in the producer and not in the thing being pro-duced. This was used to distinguish it from things existing according to nature(to \n kata phusin). Things that exist according to nature are not poie \seis, butthey are often in motion; in fact, they are specifically designated as beings “ofwhich each has its beginning of motion and rest in itself.”78 Thus it is clear thatthe domain of kine \sis is wider than that of poie \sis, although it is surely possi-ble to say that a poie \sis is a special sort of kine \sis.

However, irrespective of how the precise nature of kine \sis is understood inrelation to poie \sis in both texts, it is clear that the meaning of praxis is thesame. This is what we have sought to show. Once it is recognized not only thatthe examples and vocabulary used in IX.6–8 point to the Ethics, but also thatthe technical meaning of praxis in IX.6 coincides with that developed in NEVI, a link between the two texts is established, so that it becomes justifiablenot only, as many have, to look to the Metaphysics as a source of insight intothe Ethics, but to look to the Ethics as a source of insight into problems left


unresolved in the Metaphysics. This is precisely the proposal of the next chap-ter: to look to the discussion of phrone \sis in NE VI for some insight into thesort of ontological knowledge capable of doing justice to the finite, contingentindividuals that were thematized in terms of praxis and energeia in the middlebooks of the Metaphysics. The discussion of Metaphysics XIII.10 has already setthe framework for this by insisting that the ontological knowledge involvedmust be capable of knowing that which is a tode ti. With the establishment ofa close connection between the discussion of praxis in Metaphysics IX.6 andNE VI, a clear signpost now points in the direction of the Ethics, where per-haps some insight into this matter may be gained. Specifically, it may be pos-sible to appropriate for ontological purposes the sort of knowledge that Aris-totle develops to deal with praxis in its strictly ethical context. Here we say“appropriated” intentionally, for there is no evidence that Aristotle himselfrecognized the possibility that phrone \sis would have this sort of ontological sig-nificance. His discussion of praxis in the Metaphysics has, however, pointed usin the direction of his Ethics, so it is reasonable to do with Aristotle what headvised doing with Empedocles: to follow the path of his thinking and not hisobscure words.79 Here the obscure words are found in XIII.10, but the think-ing directs us to the Ethics.


Our analysis of Metaphysics XIII.10 suggested that there may be a sort ofepiste \me \ of the concrete, composite individual, the very being that was thema-tized in Metaphysics IX.6–8 in terms of praxis. Although XIII.10 does notestablish precisely how actual knowledge of such individuals is possible, itremains of central importance insofar as it points to the possibility of devel-oping a conception of ontological knowledge capable of doing justice to thefinite individual. Furthermore, although the nature of this sort of knowledgeremains underdeveloped in XIII.10, the text makes some important prelimi-nary suggestions about what this sort of knowledge might entail. First, it mustbe grounded in the actual encounter with the being with which it is con-cerned. Second, it is directed primarily toward the individual, not the univer-sal. As we have suggested in the previous chapter, these characterizationspoint in the direction of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle turns his fullattention and philosophical acumen to contingent existence and develops aconception of knowledge capable of doing justice to the vagaries of such con-tingency. Specifically, in Nicomachean Ethics VI, he introduces the notion ofphrone \sis, a special sort of knowledge suited to the sphere of praxis and explic-itly directed toward that which is individual. In fact, Aristotle’s detailed dis-cussion of the inner workings of phrone \sis, found in NE VI, lends insight intoprecisely how the enigmatic sort of ontological knowledge hinted at inXIII.10 might be conceived. If this is the case, perhaps the notion of phrone \sis,which finds its explicit home in a discussion of the nature of human praxis,may be reappropriated and expanded to fill in the gaps left by Aristotle’sobscure discussion of ontological episte \me \, found in XIII.10.

131

8

Contingent Knowledge

Phrone \sis in the Ethics

The sort of ontological reappropriation of phrone \sis suggested here is notunprecedented. Martin Heidegger was the first to appreciate the ontological sig-nificance of phrone \sis.The first part of his influential 1924–1925 lecture on Plato’sSophist interprets Aristotle’s conception of phrone \sis in such a way that it rivals thepriority given to sophia in Aristotle—and Greek thinking in general—and sug-gests that phrone \sis reveals something important about the being of Dasein in rela-tion to other beings that themselves are Dasein.1 Further, a number of scholarshave come to recognize that Heidegger draws heavily on Aristotle’s conception ofphrone \sis in Sein und Zeit, though there is no consensus on precisely which of the“existentialia” developed in that text owe their inspiration to phrone \sis.2 Hans-Georg Gadamer further develops the ontological significance of phrone \sis inWahrheit und Methode by using it as a model for hermeneutics, which for him isno mere matter of textual interpretation but a way of being.3 While both Heideg-ger and Gadamer appropriate the meaning of phrone \sis for their own philosophi-cal projects, neither attempts to read it as a possible response to the epistemolog-ical side of the universal/singular aporia that plagues Aristotle’s Metaphysics itself.

The reappropriation of phrone \sis proposed here must be understood in aspecific sense. It is neither an attempt to reestablish the original meaning ofthe term in the context of the Nicomachean Ethics nor even to rediscover Aris-totle’s own intended, but undeveloped, position by an appeal to the appropri-ations of Heidegger and Gadamer. Rather, we seek to assign phrone \sis anontological significance that it never explicitly had in Aristotle in order to lendinsight into a very real problem that not only emerges in Aristotle’s thinkingitself but continues to persist: to what extent is ontological knowledge of thefinite individual possible? For Aristotle, the problem manifests itself in thetension between universality and singularity. For us, the problem is funda-mentally ethical, for it concerns—to use now the Levinasian terminology—the relationship between the Same and the Other, and the extent to which thebeing of the Other offers itself to the concepts of the Same.

The methodological procedure for what follows is guided by concernsthat emerge internally in Aristotle and externally from the recognition thatthe epistemological relation that grounds ontology is inherently ethical. Theprocedure is thus inside out and outside in: the internal analysis of Aristotle’sontology has pointed beyond itself to the possibility of developing an onto-logical knowledge capable of doing justice to individual beings as such (insideout), but this sort of knowledge is left underdeveloped by Aristotle and mustbe supplemented by contemporary philosophical suggestions that phrone \sishas ontological significance (outside in). The thrust of the inside-out proce-dure led to the inchoate conception of knowledge in actuality, outlined inMetaphysics XIII.10; the outside-in strategy can now be used to investigate theextent to which phrone \sis fills in the picture left obscure in XIII.10. The turnto the Nicomachean Ethics, then, is made in the interest of both perspectives:it fills in the picture left undeveloped by Aristotle by suggesting precisely how


there may be a genuine sort of knowledge of the individual, but it also pointsto the possibility of developing an ethical conception of ontological knowl-edge in which the contingent individual is recognized as the ultimate arche \.

However, the interpretation of phrone \sis that will ultimately move beyondAristotle’s explicit comments and be infused with ontological significance toaddress the epistemological side of the universal/singular aporia must itself beguided by and find its justification in what Aristotle actually says aboutphrone \sis in the context of the Nicomachean Ethics. Once the internal logic ofphrone \sis is clarified in its original context, its ontological significance willcome more clearly into focus. Happily, this does not require a completeaccount of Aristotle’s ethical theory. However, it does require critical treat-ment of the constellation of concepts determining the highly technical mean-ing of phrone \sis developed in NE.VI. Chief among these are arete \ (virtue), eth-ical nous (intuition), and prohairesis (intentional choice), concepts that arewidely recognized as constituting the complex internal structure of phrone \sis.Less widely recognized, however, are three other concepts: sunesis (intelli-gence, or conscientious apprehension), epieikeia (equity), and suggno \me \ (for-giveness), which also play an important role in the functioning of phrone \sis.

With some notable exceptions,4 commentators on practical reason inAristotle often either minimize the importance of these three latter conceptsor ignore them altogether. To some degree this can be attributed to the nat-ural tendency to interpret practical reason as being analogous to theoreticalreason. Aristotle himself encourages this in NE VI.9 and 12 by using termssuch as sullogismos (syllogism) and protasis (premise) in connection to practi-cal reasoning.5 Furthermore, it is undeniable that in De Motu Animalium(MA), chapter 7, Aristotle appeals to the model of the syllogism to illustratethe psychological factors that account for animal motion.6 However, althoughthere are important insights into phrone \sis to be gained by comparing it to the-oretical knowledge, its full complexity is lost if the syllogistic model is per-mitted to obfuscate those dimensions of phrone \sis that do not fit cleanly intothe paradigm. Aristotle himself never asserts that the syllogistic paradigm isthe exclusive or even the best model according to which to understand theinner workings of phrone \sis. His approach is far more inclusive, sometimesusing vocabulary borrowed from his logical writings and other times appeal-ing to juridical terminology. An appreciation for the insights provided by theformer model ought not be permitted to eclipse those offered by the latter, forthey both point to important dimensions of the complex nature of phrone \sis.

THE PRACTICAL SYLLOGISM AS HEURISTIC DEVICE

In his book Aristotle’s Ethical Theory, W. F. R. Hardie criticizes the traditionof appealing to the “practical syllogism” to elucidate the structure of practical

133Contingent Knowledge: Phrone \sis in the Ethics

reasoning in Aristotle. He argues that in the Nicomachean Ethics the term sul-logismos most often has the broad, everyday sense of “reasoning, calculation,or collection of data,”7 and not the restricted, technical meaning it receives inAristotle’s logical writings. Hardie goes on to suggest that because it namesa process according to which a rule is applied to a concrete situation in viewof a specific end, the “practical syllogism” fails to do justice to the full com-plexity of practical reasoning.8 Martha Nussbaum, however, has sought torehabilitate the heuristic importance of the practical syllogism for under-standing the nature of practical reason in Aristotle by looking more closely athow he explicitly uses such syllogisms in De Motu Animalium, De Anima, andthe Nicomachean Ethics. She insists that sullogismos is used in its technicalsense in these texts but refuses to restrict the meaning of the syllogism towhat she calls the “deductivist view” that appeals to the language of the syl-logism to construct a objective science of ethics.9 In a similar vein, CarloNatali has powerfully argued that while practical wisdom, or phrone \sis, is not,strictly speaking, a scientific form of knowledge, the practical syllogism stilloffers the best model according to which it may be understood. He suggeststhat although some modern scholars have often overemphasized the differ-ences between phrone \sis and theoretical knowledge, the similarities remainnumerous and enlightening.10 Like Nussbaum, Natali recognizes the practi-cal syllogism as a formal apparatus designed to offer insight into the internalfunctioning of phrone \sis.11

Although Nussbaum and Natali are correct to emphasize the value of thepractical syllogism as a heuristic device, as a conceptual model designed tocapture the full complexity of phrone \sis, the practical syllogism is less success-ful. While it offers the formal framework within which to conceptualize therelationship between reason and desire, the function of nous, and the centralimportance of the individual, it tends to eclipse those distinctive dimensionsof phrone \sis that set it apart from theoretical reasoning. Specifically, the modelof the practical syllogism is incapable of capturing the precise relationshipbetween phrone \sis and ethical virtue (arete \), for it is not able to recognize themanner in which the very operation of phrone \sis is determined by the complexnexus of relationships within which it always operates. Furthermore, becausethe model of the syllogism orients the interpretation of phrone \sis toward thequestion of truth, it tends to obscure the important roles that conscientiousapprehension (sunesis), equity (epieikeia), and forgiveness (suggno \me \) play inphronetic judgment.12

That these dimensions of phrone \sis have traditionally been eclipsed is nosurprise, for at the beginning of NE VI.3, Aristotle thematizes phrone \sis alongwith scientific knowledge (episte \me \), craft (techne \), wisdom (sophia), and intu-ition (nous) as ways by which the soul may possess truth (ale \theuein).13 Becausesyllogistic reasoning so clearly elucidates one of the ways the soul possessestruth, it is no wonder the practical syllogism emerged as a primary model by


which to conceptualize the nature of phrone \sis. Traditionally this has meantestablishing an analogy between phrone \sis and episte \me \. However, becauseepiste \me \, unlike phrone \sis, is fundamentally concerned with that which cannotbe otherwise, its internal structure, however similar to phrone \sis, fails to cap-ture those dimensions of phrone \sis peculiar to it as knowledge of the contin-gent.14 Thus although it is indeed possible, as a number of recent studies haveshown, to gain much insight into phrone \sis by comparing it to episte \me \, thisanalysis must, in the end, be supplemented by another model and vocabulary,one designed to capture those dimensions of the logic of phrone \sis determinedby its fundamental contingency.15 Let us look first, then, at those passages inNE VI that legitimate the appeal to the practical syllogism and the model ofepiste \me \, for they may serve as a preliminary guide to our investigation into theinternal operation of phrone \sis.

After delineating the basic differences between phrone \sis, episte \me \, techne \,and sophia, Aristotle turns his full attention to the nature of phrone \sis in NEVI.8. He first insists upon the intimate relationship between phrone \sis anddeliberation (to bouleuesthai) in order to reaffirm that the object of phrone \sis isboth contingent and attainable.16 He then claims that phrone \sis is not only ofthe universal but must also know the individuals (ta kath’ hekasta), for it ispractical, “and praxis concerns individuals.”17 This establishes at once a simi-larity and a difference between phrone \sis and episte \me \, for the latter is neces-sarily concerned with that which is universal, while the former most vigilantlyattends to the individual. However, both phrone \sis and episte \me \deploy univer-sal principles. The example to which Aristotle appeals here indicates both thathe is thinking in terms analogous to the theoretical syllogism and accentuat-ing an important difference. He claims that those who, though lacking uni-versal knowledge, have experience are often correctly thought to be morepractical: “For if someone should know that light meats are digestible andhealthy, but did not know what sorts of meats are light, he would not producehealth; but the person who knows that bird meat is light and healthy wouldmore likely produce health.”18 The conclusion that Aristotle draws from thisis that although both universal and individual knowledge are important, inpractical matters knowledge of the individual takes on a certain precedence.

Here Aristotle seems to have in mind the model of a theoretical syllogismin which a universal claim, “All light meat is healthy,” is brought into relationwith a middle term, “Bird meat is light meat,” in order to produce the con-clusion, “Bird meat is healthy.” Of course, as Cooper has pointed out, the mid-dle term here is universal in scope.19 The example seems to suggest that thetranslation of ta kath’ hekasta as “individuals” is illegitimate, for the statementreferred to by this term designates bird meat as something particular, not indi-vidual. It makes a general claim about a species of beings, bird meats, namely,that they are light and healthy. Further evidence for the claim that ta kath’hekasta should be rendered “particulars” rather than individuals may be found


in De Motu Animalium, where the middle term in three of Aristotle’s exam-ples designates not an individual as such but rather a particular member of aclass. In one example Aristotle posits the major premise as “it is necessary forall humans to walk,” the minor as “I myself am a human,” and the conclusionis the immediate action of walking. In another, the major premise posits, “Itis necessary to make something good,” the minor, “a house is good,” and atonce the project is embarked upon. In the third example, the major premiseis “I need a covering,” the minor is “a cloak is a covering,” and the result is animmediate gathering of the things necessary to make a coat.20 Bracketing thedifficult issues concerning the role of desire and the immediacy of the actionpursued, the middle term in all of these examples corresponds not to an indi-vidual but to a particular judgment concerning an individual—that is, to anindividual seen as a member of a class. Indeed, from a logical point of view,the participation of the individual in the universal class expressed in the mid-dle term is precisely what justifies the transition from the major premise tothe conclusion.

However, within the context of the discussion of phrone \sis, in which thepassage concerning bird meat appears, the main point seems to be to insist onthe importance of experience in practical knowledge and to suggest thatknowledge of ta kath’ hekasta has a certain priority over knowledge of the uni-versal in the practical sphere. Indeed, the person of experience knows what ishealthy without any act of subsumption. Of course, this is not to say that theexperienced person does not make a judgment, that is, does not see the indi-vidual as something or other.21 It is in fact vital that the individual piece of birdmeat is seen as healthy, yet the person of experience recognizes this withoutrunning through the universal premise at all. The use of the practical syllogismhere seems designed to clarify a difference between theoretical and practicalknowledge. Theoretical knowledge is impossible if the universal is not firmlyestablished, either absolutely or, as Aristotle often claims, “for the most part.”Yet there may indeed be a sort of practical knowledge, even if the universalpremise is not deployed at all. Of course, this is not episte \me \. The verb used todesignate the sort of knowledge with which Aristotle is here concerned iseidenai, which has the connotation of the immediate recognition associatedwith what might be called insight. This seems to be the point of Aristotle call-ing the person with experience more practical, for that person precisely hasinsight—an ability to discern the individual immediately as beneficial in somemanner. However, at the end of this passage, Aristotle insists not that the uni-versal is useless, but that phrone \sis holds both knowledge of the universal and,to put it more literally, of the things according to each (ta kath’ hekasta),although the latter is more important. Thus while experience is of centralimportance to phrone \sis, it is not coextensive with it.

Ironically, the first instance of the practical syllogism to appear in NE VIseems designed not to establish the similarity between theoretical and practi-


cal reasoning but to insist upon an important difference, namely, the primacyof the individual over the universal in practical reasoning. This difference,however, has often been permitted to eclipse a deeper affinity between thetwo. By focusing on the nature of the relationship between epago \ge \ and nous,recent scholarship concerning the nature of Aristotelian episte \me \ has sug-gested the great significance for science of attending to particulars. Engberg-Pedersen has captured the basic sense of epago \ge \ in Aristotle when he thema-tizes it as “attending to particular cases with the consequence that insight intosome universal point is acquired.”22 Here “insight,” by which Engberg-Peder-sen translates the Aristotelian nous, is not understood as some infallible capac-ity to see the absolute truth. Rather, it is far more humbly characterized as “ageneralizing capacity or ability that is responsible for the fact that a universalpoint, something, that is, which goes beyond what is grasped in sense-percep-tion, may come to be present to the mind—whether this point is true orfalse.”23 Engberg-Pedersen’s characterization of the relationship betweenepago \ge \ and nous suggests that episte \me \may in fact be just as dependent uponindividuals as phrone \sis.

Perhaps the difference between episte \me \ and phrone \sis Aristotle insistsupon at the beginning of NE VI is not as radical as it appears. The differencewas, in fact, thematized not in terms of the operation of the two capacities—both are characterized as a disposition (hexis)—but in terms of the nature ofthe object with which they are concerned.24 This opens up the possibility notonly that the operation of epago \ge \may lend insight into the logic of phrone \sis,as many commentators have suggested, but also that the logic of phrone \sis maylend insight into the nature of episte \me \. The prejudice that posits the primacyof the eternal over the finite has historically caused commentators to attemptto establish ethics as a rigorous science by appealing to episte \me \ as the modelfor phrone \sis. Once this allergy to finitude is overcome, the reverse path ofinquiry becomes accessible, and the ethical dimensions of episte \me \ begin tocome into focus. Like phrone \sis, episte \me \ too has its roots ultimately in thedirect encounter with individuals.

The Complexities of Phronetic Perception

In NE VI, however, Aristotle seems to insist on the distinction betweenphrone \sis and episte \me \, even as he appeals to the syllogistic model to elucidatethe structure of phrone \sis itself. This can be seen in NE VI.9, when Aristotleagain gestures to something like a practical syllogism to clarify the differentways in which one can err in deliberation: “Further, error in deliberation eitherconcerns the universal or the individual (to kath’ hekaston), for the error is eitherthat all heavy water is bad or because this here is heavy (todi barustrathmon).”25

The use of the term to kath’ hekaston in the singular here is significant. Unlike


in the bird meat passage, what plays the role of the middle term in this exam-ple is not something particular—a specific type—but rather the individualitself. Aristotle underscores this by using the demonstrative todi to emphasizethat the error concerns this individual present here. A similar use of thedemonstrative is employed in an example taken from the De Motu Animalium.There Aristotle speaks explicitly about the role of desire and sense-perception,or what he there calls phantasia: “Desire says: ‘It is necessary for me to drink’;‘This here is a drink (todi de poton) ’ said sense-perception or phantasia or nous.Immediately he drinks.”26 This passage resonates with the one found in theNicomachean Ethics insofar as it too uses the demonstrative to designate theconcrete individual serving as the middle term of the syllogism.

Of course, the individual qua singular is never directly accessible toknowledge. Martha Nussbaum has drawn this out in discussing the relation-ship between aisthe \sis (sensation) and phantasia (imagination). She distin-guishes between what may be called a passive and an active side of aisthe \sis.On the passive side, sensation receives impressions, not of a unitary and anidentifiable whole but of the qualities of the object—its color or flavor, forexample.27 On the active side, phantasia seems to be that which consolidatesthese sensations into a unified whole. This is hinted at in the De Motu Ani-malium, when Aristotle suggests that the reason we shudder when we onlythink about something fearful is that the phantasia presents forms that aremuch like the actual things themselves.28 Nussbaum writes: “These remarksseem to imply that whereas in aisthe \sis the animal becomes just like the object,when phantasia is operative he becomes aware of the object as a thing of a cer-tain sort.”29 This awareness of the thing as a particular sort is precisely what isrequired of the minor premise in the practical syllogism if it is to serve as amiddle term linking the major premise to the conclusion. It is not enoughmerely to perceive the object; there must also be an imaginative synthesis thatrecognizes the individual as something or other, whether it be a member of amore generic class—as with the “bird meat is healthy” example, or as an objectof desire—as with the “this is a drink” example. Indeed, in De Anima III.8,there is evidence that Aristotle himself saw the action of the imagination as acondition for the possibility of thinking itself.30 This account of the imagina-tion subverts the naïve belief that singulars are immediately accessible to cog-nition. As Nussbaum puts it:

The theory of phantasia, then, helps Aristotle to account for theinterpretive side of perception; and it does more. The claim that ais-thesis and phantasia are “the same faculty” now amounts to the con-tention that reception and interpretation are not separable, but thor-oughly interdependent. There is no receptive “innocent eye” inperception. How something phainetai to me is obviously bound upwith my past, my prejudices, and my needs. But if it is only in virtue


of phantasia, and not aisthesis alone, that I apprehend the object asobject, then it follows that there is no uninterrupted or “innocent”view of it, no distinction—at least on the level of form or object-per-ception—between the given, or received, and the interpreted.31

Thus while Aristotle deploys the demonstrative todi to pick out the individ-ual directly present to the judging subject, this act of designating alreadyseems to involve an interpretive moment. The individual is always already rec-ognized “as” something or other. The structural similarity between the exam-ple of heavy water in NE VI.9 and the drink of MA 7 opens up the possibil-ity at least that an extremely complex, sophisticated conception of phrone \sis isat work, one that involves an important role for phantasia.32

The legitimacy of importing the notion of phantasia into the discussionof phrone \sis, although the term appears nowhere in NE VI, is reinforced by athird passage taken from NE VI in which the model of the syllogism seems tooperate. The passage, which admittedly is perplexing and open to a variety ofinterpretations, is as follows:

It is clear that phrone \sis is not episte \me \, for it is about the ultimateindividual (eschaton), as has been said, for this sort of thing is prac-tical. And it is opposed to nous. For nous is of the definition, ofwhich there is no reasoning (logos), while phrone \sis is of the ultimateindividual (eschaton), of which there is not episte \me \, but rather ais-the \sis, not the aisthe \sis of the special objects, but the sort by whichwe sense that the ultimate individual [in mathematics] is the trian-gle. For here too [mathematics] will stand [before the individual].But this is more properly aisthe \sis than phrone \sis, of that, however,there is another kind.33

Here Aristotle repeats what he had already established as a difference betweenepiste \me \ and phrone \sis—that the latter directly intuits the last ultimate in amanner in which the former, bound as it is to logos, does not. However, hethen goes on to delineate a difference between phrone \sis and nous, or at least acertain kind of nous, namely, that involved in grasping permanent definitions.But it seems that Aristotle’s main point is not to delineate between phrone \sisand either episte \me \ or nous here but to point to the special sort of aisthe \sisinvolved in phrone \sis.34 The real difficulty is to discern precisely what the anal-ogy with mathematical perception is designed to elucidate about phrone \sis.

Engberg-Pedersen has suggested that the proper way to understand theappeal to the triangle in mathematics is to imagine a geometer attempting tofigure out how a more complex figure is constructed. He argues that there aretwo dimensions to the aisthe \sis of the triangle. One corresponds to what Aris-totle most commonly calls “sensation,” namely, the visual grasp of the image,


either as drawn or imagined. This, Engberg-Pedersen argues, may be eitherthe special sensibles that seem to be explicitly referenced in the passage or,indeed, the sensation of the common qualities, which themselves might bepart of the perception of geometry. The other, he claims, is unlike any of thethree Aristotelian senses of aisthe \sis.35 It is the grasp of the triangle “as” the laststep in the analysis, that is, as having a particular role in the special context.36

This expanded sense of sensation is precisely what Aristotle intends to drawout as the aisthe \sis of phrone \sis. We will call this “other kind” of aisthe \sis “phro-netic perception” to distinguish it from the immediate aisthe \sis of the properor common sensibles. Phronetic perception is always more than mere sensa-tion, for it is perception of an individual embedded in a given context.

However, Engberg-Pedersen’s judgment that this other kind of aisthe \sis isnot a case of genuine Aristotelian perception may be, given Nussbaum’s analy-sis of phantasia, based on too narrow a conception of aisthe \sis in Aristotle.Nussbaum has suggested that when Aristotle attempts to account for animalmotion, he is forced to develop a more robust understanding of aisthe \sis, onethat goes beyond the initial three sorts developed in De Anima II.6. The drinkexample taken from MA 7 illustrates in part the role that phantasia plays in thevery act of aisthe \sis, for it accounts for how the subject recognizes an object asdesirable. This recognition is itself, however, contextual. It is dependent on thepresence of the desire for drink; in another context, for example, one in whichan abundance of fluids has been recently ingested, the appearance of a drinkwill not lead to action. Thus Nussbaum has insisted that phantasia is contex-tual: the one who uses phantasia “will not just perceive an object, but perceiveit as a thing of a certain sort, a thing that could become for him an object eitherof pursuit or avoidance.”37 This sort of “seeing as” must be recognized as the keyto the operation not only of the practical but also the theoretical syllogism:without the capacity to see the individual as something or other, either, in thecase of the practical syllogism, as desirable, or, in the case of the theoretical syl-logism, as related to the universal in the requisite manner, the middle term willbe incapable of linking the major premise to the conclusion.

But to see something as something, to deploy phantasia, is to engage inan act of categorization; it is to violate the pure singularity of the being underconsideration. This act of appropriation is in fact a condition for the possibil-ity of knowledge. To be known in any sense, whether in a practical or theo-retical context, the singular must be transformed into an individual and situ-ated within a schema of deliberation. It must succumb to logos. By suggestingthat the aisthe \sis of phrone \sis is of another sort, is something more than themere reception of sense data emanating from the object, Aristotle points toprecisely the fantastic dimension of phronetic knowledge. Although the termphantasia does not appear here, it is recognizable in the peculiar sort of ais-the \sis endemic to phrone \sis, an aisthe \sis in which the object perceived is alwaysalready “seen as” determined by the context in which it is encountered.


However, the encounter with the individual in phrone \sis is yet more com-plex, for Aristotle explicitly calls the aisthe \sis of phrone \sis “nous” in a final pas-sage to be considered in which the vocabulary of the syllogism is used. Thepassage runs as follows:

Nous is also of the ultimate individuals (to \n eschato \n) in both direc-tions; for nous is of the first definitions and of the ultimate individu-als, and it is without logos. And on one hand nous with respect todemonstrations is of the permanent definitions and primary things;on the other hand nous in practical matters is of the ultimate indi-vidual and of that which may vary and of the other premise (te \s het-eras protaseo \s); for these are the beginnings of that for the sake ofwhich; for the universals [come] from the individuals; thus it is nec-essary to have aisthe \sis of these, but this is nous.38

Here again the logic of the theoretical and practical syllogisms seems inter-twined, with nous playing a decisive role in both. In the theoretical syllogismnous is said to see that which is permanent and unchanging, the definitionsand primary things. On the model of demonstration, these permanent uni-versal principles are deployed to render the individual particular: the individ-ual is determined as an instantiation of a universal, subsumed under itsauthority. It is otherwise with practical nous. Here the model is not that ofdemonstration and subsumption but of what Aristotle in his logical writingscalls “epago \ge \.” The last ultimate (to eschaton) is itself the starting point, thesite from which universals themselves come into being. The last ultimate isintuited by nous, which is explicitly not logos. Here intuitive access to the sin-gular itself is understood as being inherent in the operation of phronetic per-ception. The singular retains its absolute otherness in the moment ofencounter, an otherness only intuited by practical nous, prior to its beingappropriated by logos. This otherness—that which escapes the purview oflogos—is the beginning, the principle, of that for the sake of which, the end.Intuition of the singular is the condition for the possibility of knowledge ofthe individual situated within a system of ends in which it is always alreadyembedded. Nous names the intuition of the singular that makes all knowledgepossible, but it itself does not constitute cognition of the object; the singularescapes logos—it remains inaccessible to knowledge. This is as true for episte \me \as it is for phrone \sis; however, for the former, the singular is known only as par-ticular, and for the latter always as an embedded individual.

What emerges from this analysis of the two main passages in NE VI con-cerning nous is a complex vision of phronetic perception. On the one hand,phrone \sis involves more than simple aisthe \sis, for it is capable of apprehendingthe individual as something or other. This may be called the “logical dimen-sion” of phronetic perception, for logos always speaks of something as something:


it is discursive.39 The logical dimension of phrone \sis encompasses a complexconstellation of concepts that emerges as a direct result of this embeddedness.These include concepts such as arete \, intentional choice (prohairesis), desire(orexis), and disposition (hexis), which are to some degree captured by the syl-logistic model, and others, such as sunesis, epieikeia, and suggno \me \, which seemto be eclipsed by the paradigm of the syllogism. On the other hand, by callingthe aisthesis of phrone \sis a sort of “nous,” Aristotle seems to suggest that there ismore to phrone \sis than the merely “logical” deployment of principles. Thusbefore addressing the complex structure of the logical dimension of phrone \sis,let us draw out the role that nous plays in practical wisdom.

THE NOETIC DIMENSION OF PHRONE \SIS

Phronetic nous names the capacity to intuit, or indeed, “sense” that which isimmediately present. Yet the vocabulary that Aristotle deploys is ambiguous,for what it intuits is “to eschaton,” which means simply that which is last in aseries, or the most extreme, the ultimate. Here Aristotle may be referring tothe last premise in syllogistic reasoning, or to that which is immediately pre-sent—that to which the demonstrative “todi” pointed in the example of theheavy water. Throughout the discussion of phrone \sis in NE VI, Aristotle seemsto vacillate between understanding the last ultimate as referring to a situationand understanding it in what may be considered more ontological terms—thatis, as referring to the immediate presence of some being. The former senseseems operative in the bird meat example, the latter in the heavy water exam-ple. Such a vacillation makes sense once the logical and noetic dimensions ofphrone \sis have been delineated. From the logical perspective, the last ultimateis the individual as contextually embedded in a given situation. From thenoetic perspective, however, it may refer to the immediate presence of the sin-gular to which the most clear reference may be a demonstrative gesture—thisbeing here, “todi.” The noetic dimension of phrone \sis points precisely to thatwhich, in itself, always escapes the grasp of the logos—to the “tode” somehowisolated from the “ti.” This does not imply that phrone \sis is irrational, for aslong as the noetic dimension of phrone \sis remains separate from and unrelatedto its logical dimension, phrone \sis itself will be, quite literally, ineffective. Toparaphrase Kant, phrone \sis without nous is empty, without logos, blind.40

However, if one side of phronetic nous is directed toward the last ultimate,then the other side seems to be involved in grasping ends. Here the operationof nous is more difficult to discern. It is, however, intimated in the passagecited earlier, when Aristotle suggests that the last ultimates “are the begin-nings of that for the sake of which; for the universals [come] from the indi-viduals.”41 He goes on to say that nous is both a beginning and an end, and thatone should pay attention to older people and to those with experience not less


than to demonstrations, for “they see correctly because they have eyes fromexperience.”42 Again, nous is understood as a sort of perception, but here hav-ing an eye for the end does not mean directly intuiting the absolute, unchang-ing end of all action but rather seeing the proper end through experience.Here the logical and noetic dimensions of phrone \sis are again intertwined, andthe possibility for misunderstanding is great, for experience is always saturatedwith logos. However, as has already been suggested by Engberg-Pedersen’sconception of epago \ge, nous names the capacity to have insight into some uni-versal point as a consequence of attending to experience.43 This of courseopens up the very complicated and much-discussed question of whether ornot phrone \sis is itself capable of determining the ends according to which itoperates. We will discuss this question, which belongs properly to the logicaldimension of phrone \sis, in detail later. For now, however, it is important sim-ply to recognize that even if it cannot determine its own ends, phrone \sis mustat least be capable of seeing the ends. For this reason, phronetic nous must beunderstood to be directed not only to the last ultimate but also to the ends forthe sake of which action is undertaken. In ethics, however, because the endsmay be otherwise, there is a great difference between seeing them and deter-mining them. This latter falls within the purview of the logical rather than thenoetic dimension of phrone \sis.

THE LOGICAL DIMENSION OF PHRONE \SIS

The investigation into phantasia reveals that phronetic judgment alwaysinvolves more than noetic intuition, for it entails the ability to discern thatwhich appears as something or other. This capacity to “see as” accounts for themanner in which phrone \sis is able to mediate between the major premise andthe conclusion in a practical syllogism. However, precisely what this sort of“seeing as” involves remains somewhat inaccessible when viewed through thelens of an analysis guided primarily by the practical syllogism. Although thatanalysis pointed to the discussion of the practical syllogism in De Motu Ani-malium 7 and so to the important role that desire plays in action, it did notcapture those aspects of the logical dimension of phrone \sis that Aristotle iden-tifies in Nicomachean Ethics VI.44 Some of these aspects—virtue, deliberation,and choice, for example—are not as easily incorporated into the syllogisticmodel; others—conscientious apprehension (sunesis), equity (epieikeia), andforgiveness (suggno \me \)—are completely eclipsed by it.

The logical dimension of phrone \sis may thus be said to have two distinctbut interconnected aspects. One concerns the constellation of concepts thatsurrounds the relationship between phrone \sis and ethical virtue. These may becalled the “ethical” aspects of phrone \sis, because they highlight the act of judg-ment as conditioned by the habits, upbringing, culture, and society in which


it is always embedded. These are the elements of phrone \sis that determine thelens through which judgments are made. The second slightly different butconnected aspect of the logical dimension of phrone \sis may be named “juridi-cal.” If the “ethical” aspects of phrone \sis delineate the contingency of the lensthrough which the phronimos renders judgment, then the “juridical” aspectsensure that this judgment is directed toward justice. They are designed totemper the subjective side of phronetic judgment by introducing considera-tions of fairness, forgiveness, and even conscience into the logic of phrone \sis.The syllogistic paradigm is constitutionally incapable of considering these“juridical” aspects, because it is guided by a concern for truth, not justice.

The question of justice becomes centrally important precisely because ofthe specifically ethical nature of phrone \sis. Once phrone \sis is recognized as anact of judgment embedded in the contingent world and mediated by the finitejudging subject, it needs to be equipped with limits and safeguards designedto ensure that justice is done to that which is judged in each instance. This isthe significance of Aristotle’s repeated insistence that phrone \sis, althoughoperating with universals, must attend principally to the individual. Aristotle’sconcern for the individual in the practical sphere is a direct result of his recog-nition that as a contingent form of knowledge, phrone \sis is potentially unjust.This recognition suggests the possibility of thinking knowledge not only interms of truth but in terms of justice as well. In order to further delineate theextent to which ethics and epistemology are intertwined in phrone \sis, the eth-ical aspects of the logical dimension of phrone \sis must be investigated.

The Ethical Aspects of Phrone \sis

On the face of it, phrone \sis and ethical virtue, e \thike \arete \, seem to be separatedispositions. Aristotle distinguishes between the ethical and the intellectualvirtues at the end of NE I and the beginning of NE II.45 His treatment ofthese two sorts of virtues in isolation from one another in the NE furthersolidifies the impression that phrone \sis and virtue are indeed separate. Finalconfirmation of this seems to come at the end of NE VI, when Aristotleestablishes the distinct roles that virtue and phrone \sis play in right intention(prohairesis orthe \): “the one [that is virtue] posits the end, while the other[that is phrone \sis] makes us act with respect to the things toward the end (tapros to telos).”46 It is tempting to understand this statement in terms of thelogic of technical production according to which phrone \sis would be con-cerned merely with the means to establish some end determined externallyby virtue. That things may not be so straightforward, however, is already sug-gested by the passage from the end of NE VI which, when read in context, isclearly intent on establishing the close connection between ethical virtue andphrone \sis. Just before the passage cited, Aristotle claims that no one can be


good without both phrone \sis and ethical virtue,47 a point that further clarifieshis earlier claim that phrone \sis is itself a sort of virtue and not a mere techne \.48

Although there may or may not be arete \ with respect to techne \—an artist ora craftsperson may be either good or bad—there is no phrone \sis withoutvirtue: arete \ is not something separate from phrone \sis, although its precise rolewithin the logic of phrone \sis itself may be delineated. Once Aristotle estab-lishes the distinction between poie \sis and praxis, as he does in NE VI.5,49 it isno longer possible to understand phrone \sis according to the logic of produc-tion, for the end of praxis is not, like that of poie \sis, determined from the out-side. Aristotle’s ultimate identification of phrone \sis with arete \ is necessitatedby the fact that phrone \sis concerns praxis, which is an end in itself; as such,phrone \sis must be concerned not only with the means to ends but also withthe determination of the ends themselves.

This interpretation of phrone \sis is relatively controversial. Although itfinds solid justification in the text, the continued efficacy of the technologicalframework—that is, the tendency to think means and ends in isolation fromone another—threatens to obfuscate the extent to which Aristotle himselfintegrates the capacity to determine ends into the logic of phrone \sis.50 Nataliargues that it is most reasonable to take Aristotle’s insistence that phrone \sisconcerns what leads toward the ends and not the ends themselves at facevalue. However, he also recognizes that once phrone \sis is linked to arete \, itsscope is expanded: “Aristotle’s theory aims to rule out the possibility of delib-erating passionlessly about the end to be pursued, in the way a mathematiciananalyzes a problem. The orientation to good action depends on phrone \sis,which takes its end from virtue, which is determined by a logos which is, in itsturn, phrone \sis.” 51 There is, to be sure, a sort of circularity here, but this circu-larity is simply an expression of the extent to which phrone \sis is always alreadyembedded in the finite world.52

Phronetic judgment is ethical, which means it is contextual. It takes itsend from virtue, which itself is determined by logos. Natali’s excellent formu-lation points to the important role that deliberation, disposition (hexis), andexperience play in determining both virtue and phrone \sis.53 Knowing the rightthing to do in a given context requires both experience and habituation—onemust be well practiced in making good judgments and disposed to do so. Aris-totle nowhere states that disposition alone is sufficient for virtue; rather, sucha view would undermine not only the importance of practical nous and thusthe centrality of the actual encounter with each individual situation withinwhich all human action is embedded, but also it would divorce dispositionfrom deliberation, thus severing virtue from logos. To cut off virtue from logosin this way would be to eliminate the possibility of responsibility that is cen-tral to Aristotelian ethics. This is clear in Aristotle’s definition of arete \ itself:“Virtue, then, is a disposition toward deliberate choice (hexis prohairetike \),being at a mean relative to us, having been defined by logos and in a manner


in which the phronimos would define it.”54 As a disposition toward deliberatechoice—indeed, as a mean relative to the phronimos—virtue can never becomea matter of rote habituation.55 This definition further solidifies the intimateconnection between phrone \sis and arete \. If arete \does indeed set the end, it doesso only as a result of the relationship between deliberate choice and the nexusof cultural, experiential, educational, and political concerns that impinge uponthe phronimos as embedded in a contingent world.

Deliberation and choice are of decisive importance for virtue and thus forphrone \sis, precisely because they are bound up with logos. If practical nous oper-ates at the two extremes—on the one hand, orienting the phronimos towardthe direct encounter with the singular, and on the other hand, naming thecapacity for insight into the universal—then deliberation operates betweenthese extremes, determining action by mediating between the concrete situa-tion and the universal principles of action derived from past experience, edu-cation, and previous habituation.

At one extreme, deliberation is always already at work in the very appre-hension of the individual situation as an opportunity for action. In De AnimaIII.11, Aristotle distinguishes between perceptual and deliberative phantasia,suggesting that the former is shared by humans and animals alike, while thelatter is peculiar to humans. What seems to distinguish perceptual fromdeliberative phantasia is the capacity to make reasonable judgments based onan imaginative conception of that which presents itself. Animals simply acton the direct perception of the desired object. Humans are able to constructthe object of desire by deliberative imagination; that is, part of seeing thatwhich presents itself as desirable involves the ability to determine what isbest by looking to the past and future.56 Aristotle characterizes this as an abil-ity to “make a unity from many images.”57 To put it in terms of the earlier dis-cussion of phantasia, the very encounter with the individual itself involves anact of interpretation. Thus if nous offers access to the last ultimate, in orderfor this to become a matter for phronetic judgment it must be co-opted bylogos; this is the “work of logical judgment (logismos)” that Aristotle dubsdeliberative phantasia.58

At the other extreme, however, is the deliberative process known as pro-hairesis, deliberative choice. Nancy Sherman has pointed out that Aristotle’sconception of prohairesis is a special kind of deliberative preference, namely,one that requires the rational evaluation of a given action in light of some end,whether specific or more general.59 Aristotle emphasizes this when he linksprohairesis to boule \sis, the deliberative desire or wish for that which is good ina given situation. In fact, Aristotle calls prohairesis itself a “bouleutike \ orexis,”deliberative desire.60 However, he goes on to distinguish between boule \sis andprohairesis by saying that the ends are given by deliberative desire (boule \sis),while the things toward the ends are ordered by deliberative choice (prohaire-sis).61 Yet this analytical division of labor must not eclipse the extent to which


deliberation and choice function together. As Sherman correctly suggests:“Aristotle’s negative claim that we do not deliberate about ends can be under-stood most straightforwardly as saying that for a given piece of deliberationwe regard certain ends as fixed, e.g., that a doctor is interested in healing isassumed in the treatment of his patients. However, that guiding end may itselfbe the product of previous deliberations.”62

In fact, the entire discussion of virtue, deliberation, and choice in NE IIand III tells against segregating the roles of boule \sis and prohairesis. Theprocess according to which the ends of action are set itself includes delibera-tion and choice. Aristotle insists that ethical actions are deliberately chosen,because they are the right things to do in the given situation.63 A person can-not become virtuous by rote practice. Virtue involves becoming disposed toact according to deliberative choice, a disposition that emerges from deliber-ative practice. As Sherman puts it: “Once we appreciate that full virtue cannoteven be possessed without practical wisdom . . . , and that practical wisdomreciprocally requires virtue (1144a30), we can begin to see that the end whichsets a deliberative process in action may itself be considerably transformed bythe process.”64

This implies that the logic of phrone \sis may be far more complicated anddynamic than the image of the theoretical syllogism would suggest. In thetheoretical syllogism, the major premise is said to express that which is eter-nally true. The universal with which it operates is static in a way that the uni-versal of phrone \sis cannot be. Rather, what corresponds on the model of thepractical syllogism to the major premise is, in phronetic judgment, itselfdetermined in the very process of its application.65 The model of the syllo-gism eclipses the extent to which the universal is itself determined by eachact of phronetic judgment. Although the ends of action are in part given byvirtue, that is, they are in part determined by experience, culture, andupbringing, they are constantly being revised in each application of phrone \sis.The ends themselves are transformed in the very process of being delibera-tively chosen. Just as the individual situation is determined by the applicationof the universal, so too is the universal codetermined by its encounter witheach new situation.66

The fact that the universal and individual are codetermined in the appli-cation of phronetic judgment itself suggests why phrone \sis can never simply bea question of truth but must also orient itself toward justice. Truth has tradi-tionally been a matter of adequation. It governs the relation between idea andobject, intellect and thing—a relation in which the idea holds firm, and itstruth is determined by how adequately it corresponds to the object. When therigidity of the idea begins to falter, when it allows itself to be determined bythe object with which it is concerned, then truth becomes a matter of justice.Recognizing this on some level, Aristotle introduces three important juridicalconcepts into the discussion of the logic of phrone \sis.


The Juridical Aspects of Phrone \sis

For an interpretation of phrone \sis overly preoccupied with the syllogisticmodel, the discussion of sunesis, epieikeia and, indeed, suggnome \ at NEVI.11–12 must appear strange and out of place. Although on one level sune-sis, which is traditionally translated simply as “intelligence,” seems to fit inwith the general tendency to elucidate the nature of phrone \sis by appealing topurely theoretical forms of knowledge, its deeper connotations point tosomething far less abstract. The term itself is derived from the verb sunienai,which means “to send, bring, or set together,” “to perceive or hear” and, in themiddle voice, even “to come to an understanding about something.”67 It thushas a communal, indeed, a contextual connotation that is not captured by theabstract translation of “intelligence.” Aristotle suggests that judging well issaid to be intelligent (sunienai) “when it judges by using opinion (doxa) con-cerning those things with which phrone \sis is concerned, when someone elsespeaks (allou legontos) [about them].”68 Thus although it is not identical tophrone \sis, sunesis seems to name the capacity to discern the proper thing to dowithin a given context by attending not only to the peculiarities of the situ-ation but also to the perspectives, advice, and council of others.69 Once sune-sis is recognized as the sort of intelligence that is directed toward or exercisedin conjunction with another, then a bolder translation of it may be suggested.The word itself has an etymological relation to “suneide \sis,” or “conscience.”70

Thus although “suneide \sis” never appears in Aristotle as such, and thereremains in the term conscience dangerously misleading Christian theologicaland Heideggerian connotations, perhaps we can nonetheless risk the morebold translation of sunesis as “conscientious apprehension” to emphasize theethical and dialogical connotations that it clearly has in Aristotle.71 “Consci-entious apprehension” names the ability to grasp the nature of a given situa-tion in a mode of critical self-reflection that remains constantly conscious ofthe fact that the judge too is implicated in each act of judgment. The abilityto imagine one’s way into the position of the other and the ability to listen asthe other speaks (allou legontos) are important elements of conscientiousapprehension, because they disrupt the internal monologue of the phronimosand direct it toward that which is outside of itself. Here phrone \sis is under-stood as dialogical not merely because it can listen as others speak, but alsobecause it recognizes that the concrete situation itself is never exclusivelydetermined by its subjective judgment. Indeed, the fact that sunesis mustoperate with doxa and not with an immediate grasp of the truth already sug-gests the extent to which phrone \sis is itself determined by the world in whichit is embedded.

The embedded nature of phrone \sis is further reinforced by a second con-cept closely connected to sunesis: equity or fairness (epieikeia).72 Aristotle orig-inally introduced the conception of fairness at the end of his account of jus-


tice in NE V, because he was concerned to hold the absolute authority of thelaw in check. Here epieikeia takes on the meaning of “equity”: “This is thenature of the equitable: a correction of the law when it errs because it is stateduniversally.”73 Equity or fairness serves to correct universal laws that are unableto do justice to the peculiarities of the individual situation and context towhich they are applied. Such laws become unjust because they are too rigidand thus require correction by a special decree made in the spirit of fairness.By introducing the notion of fairness into the structure of phrone \sis, Aristotleequips phrone \sis with the capacity to question critically the authority of theuniversal with which it operates. Here the dialogical dimension is expressednot in terms of the encounter with another but rather as an aspect of the inter-nal operation of phrone \sis itself. Fairness points to the capacity of phrone \sis toproblematize the application of the universal with which it must operate ineach act of judgment to ensure that justice is done in each case. It emerges asan important feature of phrone \sis, precisely because Aristotle recognizes thatthe universals with which judgment operates violate the autarchy of the indi-vidual. In order to mitigate the violence of its own operation, phrone \sis mustoperate with a more flexible and dynamic sort of universal, one that is itselfunderstood to be codetermined by the individual in the very act of applica-tion. Phronetic judgment must recognize its own fallibility.

Although Aristotle insists that phrone \sis is a disposition according towhich the soul possesses truth, and that phrone \sis is a matter of hitting themark, not missing it, such claims ought not to be taken as evidence for theinfallibility of phrone \sis. In fact, Aristotle’s insistence that phrone \sis includesvirtue already points to its fallibility. As an intellectual virtue, phrone \sis islearned through practice—it involves a process that inherently involves trialand error. Phrone \sis is fallible, because it is contingent. This is reinforced by athird feature of the logic of phrone \sis, closely connected to the aforementionedtwo features of conscientious apprehension and fairness, namely, fellow feel-ing and leniency or forgiveness (suggno \me \). Aristotle claims: “We say the per-son is fair who is most likely to forgive, and that fairness is to be forgiving inspecific cases.”74 Here forgiveness clearly operates with fairness to ensure thatjustice is done in each specific case. By emphasizing not only fairness but alsoforgiveness or leniency, Aristotle further equips phrone \sis with the capacity torecognize the violence of its own operation. Forgiveness emerges as a funda-mental feature of phrone \sis, precisely because it is embedded in doxa and con-cerned with contingent beings.

These juridical aspects of phrone \sis—sunesis, epieikeia, and suggno \me \—arecompletely eclipsed by the model of the practical syllogism which, guided bythe question of truth, is based on a monological conception of the relationshipbetween subject and object. The dialogical dimension of phrone \sis onlyemerges once the vocabulary of the syllogism is supplemented by that ofjurisprudence. The practical syllogism sees phrone \sis only in terms of truth,


while the juridical vocabulary recognizes phrone \sis as a matter of justice as well.Although he never appeals to the practical syllogism to express the meaning ofphrone \sis, Gadamer has captured both its veridical and juridical senses when hewrites: “It is not only reasonableness, it is also a kind of political and socialresponsibility that is meant here, and this is the reason why I often used twowords for phrone \sis, reasonableness and conscientiousness. In Greek, the twoare one word: ‘phrone \sis.’”75 As conscientiousness, phrone \sis is a disposition forcritical judgment. If the close connection between phrone \sis and ethical arete \renders phronetic judgment capable of reflectively (deliberatively) determiningthe ends according to which it operates, then conscientious apprehension, fair-ness, and forgiveness are designed to respond to the violence endemic to eachact of judgment. They are concerned to do justice to the individual itself, evenas the universals through which it becomes accessible are deployed.

TOWARD AN ONTOLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF PHRONE \SIS

When taken together, the noetic and logical dimensions of phrone \sis constitutethe complex dynamics of contingent knowledge. What emerges as primary,and what serves to differentiate the finite knowledge of phrone \sis from eitherepiste \me \ or sophia, is the status of the concrete individual. Aristotle’s insistencethat phrone \sis concerns the individual—that it must respect the individuality ofthe concrete situation in each act of judgment—distinguishes phrone \sis fromthe other forms of knowledge in Aristotle. It distinguishes it from techne \ inwhich the end is predetermined by the artist and imposed upon the matterfrom without. It distinguishes it from episte \me \, where individuals are subsumedunder fixed universal principles.76 Finally, it distinguishes it from sophia, whereallegedly the eternally true principles are immediately intuited by nous anddeployed without any need to attend to each case individually.77

Attention to the concrete situation is the very condition for the possibil-ity of the operation of phrone \sis. Practical nous functions in phrone \sis not toestablish the ultimate eternal truth but to provide access to that dimension ofthe contingent situation that escapes the grasp of logos. As such, intuition sit-uates the phronimos over against the concrete presence of that which it judges,reminding the phronimos that its logos can never fully capture the object of itsjudgment. Practical nous serves as an intuitive ethical reminder of the remain-der that always escapes determination by the logos. In so doing, it transformsthe very function of the logos itself. In phrone \sis, logos is not only the way a sit-uation is judged, determined, and incorporated into the schema of the judg-ing subject, it is also the medium through which the encounter between thephronimos and that which is judged in each case first becomes possible. How-ever, the noetic intuition operating in phrone \sis points to the limit to which thedeployment of logos must remain constantly accountable. Thus if virtue and


habituation impinge on the autonomy of the judging subject from the side ofthe world, then the concrete singularity of the individual impinges on itsautonomy from the side of the object of judgment. The elements of conscien-tious apprehension, fairness, and forgiveness equip phrone \sis with the capacityto seek justice in each unique situation; deliberation, virtue, and choice serveto remind the phronimos that it too is involved in and determined by each actof judgment.

In developing this complex conception of knowledge in which justice andresponsibility emerge as genuine epistemological concerns, Aristotle rendersepistemology ethical. In the process, however, he also opens up the possibilityof rethinking the sort of knowledge deployed by ontology. In Aristotle him-self, this remains undeveloped, yet the robust conception of phrone \sis offeredin Nicomachean Ethics VI suggests the possibility that a new model of onto-logical knowledge might be developed that is capable of doing justice to theindividual, to the tode ti the Metaphysics had designated as ousia. Perhapsphrone \sis is itself the episte \me \ in energeia hinted at in Metaphysics XIII.10. Per-haps it is the mode of knowledge most proper to the dynamic conception ofousia as praxis. To develop such suggestions is, to be sure, to move beyondwhat Aristotle himself explicitly states. It is to follow the trajectory of Aristo-tle’s thinking beyond his thought; it is, in short, to render ontology ethical.


The transition from the purely ethical to the ontological conception ofphrone \sis can be accomplished by focusing on the ambiguity of the Greekterms to kath’ hekaston and to eschaton. While these terms clearly indicate thattoward which phrone \sis is directed, precisely what they are meant to designateis less obvious. John Cooper suggests that in NE VI these terms always referto particulars and never to individuals.1 We have seen, however, that this is notalways the case: although both terms may refer to particulars, they also some-times seem to point to the individual itself. That which presents itself to thejudging subject is always already a determinate individual, no longer singular,but not yet particular. The tension of this no longer and not yet is at play inthe semantic ambiguity of both to kath’ hekaston and to eschaton. This ambigu-ity haunts the Metaphysics throughout, finding its boldest expression in theconceptual gesture tode ti. In chapter 6 we argued that the ambiguity of thetode ti reflected the ontological structure of finite ousia itself. The tode ti, itselfcomposite, points to the duality of the individual whose being is the dynamicidentity of form and matter, energeia and dunamis, determinateness saturatedwith indeterminacy—praxis.

To map the concepts to kath’ hekaston and to eschaton onto the ontologicalvocabulary of tode ti is not difficult. Aristotle himself deploys to kath’ hekastonthroughout his ontological writings, and it seems fair to say that however onechooses to render to eschaton into English, the last ultimate for Aristotle’s onto-logical engagement with finite ousia, the point of its departure and the ultimatebeing with which it remains constantly concerned, is the concrete individual.To wrest these terms from their strictly ethical context is, however, slightlymore challenging, for most often Aristotle seems to use the terms to refer notto the concrete being that confronts the phronimos but to the concrete situation

153

9


within and from which the phronimos must discern the proper thing to do. Yetthere is something of a slippage in Aristotle’s own use of the terms, a shift thatlegitimizes the ontological approach to phrone \sis suggested here. Preciselywhere this slippage leads is suggested when Aristotle uses to kath’ hekaston inthe singular in conjunction with the demonstrative todi to refer to the concretebeing encountered by the phronimos.2 In such cases, it is not so much the situ-ation as the very being itself that serves as the referent of the term. If to kath’hekaston can be taken in this ontological sense to refer to the concrete individ-ual, then perhaps phrone \sis can be given a new determination as a genuine formof ontological knowledge of the individual itself. When this slippage is com-bined with Aristotle’s use of the term praxis to designate the dynamic identityof ousia in the Metaphysics, and the suggestion in Metaphysics XIII.10 that theremay be a peculiar sort of direct knowledge of the tode ti, the possibility thatphrone \sis, whether Aristotle intended it or not, delineates this form of ontolog-ical knowledge gains credibility.

The common tension found in the ethical terms to kath’ hekaston and toeschaton and the ontological term tode ti further establishes the connectionbetween Aristotle’s ontological and ethical thinking. In fact, our investigationinto the internal logic of phrone \sis suggests precisely why this tension betweensingularity and particularity emerges in such central concepts. The ambiguityof these terms is symptomatic of a thinking implicitly cognizant of its ownfinitude. The singular—itself autonomous, independent, Other—does notenter into appearance unaltered; it always already appears as individual. Thisindividuality, however, is itself unstable, no longer singular, for it has enteredthe sphere of logos, but not yet particular, for it is never fully captured by theconcept. The attempt to establish ontology as a rigorous episte \me \, to do away,once and for all, with the inherent ambiguity of individuality, is nothing morethan a denial of the finitude of thinking itself. To substitute the security ofparticularity for the ambiguity of individuality is to take refuge in a delusion,for, to paraphrase Adorno, the individual does not go into its concepts with-out remainder.3 This remainder thwarts every attempt to assimilate the singu-larity of the individual in the name of stability. Ontology becomes ethical themoment it recognizes its own contingency. Responding to this recognition,the ethics of ontology turns away from the quest for certainty, toward theambiguity of individuality, seeking to do justice to that which cannot be cap-tured by the concept. This turn requires not an epistemic, but an ethical rigor:the assiduous attempt to do justice to the autarchy of the individual, even asit is distorted by the very concepts through which it is encountered.

Thus ontological “knowledge” of the individual cannot be episte \me \, with itseye toward universal generalizability, nor techne \, with its loyalty to the ideas ofthe craftsperson. Yet it cannot be sophia either, with its alleged direct access toeternal first principles. Rather, as Aristotle himself points out, knowledge ofthe individual—to kath’ hekaston, to eschaton—is phrone \sis.4 Aristotle’s unwill-


ingness to reduce individuality to particularity in his analysis of phrone \sis opensup the possibility of appealing to phrone \sis as a genuine ontological way ofknowing. In drawing out the ontological dimensions of this ethical form ofknowledge, we are able to uncover the underlying tension that gives rise to theepistemological side of Aristotle’s universal/singular aporia. Yet this ontologi-cal reappropriation of phrone \sis also points to an ethical conception of ontologythat remains ultimately responsible to the otherness of the Other. The “episte-mology” of the ethics of ontology suggests, in turn, a new conception of arche \in which the dimension of incipience emerges as primary, and that of domina-tion, while recognized as necessary, is held ultimately accountable to the sin-gularity of the individual. Thus although we are guided in what follows by thepreceding analysis of the ethical meaning of phrone \sis developed by Aristotle,we are led beyond the limits of Aristotle’s emphatic philosophy.

INTUITING THE SINGULAR—ARCHIC INCIPIENCE

“Sensation breaks up every system,”5 says Levinas, and so he speaks somethingof the truth, for sensation itself lies on the border between nous and logos, andintuition (nous) shatters every system. Levinas’s antipathy for the visual modelof cognition, however insightful, forces him to insist that the power of resistanceis sensation, not intuition. Yet our analysis of Aristotle’s conception of phroneticperception uncovers the limitations of Levinas’s bold claim. Phronetic percep-tion always already involves the deployment of concepts, the capacity to see thatwhich is present as something or other in the context in which it appears. Thisindicates the extent to which aisthe \sis is already a matter of phantasia, and thusa violation of the radical otherness of the Other, its singularity.

There is, however, a dimension of phronetic perception open to the gen-uinely recalcitrant. This was captured by Aristotle’s rather odd identification ofaisthe \sis with practical nous.6 Although phronetic perception deploys logos, it isdirected toward that which escapes the grasp of logos; it is noetic. Practical nousis precognitive, preconceptual, indeed, prelinguistic. It is the first inchoateawareness of the presence of the Other. We may describe this metaphorically asa vague feeling of being addressed. The singularity of the Other is never known,only dimly intuited. This vague intuition, this sense of being called out of one-self—the noetic awareness of the singularity of the Other—shatters the mono-logical system of the Same by calling it to account. This is the deep ontologicalsignificance of Aristotle’s insistence that practical nous is directed toward “thearchai of that for the sake of which (tou hou heneka)”7 and, more fundamentally,that “nous is an arche \and a telos, for demonstrations (apodeixeis) come from theseand concern these.”8 The beginning toward which nous is directed, and the endto which it always remains accountable, is the singularity of the Other. Herearche \ is not yet the dominating principle, the ruling concept, but beginning,

155The Ethics of Ontology

incipience, openness to the Other; nor yet is telos the final cause, the ultimategoal, but that for the sake of which each act of ontological judgment is madeand to which it must remain “response-able.” Behind every alleged apodeixislurks the haunting uncertainty of the individual—an uncertainty that emphaticphilosophy has sought and always failed to annihilate.

Thus if, as Levinas suggests, sensation shatters every system, then this isbecause through the intuitive dimension of phronetic perception the Same iscalled out of itself and into relation—it is addressed by the singularity of theOther. In this description, we move beyond the traditional conception ofphilosophical nous, which is said to see that which it encounters as it shinesforth in the full brilliance of its being, “nous” naming an infallible capacity toknow. This conception of nous is itself already a symptom of a philosophicaltradition deluded by its own hubris. Adorno identifies this conceit when hewrites: “Traditional philosophy believes that it possesses an infinite object, andin this belief becomes itself finite, conclusive philosophy. A changed philoso-phy would have to quash that claim, to cease persuading others and itself thatit has the infinite at its disposal.”9 Theoretical nous persuades itself and othersthat it is in full possession of the infinite—modern philosophy has indeedbeen duped by this dogma: the universe is at the disposal of the rational mind,fully saturated by its concepts; nous reigns supreme. Yet it did not need to beso, nor did nous need to be the vehicle for such delusions.

Kurt von Fritz has suggested that from its earliest usage in Homer, noushas always been closely connected to a sort of aisthe \sis.10 The word itself seemsto have been derived from roots meaning “to sniff or smell” but quickly cameto be identified with the far more comprehensive senses of vision and touch.11

In Homer, nous is associated with the ability to recognize the importance ofan object or action in a given situation.12 Thus from its earliest beginnings,nous was recognized as embedded in the concrete world of finite existence.Indeed, the Homeric conception of nous seems to have had certain features incommon with Aristotle’s conception of phrone \sis: just as phrone \sis is a virtueand thus linked to the character of each individual, so too does the nous of anindividual in Homer differ according to the circumstances and character ofeach; just as fairness (epieikeia) functions in phrone \sis as a corrective to theunjust deployment of universals, so too in Homer nous may serve to correct aprevious inaccurate recognition; and, finally, just as phrone \sis is always linkedto deliberation and choice, so too in Homer nous comes to mean a “plan,” par-ticularly in the face of danger.13

To retrieve something of this Homeric conception of nous would go along way toward developing the sort of “changed philosophy” of whichAdorno speaks. The suggestion that nous may have been derived originallyfrom roots meaning “to sniff and smell” already points to the precognitivedimension of ontological nous. Through nous a vague sense of the Otherbecomes accessible. The scent of the singular precedes the logic of encounter.


However, to use the metaphor of a single sense—whether it be the model ofvision embraced by traditional philosophy or the auditory metaphor intimatedearlier with the vocabulary of being “addressed,” or even the Homeric sense ofsmell—is to truncate the full meaning of ontological nous. Here somethinglike and unlike Aristotle’s conception of common sense is at work.14 Like Aris-totle’s common sense, ontological nous is not limited to a specific sense organbut deploys them all together. Unlike Aristotle’s common sense, sensing thesingularity of the Other through nous is not like sensing motion, shape, mag-nitude or, indeed, unity, that is, it does not yet intend to the universal, the con-cept. Rather, it names the inchoate awareness of the presence of the Other, apresence that flits across the senses, awakening a desire at the very core of thebeing of the Same. Ontological nous, itself born of the deep ontological desirefor encounter, reaches out for, listens to, catches a whiff, and perhaps even adim glance, of the singularity of the Other—yet for all of this, the singularescapes the grasp of the concept.

The singular is the beginning from which ontological encounter firstbecomes possible and the end toward which it remains ultimately accountable.It is the remainder that always escapes the dominating grasp of the logos. Thisremainder, vaguely intuited, serves as the ultimate reminder of the inadequacyof the concept and the need for vigilant critique. Critique is thus necessitatedby the irony of finite thinking itself: the Other burns the husk of its own sin-gularity as it enters into the community of the logos;15 the logos itself, however,at once distorts the Other and serves as the condition for the possibility of jus-tice, for justice always operates within an economy of concepts that can neverlose sight of their own distorting influence. Ontological nous offers access tothat which cannot be captured by the concept; it enjoins responsibility andnecessitates critique. If, however, the logic of the ethics of ontology is itself tobe critical, it must remain constantly cognizant of its own finitude and of theviolence with which it operates.

ENCOUNTERING THE INDIVIDUAL—ARCHIC DOMINATION

Let us recall Adorno’s warning: “No plea for the blessings of order removes thedifficulties that the relationship between tode ti and pro \te \ ousia in the Aris-totelian metaphysics prepares.”16 We have seen these difficulties in great detailand have sought neither to solve nor to dissolve them but, rather, to think ourway into the deep ontological truth to which they point. In so doing, we havesuggested that the term tode ti indicates that which is neither singular nor par-ticular, rather, it names, quite precisely, the inherently ambiguous, precariouslysituated individual. Aristotle’s great genius lies in his insistence that ontologybe directed toward the individual and in his resistance to the temptation—soprevalent in later generations and so obviously alluring to Aristotle himself—


to violate the individual in favor of the alleged “blessings of order.”17 Betweenthe singular and the particular stands the individual—the only possible “object”of ontology, for there is no knowledge of the singular, and what has tradition-ally been posited as the “genuine knowledge” of the particular is nothing morethan an unreflective endorsement of the delusion that concepts are capable ofcompletely capturing the objects with which they are concerned.

The individual, however, occupies a perilously ambiguous space. Drawingon the irreducible autarchy of its unique singularity, it refuses to submit fullyto the authority of the concepts of the Same. Again, Levinas clarifies for usthe extent to which the individual is constantly in peril of being reduced toparticularity, yet for Levinas, the tode ti itself is already conceptual: “Therefusal of the concept is not a resistance to generalization by the tode ti, whichis on the same plane as the concept—and by which the concept is defined, asby an antithetical term.”18 What Levinas fails to recognize and what ouranalysis of the middle books of the Metaphysics has suggested is that the todeti is itself amphibious, simultaneously form and matter, energeia and dunamis,conceptual and nonconceptual. The tode ti quite literally points to the con-ceptualization of that which always escapes the grasp of the concept; it ges-tures to “that which cannot be dissolved in concepts and yet for which a con-ceptual name is sought.”19 To think our way into this the amphibiousambiguity of individuality is to recognize at once the danger endemic to theallure of totality and the key to its resistance.

From the side of the individual, the capacity to resist the totality lies inits irreducible singularity. Aristotle’s own vocabulary already points to thissingularity with the term ti e \n einai—that which is said of each individualaccording to itself.20 We suggested the significance of the use of the imper-fect in this rather odd term—that it points to the historical dimension of thedynamic conception of ontological identity. But the imperfect gestures tosomething more: it indicates the inaccessibility of the full essence of the indi-vidual; it implicitly recognizes that in appearing the individual is no longerwhat it was. It signifies the very burning of the husk of singularity as theindividual enters into the community of concepts. The singularity of theindividual can never be brought into the full light of the present by logos; italways operates on what was, that is, on what has always already made itsappearance. The answer to the question “What is it?” can only be given interms of the “what-it-was-for-something-to-be.” The question itself seeks torender present the always already absent singularity of that which hasappeared. Concepts forever come too late.

However, if, from the perspective of the individual, the capacity to resisttotalization lies inherent in its singularity, from the perspective of the Same,then this capacity depends on the recognition that a dimension of dominationis inherent in the very deployment of principles that conditions all appearance.What may be thematized as a question of resistance from the perspective of


the individual must be understood as a question of justice from the perspec-tive of the Same. An analysis of the logical dimension of phrone \sis offers thevocabulary according to which the hegemonic functioning of principles maybe recognized and conscientiously minimized.

Our discussion of the role that phantasia plays in phronetic perception haschallenged the naïve belief that objects present themselves to the perceivingsubject in their pure immediacy. Phantasia was shown to be the capacity toorganize sensations in a unified manner so that they come to constitute someone thing. Indeed, phantasia emerged as a condition for the possibility of per-ception itself. This led to the recognition that perception is also interpretation.The singular does not appear; what appears is the individual, always already aconstruct of its encounter with the Same.

In appearing, the individual submits to the prejudice of the concept.What appears as given has already been appropriated. Ontological imagina-tion conditions the direct encounter with the individual. However, if this sortof imagination is not to be duplicitous in the delusion of the absolute hege-mony of the Same, that is, if it is to become genuinely ethical and therefore offundamental significance for ontology, then it must not only recognize its owncollusion in the construction of the individual but also must allow itself to bedeployed in such a manner that the individual never is permitted to become amere particular. Ontological phantasia becomes ethical the moment it recog-nizes its own role in wrenching the individual from its independent singular-ity while refusing to reduce the individual to particularity. Here the imagina-tion does not merely concern the conditions for the possibility of knowledgeof the individual—a way of thematizing the relationship that reinforces thecentrality of the Same—but it also names the capacity to limit the deploymentof concepts based on an imaginative intuition of singular. Thus resistance tothe hegemony of the Same is accessed not only from the side of the individ-ual—namely, from its irreducible singularity—but also from the side of theSame itself, for through ethical imagination, the Same is able to alter the cat-egories according to which it renders ontological judgment.

The analysis of phrone \sis, particularly that of conscientious apprehension,fairness, and forgiveness, has suggested how the Same might temper the vio-lent impact endemic to the deployment of its concepts. Levinas points to thecontext in which these dimensions of phrone \sis emerge as vital: “Consciencewelcomes the Other. It is the revelation of a resistance to my powers that doesnot counter them as a greater force, but calls in question the naïve right of mypowers, my glorious spontaneity as a living being. Morality begins when free-dom, instead of being justified by itself, feels itself to be arbitrary and violent.”21

By highlighting the notion of conscientious apprehension (sunesis) in the onto-logical reappropriation of phrone \sis, the ethics of ontology equips the Samewith the cognitive capacity to critically consider the arbitrary violence of itsspontaneity. Although the very presence of the individual calls into question


the authority of the concepts of the Same, conscientious apprehension pointsto the capacity on the part of the Same to recognize the violence inherent inits deployment of concepts. Yet conscientious apprehension includes more thanthis mere recognition. It also involves a willingness to put these very categoriesat risk. As apprehension, it seeks to understand the being of the individual—itenters into ontological relation; as conscientious, it recognizes that every act ofunderstanding is always already a misunderstanding standing in need of cor-rection—correction that comes not only from the irreducible singularity of theindividual but from the honest, self-critical reflection of the Same. Conscien-tious apprehension resists becoming comprehension from two directions: theindividual remains recalcitrant, and the Same critically self-reflective.

Thus if ontological phrone \sis is not to become totalizing, then it must rec-ognize its own fallibility. Although for human-beings meaning emerges onlyas concepts are deployed, the concepts deployed must themselves be forgiving,open. Aristotle, “to his imperishable honor,”22 captures this dimension of fal-libility with the concept of equity or fairness (epieikeia). By incorporating thecapacity for fairness into the ontological reappropriation of phrone \sis, we meanto equip ontology with the ability to call the deployment of its own conceptsinto question. In so doing, ontological judgment is redirected away from itsobsession with truth toward the question of justice, for each time a universalis deployed—and human thinking itself requires the deployment of universalconcepts—there is a risk of injustice. However, justice cannot be done to thesingular, for the singular never enters the community of concepts where thequestion of justice first emerges. Yet it is the echo of singularity in the realmof the conceptual, the remainder that does not go cleanly into the conceptsthat seek to determine it, that demands justice. The concrete presence of theindividual—no longer singular and not yet particular—is the ultimate princi-ple of ontology. As such, it manifests both dimensions of the traditional con-ception of arche \: it is the incipient principle of ontological relation and thecommanding principle of accountability. As the individual enters into appear-ance, it burns the husk of its singularity. But this singularity is never fullyincinerated; it remains and enjoins a response. To respond to this remainderwith fairness is to refuse to succumb to the tempting belief, as false as it isaudacious, that complete comprehension is possible if only the proper con-cepts are deployed.

Here ontological knowledge does not emerge as a rigorous science thatseeks to secure, once and for all, the truth of being. Rather, it involves the farmore difficult and uncertain attempt to do justice to the ambiguous individual-ity of the Other. Ironically, Aristotle’s own loyalty to the autarchy of beings andto the manner in which beings appear has led to the recognition that an episte \me \of ousia is impossible in the manner in which Aristotle himself and, indeed, thehistory of philosophical ontology had hoped. Rather than leading to the firmsecurity of universal principles capable of capturing the plurality of beings, the


path of Aristotle’s engagement with finite ousia has led to a complex conceptionof ontological knowledge firmly embedded in the contingent world.

This analysis of ontological phrone \sis is, however, capable of accountingfor the peculiar way ousia had been conceptualized at the end of the middlebooks of the Metaphysics. There ousia was thought as the active identity ofenergeia and dunamis, terms that were given a certain temporal determinationby the strange present-perfect formulation that Aristotle used in laying outthe meaning of ontological praxis.23 We suggested that this formulation, whencombined with the use of the term entelecheia, indicated the structure of onto-logical temporality in which praxis named a sort of presence—ousia—deter-mined at once by its past and determining itself toward its future. However,what was thematized in our analysis of the Metaphysics as the objective struc-ture of finite being itself can now be recognized in its deeper, more concretesignificance, for praxis is never some abstract process, but the structure of thevery happening of the ontological encounter itself. Just as it is impossible toseparate ethics from ontology, so too is it impossible to segregate ontologyfrom epistemology. To posit such a separation is to fail to recognize that beingand judging are always intertwined for human-beings; indeed, as a way ofknowing, the ethics of ontology renders epistemology ethical as well.

Aristotle’s analysis of phrone \sis in the Nicomachean Ethics lends insightinto the ethics of epistemology by focusing on the relationship between thesubject and object in the very act of judging. In the Metaphysics, this themewas eclipsed by Aristotle’s overarching concern to establish absolute order inthe immobile.24 Because the Ethics remains focused on contingent existence,Aristotle no longer feels compelled to engage in what Adorno has called the“detemporalization of the meaning of concepts.” “[T]he crucial fallacy in tra-ditional philosophy as a whole,” Adorno says, “is nothing other than this de-temporalization of the meaning of concepts, which is produced by the way inwhich concepts are formed, but is attributed as an inherent property to thatwhich they subsume.”25 Phronetic judgment is itself temporal. Yet this tem-porality, which emerges out of the concrete engagement with the individual,was, in the Metaphysics, thematized as the objective ontological structure ofousia itself. Aristotle’s insistence that disposition, deliberation, and choice areintimately intertwined in phrone \sis lends insight into how this allegedly purelyobjective structure came to be ascribed to ousia understood as praxis.

Let us begin with deliberation, for it is situated between, but never sepa-rated from, disposition and choice. Because phrone \sis is always directed towardthat which can be otherwise, and thus always includes a dimension of uncer-tainty, deliberation mediates the encounter between the judging subject andthat which is judged in each new situation. This sort of deliberation is tempo-rally determined, because the right choice (prohairesis orthe \) must be discur-sively discerned by considering the contingencies of the context, historicalexperience, and the idiosyncrasies of the individuals involved. Aristotle himself


hints at the temporality of phrone \sis when he links deliberation to prohairesis,choice, and suggests that the name “prohairesis” itself points to a sort of “tak-ing” of one thing “before” other things.26 Here Aristotle recognizes that delib-eration is embedded in the very succession of finite time.27 The discursivenature of deliberation, however, does not have the structure of motion thatdetermined Aristotle’s investigation of time in the Physics.28 Rather, it is thetemporality endemic to the very deployment of concepts that determines themeaning of ontological praxis—ousia emerges as temporal precisely because itsvery appearance depends upon the discursive deployment of concepts.

The historical dimension of ontological phrone \sis is captured by its char-acterizations as both an arete \, a virtue, and a hexis, disposition. Ethical virtuesonly arise out of that extensive field of lived experience upon which the phron-imos must draw in order to determine the right end, and dispositions aredetermined by the cultural and historical context into which the phronimos isborn. The analogue to these dimensions of phrone \sis is perhaps the “enablingprejudice” that Gadamer recognizes as a condition for all judgment. To use thelanguage of the Metaphysics: this historical dimension is expressed in the for-mulation to ti e \n einai, “the-what-it-was-to-be” that always already has deter-mined each moment of actual existence. Indeed, one way to characterize thelimitation of traditional ontology is to suggest that its obsession with “essence”reifies the being of that which it encounters in terms of the “what-it-was” andfails to recognize its own collusion in this determination—as if this were sim-ply an objective determination of the singular itself. Prior to Kant, traditionalontology turned a blind eye to its own incapacity to gain access to the singu-lar; after Kant, it forgot the singular altogether, confident in the comprehen-sive capacities of its own concepts. The ethics of ontology remains riveted tothe site of encounter, recognizing that the individual enters into the commu-nity of concepts as always already historically determined.

As a praxis decisively determined by the ontological encounter, the very“essence” of the individual must be recognized not only as saturated by historybut as intimately linked to the future. The ti e \n einai is always already an ent-elecheia. Ontological phrone \sis determines praxis toward the future, because itinvolves a prohairesis that is precisely directed toward the end (pros to telos).29 Totake the “pros” here in the sense of the means directed toward an end determinedobjectively from the outside is already to obfuscate the ontological significanceof prohairesis. Phrone \sis involves not only arete \ and hexis (the historical) but alsoprohairesis (the futural) so that, as we have seen, the end of the action is itselfdetermined in the intentional choice of the phronimos. We have insisted, how-ever, that such choices are never made in isolation, that they involve the directencounter with the Other and are determined not merely subjectively but inter-subjectively. The legacy of modern idealism, and specifically its obsession withfreedom, persuades us to think the determination of ends in terms of the freeact of the subject. This tradition, however, raises the subject to a status of


absolute freedom only at the expense of the Other. The free deployment of con-cepts must be held accountable to the remainder that always escapes conceptu-alization. The delusion of absolute freedom is shattered by ontological prohaire-sis, for the manner in which concepts are deployed here is recognized as a matterof intentional choice that remains critically bound to the site of the encounterwith the individual. As such, ontological prohairesis is capable of mobilizing thecritical capacities of conscientious apprehension, fairness, and forgiveness indetermining the response of the Same to its encounter with the individual.Thusontological prohairesis grounds responsibility. Indeed, just as Aristotle makesprohairesis an integral part of his discussion of phrone \sis so as not to allow thephronimos to shirk responsibility for its own actions, so too in the ontologicalreappropriation of phrone \sis we insist on the centrality of ontological prohairesisin order to emphasize the importance of responsibility. In the face of theencounter with the individual, ontological prohairesis is enjoined—but canalways fail—to operate with conscientious apprehension, fairness, and forgive-ness. Ontological truth depends ultimately on doing justice to difference in rela-tion. The reason Aristotle’s engagement with finite, sensible ousia led to adynamic determination of the individual in terms of praxis is that access to ousiais always mediated by the complex structure of ontological phrone \sis. Groundedin logos but made possible by ethical nous, ontological phrone \sis directs us to theconcrete encounter with the individual, the starting point (he \arche \) and the lastultimate (to eschaton) of all ontological investigation. In the end, the ontologicalencounter, direct yet embedded in a nexus of historico-ethico-political relations,is the very principle of being.

This recognition that the concrete encounter with the individual—whatAristotle calls the “tode ti”—is the ultimate arche \of ontology lends insight intothe very origins of the universal/singular aporia. The tension between the uni-versal and the singular, which has been reified into an intractable oppositionby the tradition, is merely a reflection of the ambiguity of the individual itself,of its tenuous position between singularity and particularity. The tensionbetween the universal and the singular is symptomatic of a thinking intent ondoing justice to the finite contingent individual. To dissolve the individualinto singularity is to give up on the possibility of meaningful relation. To sub-sume it under the universal is to sacrifice justice for the illusion of truth.Ontological phrone \sis responds to the epistemological side of theuniversal/singular aporia by thinking its way into the ambiguous identity thatemerges out of each concrete ontological encounter.

RETHINKING THE MEANING OF ARCHE \

By redirecting the focus of ontology from the universal to the concreteencounter with the individual, our analysis points to the possibility of altering


the traditional conception of the meaning and function of principles. Histor-ically, philosophers have sought refuge in the timeless immobility of an ulti-mate arche \ by systematically refusing to think the manner in which this arche \establishes its authority by abstraction. To insist upon the primacy ofencounter is to force ontology to consider the very process by which princi-ples come to be established as ultimate. Here the dimension of incipience,manifest in the very intuition of the singular, is conscientiously deployed andredeployed to temper the necessary, but inherently violent, dimension of dom-ination in logos. The arche \ of ethical ontology is divided against itself in a newway: the hegemonic arche \ of the logos that seeks first to assimilate the individ-ual by rendering it particular and then to obfuscate this assimilation by posit-ing it as the objective nature of the individual itself is subverted by the incip-ient arche \of the singular. To subvert the hegemonic arche \of the logos, however,is not to naively reject the necessity of its deployment, for to reject the deploy-ment of principles is to annihilate the possibility of meaningful response, torelinquish the active, critical engagement with the world of contingent beings.Paradoxically, the possibility of ontological justice only first emerges in andthrough logos.

Thus just as the traditional conception of arche \would have it, incipienceand domination function together as principles are deployed. However, thetraditional conception uncritically posits the priority of domination overincipience. It attempts to legitimize this priority by forgetting its role in posit-ing it and then glorifying the posited arche \ as the very objective structure ofbeing itself. The ethics of ontology refuses this self-indulgent amnesia byassiduously insisting that access to the allegedly objective structure of being isalways mediated by the dynamic encounter with the individual. Here the ele-ment of incipience continually calls that of domination to account. Thusrather than seeking to reduce all things to a single, overarching hegemonicprinciple, the ethics of ontology thinks its way into the very arche \ of eachbeing it encounters, setting up the encounter with the individual itself as theabsolute ultimate toward which all ontological judgment must remain vigi-lantly “response-able.”

In so doing, however, it remains constantly cognizant of the dimension ofdomination endemic to the very deployment of principles that serves as thecondition for the possibility of meaningful encounter. To deny that encounteritself depends upon the deployment of principles would return us to the tra-ditional delusion of philosophy that remains convinced of its absolute accessto the Other. It would endorse the conceit that uncritically trusts the capacityof finite human concepts to completely capture the being with which they areconcerned. Such a denial amounts to a renunciation of finitude. Aristotlehimself has colluded in covering over the finitude of philosophy by establish-ing the absolute priority of sophia over phrone \sis. Sophia, unlike phrone \sis andlike episte \me \, is directed toward that which is eternal, permanent, and neces-


sary. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives the decisive formulation:“sophia would be nous and episte \me \, that is episte \me \ of the most honorablethings, holding its own head.”30 This rather odd statement is meant to empha-size the direct access that sophia has to the eternal truth through theoreticalnous. This direct access to the divine renders sophia infallible. Because of thisalleged infallibility, and because sophia is thought to be both self-sufficient—not requiring the presence of others for its operation—and capable of know-ing all things without attending to each individually, Aristotle insists on thepriority of sophia over phrone \sis, an insistence that has had a decisive effect onthe history and direction of philosophy ever since.31

Yet if the love of sophia is to live up to its determination as knowledge ofthe “most honorable” (timio \tato \n), then it must become more like phrone \sis,which honors the otherness of the Other. For the “most honorable” is not thatwhich is absolutely necessary, eternal, and permanent, but that which is con-tingent, unique, and vulnerable. For philosophy to recognize the vulnerabilityof the Other is for it to call its own concepts into question, to become criti-cally cognizant of its own fallibility. If philosophy begins with this recognitionand remains loyal to it, then it will no longer seek to segregate ethics fromontology, for ethics and ontology begin the moment the Other burns the huskof its own singularity and, entering into relation, becomes vulnerable. Thisrelation, never anarchic, is grounded in the ability to respond, which, for finitehumans at least, is always mediated by logos. If philosophy’s arche \ is not tobecome totalizing, then justice must be done to the trace of singularity thatalways remains undetermined by this relation.

The ethics of ontology neither presumes to posit nor pretends to possessabsolute access to the essence of the singular. To render ontology ethical is toinsist that every attempt to determine the meaning of being must begin withthe concrete encounter with the Other and remain riveted there. The uncer-tain frontier between the Same and the Other is the site of the activity ofbeing. The delusion of absolute freedom dissolves on this frontier, challengedby the singularity of the Other. This challenge always takes the form of anaddress, a claim made upon the Same to which it must respond. Ontology isalways a response to the address of the Other, to its insistence upon justice.Yet every response carries with it the violence of injustice. Only an ability torespond that conscientiously considers both the inherent violence of itsresponse and the impossibility of failing to respond is genuine finite ontolog-ical “response-ability.” The ethics of ontology recognizes this as the great bur-den and ultimate delight of finite being, the assiduous attempt to seek justicein relation—the praxis of being.


PREFACE

1. John McCumber develops the conception of ousia as a “parameter.” See JohnMcCumber, Metaphysics and Oppression: Heidegger’s Challenge to Western Philosophy(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

2. Theodor W. Adorno, Metaphysics: Concept and Problems, trans. Edmund Jeph-cott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 78.

CHAPTER 1

1. Reiner Schürmann, Heidegger, On Being and Acting: From Principles to Anar-chy, trans. Christine-Marie Gros and Reiner Schürmann (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-versity Press, 1987), 97.

2. At the beginning of the Second Meditation, Descartes writes: “Archimedesused to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth;so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however, slight,that is certain and unshakeable.” See René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings ofDescartes, vol. 2, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothff, and Dugald Murdoch(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 16 (ATVII 24).

3. Aristotle, Aristotelis Metaphysica, ed. Werner Wilhelm Jaeger (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1992), 987a30–b9. See also 1078b7–1079a4. All references to Aris-totle’s Greek text are based on the Oxford editions and will be presented in the Notessection with an abbreviated reference to the work, followed by the Bekker page num-ber. All translations are my own.

4 Here we explicitly do not say “Plato” and “Descartes” in order to separate thecomplexities of each of their specific positions from the tendency that can be identi-fied with their respective schools.

5 Richard Bernstein has insightfully suggested that “postmodernism” is a sort ofmood of the times, not so much a Zeitgeist as, what Bernstein, borrowing from Hei-degger, calls a Stimmung. See Richard J. Bernstein, The New Constellation: The Ethical-

167

Notes

Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 11.Bernstein’s vocabulary is helpful, because it affirms the amorphous and shifting char-acter of that which falls under the label “postmodern,” while recognizing its powerfulinfluence over contemporary thinking.

6. For Descartes’ position, see the Discourse on Method, AT VI, 8–9, in RenéDescartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, trans. John Cottingham,Robert Stoothff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1985). It should be noted that for all of the “postmodern” talk of rupture and decisivebreaks, many “postmodern” thinkers (e.g., Heidegger, Levinas, Foucault, and Derrida)remain deeply engaged with the history of philosophy.

7. Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.1 1028b1–3.

8. Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofs-tadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 106–12. For a detailed discus-sion of Aristotle’s formulation as decisive, see Werner Marx, Heidegger and the Tradi-tion, trans. Theodore Kisiel and Murray Greene (Evanston: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1971), 3–42. Marx emphasizes Heidegger’s critique of this approach: it isdirected toward eternalness, necessity, self-sameness, and intelligibility in a way thatconceals the occurrence of Being itself.

9. See the introduction of Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: MaxNiemeyer Verlag, 1986). It is important to emphasize that Heidegger tells a numberof stories about the history of metaphysics. Sometimes Aristotle’s own thinking is seento retain something of the more authentic, pre-Socratic conception of Being, as inMartin Heidegger, Vom Wesen und Begriff der physis. Aristoteles, Physik B, 1,” inGesamtausgabe: Wegmarken, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt amMain: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), pp. 239–302.

10. Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialektik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Ver-lag, 1966), 35. All translations from the German are my own. For the English transla-tion, see Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York:Continuum, 1994), 24. References will be to the German edition, followed by the pagenumber of the English translation.

11. The view that the Metaphysics is a unity that leads ineluctably to the notion ofGod as pure act has been powerfully expressed in recent generations in Joseph Owens’sexcellent book, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (Toronto: PontificalInstitute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978). The “holistic” approach to Aristotle, which notonly sees the Metaphysics but the entire Corpus Aristotelicum as a unified whole, hasrecently been reaffirmed by C. D. C. Reeve. This approach permits him to draw on anypassage in the corpus to illuminate any other without regard to the specific context inwhich a given selection is situated. See C. D. C. Reeve, Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle’sMetaphysics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000). The reigning vision of Aristotle continues tobe as emphatic philosopher. Increasingly, however, there are exceptions. For example,Mary Louise Gill takes issue with the orthodox reading of the Aristotelian cosmos as“orderly and austere.” See Mary Louise Gill, Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 242; Martha Nussbaum and David Balmehave leveled strong critiques of the traditional conception of Aristotle’s essentialism and

168 Notes to Chapter 1

the notion of an overarching cosmic teleology. See Martha Craven Nussbaum, Aristotle’sDe Motu Animalium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); D. M. Balme, “Aris-totle’s Biology Was Not Essentialist,” in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology, ed. AllanGotthelf and James G. Lennox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987),292–312; D. M. Balme, “Teleology and Necessity,” in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’sBiology, ed. Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox, (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987), 275–85; David Bolotin even suggests that the more dogmatic, systematicelements of Aristotle’s thinking are the results of the political pressure Aristotle wouldhave felt writing on natural philosophy in fourth-century Athens. See David Bolotin, AnApproach to Aristotle’s Physics with Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of Writing(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).

12. Adorno, Negative Dialektik, 30/19.

13. Ibid., 79/71.

14. I say “for the most part” here because Levinas suggests that the idea of infin-ity—an idea whose ideatum overflows the capacity for conceptualization—appears inAristotle as well, specifically in his conception of the agent intellect. See EmmanuelLevinas, Totalité et Infini: Essai sur L’extériorité (Paris: Kluwer Academic, 1971), 41.For the English translation, see Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans.Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 49. References willbe given with the page number of the French edition, followed by that of the Englishtranslation; direct citations follow the Lingis translation.

15. Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 33–34/43.

16. G. W. F. Hegel, Werke in Zwanzig Bänden, ed. Eva Michel Karl MarkusMoldenhauer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986), vol. 19, 153. For a moredetailed discussion of Hegel’s appropriation of Aristotle’s conception of God, seeChristopher P. Long, “Totalizing Identities: The Ambiguous Legacy of Aristotle andHegel after Auschwitz,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 29 (2003).

17. Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 33/43.

18. Ontology’s systematic denial of its ethical heritage is treated in more detail inmy article: See Christopher P. Long, “The Ontological Reappropriation of Phronesis,”Continental Philosophy Review 35, no. 1 (2002): 35–60.

19. For Descartes, see Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 10/24, 233/212; for Plato, ibid.,106/103; for Aristotle, ibid., 41–43/49–51.

20. Ibid., 52/59.

21. Cf. Adorno, Negative Dialektik, 17/5.


23. This other side of the legacy of ousia can be traced through medieval nomi-nalism. For an excellent account of how, at the end of the Middle Ages, nominalistphilosophers such as Ockham, Marilius of Inghen, and Pierre d’Ailly became acutelyaware of the incapacity of concepts to completely capture the being of the singular, seeRichard A. Lee, Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology (New York: Palgrave,2002). Much is to be gained by highlighting this other side of the tradition, for in suchthinking there already seems to be an attempt to temper Western philosophy’s totaliz-

169Notes to Chapter 1

ing tendency. For an account of how this other dimension of the tradition plays itselfout, see Christopher P. Long and Richard A. Lee, “Between Reification and Mystifi-cation: Rethinking the Economy of Principles,” Telos 120 (2001): 92–112.

24. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit Und Methode: Grundzüge einer Philosophis-chen Hermeneutik (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1990), 313. For the Eng-lish, see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Don-ald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1994), 308. Translations are my own. Iprovide citations for the English edition following those of the German.

25. Ibid., 319/314.

26. Ibid., 381/375.

27. Cf., ibid., 274/270.

28. Richard J. Bernstein, “From Hermeneutics to Praxis,” Review of Metaphysics35 (1982): 823–45, 827.

29. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 306/301.

30. Ibid., 311/306.

31. Ibid., 307–309/302–305.

32. W. K. C. Guthrie, “Aristotle As a Historian of Philosophy: Some Preliminar-ies,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, no. 1 (1957): 35–41.

33. Aristotle, Metaphysics, I.4 985a4–5.

34. Ibid., I.3 983b22–3.

35. This approach resonates with Ernst Tugendhat’s suggestion that Aristotle’s isa living philosophizing, and that we miss much when we seek to reconstruct his systemrather than attempt to follow the direction of his thinking. See Ernst Tugendhat, TiKata Tinos: Eine Untersuchung zu Struktur und Ursprung Aristotelischer Grundbegriffe(München: Verlag Karl Alber, 1958), 34.

36. That the theory of the Categories gives way to another theory in the Physicsand Metaphysics has been suggested by Daniel W. Graham. See his Aristotle’s Two Sys-tems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). While our account of the transition between thefoundational economy developed in the Categories and the hylomorphic economyintroduced in the Physics has much in common with Graham’s, it remains at odds withhis, both in suggesting that there is a third economy of principles discernable in Aris-totle and in directing itself to the “paths of Aristotle’s thinking,” rather than to the “sys-tems” of Aristotle’s thought.

37. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. A. Screech (New York:Penguin, 1987), 1211.

CHAPTER 2

1. Heidegger, “Vom Wesen und Begriff der physis,” 242–44.

2. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann, The Discovery of Things: Aristotle’s Categories andTheir Context (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 205. The great insight of


Mann’s analysis is to recognize the Categories as itself the result of Aristotle’s deepengagement with Greek philosophy, and specifically that it is a response to the Pla-tonic metaphysics of participation. Despite his apologies for appealing to Heidegger asone inspiration for this approach (see ibid., 37–38), Mann’s analysis gains in depth andurgency when it is set into the context of the Heideggerian recognition that it is nec-essary to rethink precisely those dimensions of our thinking that have come to be seenas most obvious and unquestionable. Finally, Mann’s deployment of the term discoveryto characterize Aristotle’s accomplishment in the Categories is, despite his insistence tothe contrary, an unhappy formulation. “Discovery” implies the uncovering of what isalways already objectively there and thus covers over the fundamentally thetic natureof all metaphysical and ontological accounts. “Invention,” however, is also inadequate,for Mann is correct to insist upon the fact that there is something “pre-analyticallyavailable to Aristotle for analysis” (ibid., 22n31).

3. The term autarchy should be given an etymology in which the Greek reflex-ive pronoun, “hauto,” which means “self,” is combined with “arche \,” which means prin-ciple, rule, or beginning in such a manner that “autarchy” indicates the immanence ofthe principle of being in the being itself. It should not be confused with the termautarky, which suggests the absolute self-sufficiency of a being. A being can have itsprinciple of being in itself without being completely self-sufficient in the sense that itdoes not need the presence of other beings. No finite being is “autarkic” in this sense.

4. Michael Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Min-nesota Press, 1987), 72. Mann seems to follow Frede’s basic suggestion in his Discov-ery of Things.

5. John Herman Randall Jr. recognizes the long historical influence of the foun-dational mode of thinking established in the Categories when he suggests that through-out modern philosophy “substance” is understood as that which persists unchangedthroughout change. See John Herman Randall, Aristotle (New York: Columbia Uni-versity Press, 1960), 112. To use the vocabulary developed in the Categories, it wouldbe fair to say that modern philosophy is foundational insofar as it seeks the ultimatehypokeimenon of being—that which is permanent, stable, and secure.

6. Aristotle, Aristotelis Categoriae, ed. L. Minio-Paluello (Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1949), 2b37–3a1.

7. Two comments about terminology are necessary here. First, the English transla-tion of ousia as “substance,” drawing on the Latin “subsistare,” to stand or be under, remainsfaithful to the conception of ousia operating in the Categories. Second, the term atomic hereechoes the Greek word “atomon,” which indicates the indivisibility of the primary beings,that is, their unanalyzability into anything more fundamental.These atomic things are theindivisible foundations of the ontology of the Categories. For an excellent discussion ofthis, see “Individuals in Aristotle,” in Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy, 49–71.

8. Categories, 2b7–8.

9. This is stated most clearly in the first chapter of the first book of the Physics:“The natural way to proceed is from what is more known and clearer to us to what isby nature clearer and more known by nature.” See Aristotle, Aristotelis Physica, ed.W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 184a16–17.


10. Nicolai Hartmann clearly recognized this fact. See Nicolai Hartmann,Kleinere Schriften (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter & Co., 1957), 217.

11. Mann, Discovery of Things, 203. John Herman Randall Jr. states the metho-logical procedure this way: “the ousia expressed in statement leads beyond statement tothe ousia encountered in its natural operations. Starting with the things that are said,ta legomena, what things can be said to be, we are led to ta onta, to things themselves.”See Randall, Aristotle, 113.

12. This suggests precisely the opposite of Porphyry’s position that the primaryinterest in the Categories is linguistic and the talk of things is only secondary. See Por-phyry, On Aristotle’s Categories, trans. Steven Strange (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1992), 20–29.

13. “Said-of ” predication points to the universal-individual relation, “inherence-in”predication to the object/property relation. See Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy, 56.

14. Categories, 1a20–1b6.

15. Ibid., 1b5.

16. These are the four characteristics of an ousia discussed in the Categories at3b10–4a21.

17. By speaking of a “Platonic” and not “Plato’s” philosophy, I intend at once tocall into question the simple identification of a “theory of forms” with Plato himselfand to recognize that Aristotle understood Platonic philosophy as endorsing the onto-logical significance of universal Forms. Wolfgang Mann lays out in great detail the sortof Platonism with which Aristotle seems to be engaged in the Categories, though hehimself is not convinced that there is a theory of forms in Plato. This does not stop himfrom identifying certain arguments and proposals in Plato’s thinking as animated bythe belief that the ordinary objects of everyday experience cannot be ontologicallyaccounted for simply in terms of themselves. See Mann, Discovery of Things, 31, par-ticularly part 2. For a strong argument against a “theory” of forms in Plato, see DrewA. Hyland, Finitude and Transcendence in the Platonic Dialogues (Albany: State Univer-sity of New York Press, 1995), especially chap. 7.

18. Categories, 3b25.

19. Ibid., 3b26–27.

20. Ibid., 3b27–33.

21. He had already said at Categories, 2b7–28 that a secondary ousia admits ofdegrees of ousia insofar as the species is more an ousia than the genus, and both, ofcourse, are less than the primary ousia.


23. In his commentary on Categories, Hippocrates Apostle comments on the tech-nical meaning in Aristotle of the Greek word hoper, which was translated as “as such.”This qualification can be taken to limit the meaning of the term ousia in its most strictsense—namely, to point to this as a characteristic of primary and not secondary ousiai.See Hippocrates G. Apostle, Aristotle’s Categories and Propositions (Grinnell, Iowa:Peripatetic Press, 1980), 76–77.


24. According to Frede, in Plato, the object/property distinction is almost com-pletely overshadowed by the universal/individual relation. See Frede, Essays in AncientPhilosophy, 56.

25. Categories, 3b37–4a3. “Anthro \pos” is translated here and elsewhere as “human-being,” with a hyphen, in order to emphasize that it designates an individual being. Wetry to avoid the sexist language of “man” in English which, whatever one makes ofAristotle’s misogyny, is not carried in the Greek “anthro \pos.”

26. That Aristotle must be referring to primary ousia in this passage when hespeaks of “a human-being” is clear from the preceding distinction between primary andsecondary ousiai with regard to the question of variation of degree.

27. Mann has suggested that the distinction between objects and their propertiesintroduced by Aristotle in the Categories is designed to respond to the Platonic distinc-tion between being and becoming in which particular objects appearing in the world arethemselves radically unstable, lacking a nature of their own and thus not merely capa-ble of changing but constantly undergoing change (Mann, Discovery of Things, 83).

28. It should be recognized that Aristotle always has living beings in mind whenhe speaks of primary ousiai in the Categories. This suggests that the description of pri-mary ousiai in the Categories is inadequate from the beginning, because it never the-matizes these beings in terms of life. The manner in which living beings are reified inthe Categories and treated as if they were dead objects must have been quite distastefulto anyone as well versed in the intricacies of biology as was Aristotle. The seeds for adynamic conception of being are planted, therefore, already in “this human-being” and“this horse” of the Categories.


30. Apostle argues that the term should be understood as a popular way to designatesome whole that is easily recognizable, separate and distinguishable from other things—namely, to designate some determinate object. See Apostle, Aristotle’s Categories, 69.

31. The technical sense of the term tode ti as it is developed in the Metaphysics isdiscussed in chapter 6.


33. This is underscored in Montgomery Furth’s Substance, Form, and Psyche: AnAristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). For the pointconcerning the absence of the form/matter distinction in the Categories, see Furth,Substance, 33. Much of what is here called the “strategy of evasion” was developed fromcertain suggestions that Furth makes about the nature of the Categories.


35. Ibid., 3b18–21.

36. In the Physics, form begins to function as a determining principle in I.7, whenAristotle makes the claim that the presence or absence of the form is sufficient toaccount for both accidental and substantial change (191a6–7). This idea is echoed inthe Metaphysics, when Aristotle thematizes form in terms of ti e \n einai and then arguesthat it is the ti e \n einai in each thing that makes it actual (1045a30–34).


37. Categories, 4a10–11.

38. Ibid., 4a14–22.

39. This way of putting it is borrowed from Furth, Furth, Substance, 27.

40. Ernst Tugendhat has suggested that the hypokeimenon is the concept in whichthe presence of that which is immediately given is thought. See Tugendhat, Ti KataTinos, 14. Here what he calls the “Platonic conception of Präsenz,” that is, the pres-ence of the simple, in-itself, devoid of absence (ibid., 11), is rethought in terms of whatlies factically present before one. “The Aristotelian question concerning the being andunity of the manifold beings is the question concerning the presence of that which liesbefore one (des Vorliegenden)” (ibid., 15). Here the notion of the hypokeimenon alreadypoints to the ontological importance of the concrete presence of the individual. In theCategories, however, this presence is reified.

CHAPTER 3

1. Ute Guzzoni, Grund und Allgemeinheit: Untersuchung zum Aristotelischen Ver-ständnis der Ontologischen Gründe (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1975), 32.

2. Aristotle, Aristotelis Physica, ed. I. Bywater (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1992), I.5, 188a19.

3. This is one reason the hylomorphic economy is so closely related to a poieticconception of kine \sis. Aside from being determined by the framework of fabrication, amain limitation of the examples of artifacts is that their forms are so readily separablefrom a specific sort of matter that one can easily miss the fundamental point that Aris-totle must make with regard to form and matter, that they are not separable in the wayartifacts make them seem, that they are ontologically interdependent groundingmoments of the composite. This is more perspicuous, however, only in Aristotle’s mostparadigmatic ousiai—living beings.


5. In Physics, I.5, Aristotle had established that the term enantia must be under-stood in a very specific sense: contraries are things that are most different under thesame genus. Cf. Metaphysics, V.10, 1018a26ff. Thus he argues: “But white does comefrom the not-white (ou leukou), not from any not-white but from black or some inter-mediate color; and the musical comes to be from the not-musical (ouk ek mousikou) notfrom any not-musical but from the unmusical (ex amousou)” (Physics, 188a37–b3). Thedifference is not that between what is, for example, white on the one hand, and every-thing in the world that is not-white on the other, but rather between the determinatecolor white and its determinate contrary, black. It seems, however, that Aristotle oftenuses the terms ou mousikon and amousikon interchangeably. This lack of consistency isregrettable, but it is perhaps explained by the fact that he rehearses precisely what hemeant by enantia in Physics I.5. Furthermore, it is not incorrect to use the term oumousikon, for the ou mousikon includes also the amousikon along with everything elsethat is not musical. In what follows, the term unmusical will be used to designate thedeterminate contrary, strictly speaking, of the musical.


6. Physics, I.7, 190a9–13.

7. Ibid., 190a13–20.

8. Categories, 4a10ff.

9. Physics, I.7 190a32ff.

10. Ibid., 190a37–b1.

11. Ibid., 190b1–5.

12. See Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar, ed. Gordon Messing (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1956), 407–408.

13. C. D. C. Reeve argues that all change in Aristotle is “canonical,” that is, it isbased on the model of “accidental change.” His concern is that if there is such a thing asgenuine substantial change, then a human-being could come from nothing, and thiswould mean that “anything could come from anything.” See Reeve, Substantial Knowl-edge, 117. The concern to account for continuity through substantial change is wellfounded, however, Aristotle seems to be able to do this without reducing all change tocanonical change. Rather, by delineating the ontological efficacy of form here in thePhysics, he is able to suggest a way of accounting for continuity through intergenerationalchange without requiring the constant presence of the hypokeimenon. Aristotle himselfdoes not seem to think that all change can be reduced to canonical change when, in theMetaphysics and again in the Nicomachean Ethics, he establishes the distinction betweenmotion/production and action. Cf. Metaphysics, IX.6–8, and Aristotle, Aristotelis EthicaNicomachea, ed. I. Bywater (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894), VI.4–5.

14. Physics, 190b6–9.

15. Ibid., 190b13–16.

16. Indeed, this is one of those passages in Aristotle that has perplexed commen-tators for centuries. For an in-depth discussion of both ancient and modern positionson it, see Johannes Fritsche, Methode und Beweisziel im ersten Buch der “Physikvorlesung”des Aristoteles (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Anton Hain Meisenheim GmbH, 1986),99–111. The interpretation offered here owes much to Fritsche’s discussion, and itagrees with his suggestion there that “to gignomenon” at 190b11 indicates not the resultof the process of becoming but the object conceptualized in the process of becomingso that passage 190b17–23 can be interpreted not as a summary of what has been saidbut as a transitional passage.

17. Here I employ Guzzoni’s vocabulary in thematizing form and matter as“determining moments” of the composite. Such moments can be understood either asequi-original with the composite or as “earlier,” “more original” moments, a first withrespect to which the composite can be conceived as second. In this latter sense, themoments are understood as the grounds of the composite. See Guzzoni, Grund undAllgemeinheit, 62–63. The advantage of this vocabulary is that it resists the tendency tohypostatize form and matter as independently existing things.

18. That is, Physics, 190b13–16.

19. As mentioned, this is not overly significant at face value, because “opposite” isthe general term that encompasses contraries within its scope. The significance of the


term, however, manifests itself in the next series of examples, for “opposites,” unlike“contraries,” can refer to form and its privation as well as to determinate contraries.The former distinction will prove to be of vital importance to the kinetic economy ofprinciples.

20. Cf. Physics, 189b29.

21. Johannes Fritsche, Methode und Beweisziel, 137. Fritsche distinguishes threelevels of argumentation in the Physics: (1) If there are principles; (2) How many thereare; and (3) Which are the principles. Of these, he takes the first to be the primary con-cern of the first book of the Physics. His interest is to show that this question is of fun-damental importance for the internal project of the Physics in order to suggest how thebooks of the Physics are systematically related to one another (ibid., 16). Our interesthere is not with the internal structure of the Physics but with the development of a neweconomy of principles designed to address the finitude of primary ousiai.

22. Physics, 190b17–23.

23. Ibid., 191a4–7.

24. Ibid., 189a26.

25. Fritsche understands this transition in terms of the shift in vocabulary fromenantion to antikeimenon. He writes: “This sentence . . . seeks to interpret theantikeimenon from the perspective of the eidos, such that while it remains conceptuallydistinguished from the hypokeimenon, it is dependent upon the eidos. It seeks to inter-pret the antikeimenon such that it is not a being opposed to the eidos, as the enantia areopposed to one another, but rather as the eidos itself in a determinate way of being,namely, as the not-yet-being eidos, not, however, an [independent] being opposed tothe eidos.” See Fritsche, Methode und Beweisziel, 129–30.

26. Strictly speaking, in I.7, Aristotle remains uncertain as to whether form or thehypokeimenon is ousia, but the claim that the presence or absence of the form accountsfor generation (191a6–8) already suggests Aristotle’s propensity to give priority toform. The hesitancy is important, though, for it suggests both Aristotle’s unwillingnessto reject matter as a grounding moment of ousia and his reluctance to renounce thelogic of things.

27. In their detailed analysis of Metaphysics, Book VII, Frede and Patzig point outthat form does not undergo the process of becoming, although we might be able to saythat forms appear and disappear insofar as they are present in finite individuals. How-ever, strictly speaking, it would be improper to say that the form itself undergoes aprocess of coming into being. See Michael Frede and Günther Patzig, Aristoteles“Metaphysik Z” Kommentar (München: C. H. Beck, 1988), 136.

28. For the claim that form is phusis to a higher degree than matter, see Physics,II.1, 193b6–7.

29. Fritsche, Methode und Beweisziel, 132.

30. Adorno, Metaphysics, 41. Adorno argues that the idea of mediation in Aristo-tle is not strictly dialectical, because although he continually thematizes the momentsof form and matter as interrelated, he always holds that this relation is externally, ratherthan, as with Hegel, internally, determined. Adorno writes: “But this mediation is


really only something existing between the extremes, and not that which is implicit inthe meaning of the extremes themselves. If you will permit me this anachronistic hor-ror, I would say that he is the mediating thinker par excellence, yet one lacking the ideaof dialectic.” See ibid., 47. However, while Aristotle does not think the relationbetween form and matter in the precise dialectical manner that Hegel does—there isno Aufhebung, strictly speaking, in Aristotle—he does in fact think form and mattertogether as an internal relation of the composite itself, as will be seen in the discussionof the ontological meaning of praxis in chapter 6. Thus the vocabulary of “moments”might not be as anachronistic as it at first appears.

31. Physics, II.1, 192b13–24.

32. Ibid., II.3, 194b21ff.

33. Reiner Schürmann has developed the implications of this view in detail. SeeSchürmann, Heidegger, On Being and Acting, 100. Schürmann looks to Nietzsche forconfirmation of this position, specifically Nietzsche’s recognition that the concept ofcausality is predicated on a very subjective experience. In The Will to Power, Nietzschewrites: “we derive the entire concept [of causality] from the subjective conviction thatwe are causes” (ibid., 334–35). See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Wal-ter Kaufman and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 295.

34. See Schürmann, Heidegger, On Being and Acting, 329n.32; Physics, II.3,194b24–195a3. Here “action” is not taken in the strict sense that it will receive in Meta-physics IX.6–8 or the Nicomachean Ethics.

35. Physics, I.7, 191a5–7.

36. Heidegger argues that to reduce Aristotle’s conception of phusis to the causalstructure and to see in it only the productive comportment toward beings is to misswhat he calls the peculiarly “Greek” way of thinking in Aristotle. He suggests thatthere is another sense of phusis, corresponding to Heidegger’s own conception of therevealing/concealing structure of ale \theia, operating in Aristotle’s Physics. See Heideg-ger, “Vom Wesen und Begriff der physis”; for the English translation, also see MartinHeidegger, “On the Being and Conception of Physis in Aristotle’s Physics B, 1,” Manand World 9, no. 3 (1976): 219–70. Schürmann, following Heidegger, calls this a “resid-ual factor” that remains once natural and human-made things are opposed, and the twoare combined under the single concept “moving things.” Schürmann writes: “He [Aris-totle] owes this residual factor, Heidegger says, to his speaking Greek: in spite of thepredominance of manipulable and manufactured objects in his understanding of being,he occasionally still takes phusis in the sense of its verbal root as coming forth, pres-encing.” See Schürmann, Heidegger, On Being and Acting, 101. While there is much tothe suggestion that the model of production dominates Aristotle’s thinking concern-ing causality, generation, and motion, the turn to the presencing of Being is somewhatproblematic, because it remains, as Levinas would say, a fundamentally neutral process.What is significant for ontology is not the presencing of Being but that of the concreteOther to which all ontological investigation must remain loyal. For a critique of Hei-degger’s position, see Christopher P. Long, “The Hegemony of Form and the Resis-tance of Matter,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 21, no. 2 (1999): 21–46.

37. Physics, II.7, 197b24–26.


38. The term heap (so \ros) is borrowed from Metaphysics, VII.16, 1040b9–10, andit is meant to designate the matter prior to its being worked up into a specifiable beingof a determinate sort. To be a “heap” is not to be formless, or completely indetermi-nate, but neither is it to be a completely differentiated individual. For a discussion ofthe distinction between being a “heap” and being a differentiated individual, see Furth,Substance, Form, and Psyche, 122–27.

39. Aristotle, De Le Génération des Animaux, ed. and trans. Pierre Louis (Paris:Association Guillaume Budé, 1961), I.22, 730b8–23.

40. See, for example, Generation of Animals (GA), II.4, 739b24.

41. Aristotle may have been particularly interested in rejecting the idea that nomatter from the semen is retained in the completed product in order to undermine thepreformationist and pangenetic conceptions of generation that seem to have beenwidespread in his day. See Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche, 113–15.

42. See GA, I.20, 729a9; GA, I.21, 729b35–730a2; GA, IV.1, 764b12–13, forexample. It should be noted that, as Furth suggests, although the manner in whichAristotle conceptualizes the interaction of the semen and catamenia may seem crudeand in many respects incorrect, he remarkably anticipates modern genetic theory byinsisting that the form carries with it information that directs and constructs the gen-eration of the offspring. See Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche, 119.

43. GA, IV.1, 765b10–11.

44. Ibid., IV.1, 765b14–15.

45. See GA, IV.1, 766a16ff. What follows is not meant as a complete account ofAristotle’s theory of these three issues but rather an adumbration of the basic structureof Aristotle’s treatment of them to elucidate the limitations of the kinetic economy ofprinciples.

46. GA, I.3, 767b5–7.

47. Ibid., 767b32–35.

48. Although speaking generally about the nature of Aristotle’s thinking and notspecifically about this passage, Adorno captures the essence of the point establishedhere when he says: “For if these deuterai ousiai are immanent in particular things,instead of standing opposed to them as something external and alien, it is no longerabsurd or inconceivable, Aristotle argues, that these essences should have an effect onparticular things, or that a mediation should be established between the Idea and scat-tered existence.” See Adorno, Metaphysics, 32. Adorno suggests that this is preciselywhat renders Aristotle’s metaphysics dynamic.

49. Ibid., 768a18–21. Furth remarks that this is the “first explicit mention ofmotions emanating from the female’s residue.” See Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche,130.

50. GA, I.3, 768b15–21.

51. C. D. C. Reeve, Practices of Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 201.

52. See GA I.20, 728a25–30.


53. Heinz Happ suggests as much when he traces the development of I.7 as thetransition from hypokeimenon = ousia to hypokeimenon = hyle. See Heinz Happ, Hyle: Stu-dien zum Aristotelischen Materiebegriff (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1971), 282ff. Happ himself,however, does not think that it is wise to point to this passage as a place where Aristo-tle explicitly ascribes a spermatic meaning to hyle (ibid., 282–83, n. 20). In any case, itis clear that Aristotle has the tendency to call hyle “sperma” and to ascribe a certain activ-ity to the female. See H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin: Graz, 1955), 691b40–58.

54. See GA 766b15–17, 768a22, and 768a33 for examples of the passive use of theverb.

55. For a good discussion of the extent to which the female may be active in Aris-totle’s biology, and for a discussion of the various places in Aristotle where the cata-menia is referred to as “spermatic,” see Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche, 129–41.

56. That Aristotle, despite his misogynistic tendencies, does in fact recognize thiscan be seen from his suggestion that the first departure from the type, namely, thatwhich generates the female, is itself “a necessity in nature. For it is necessary to save thegenus of those beings having been divided into the female and male” (GA IV.3,767b9–10). The tension expressed in the GA concerning the role and function of mat-ter haunts Aristotle’s thinking throughout. Adorno has put it beautifully: “There is acurious tension and difficulty in the concept of hyle in Aristotle; on the one hand it isdenigrated, disqualified, censured in every respect, including the moral, while on theother there is the remarkable assumption whereby this element, though heterogeneouswith regard to form, is endowed with a kind of animation, a tendency, even a certainkind of yearning.” See Adorno, Metaphysics, 74.

CHAPTER 4

1. Categories, 3b18–21. See chapter 2 for a discussion of this passage.

2. In Greek, poros means passage, and when combined with the alpha privative,the term aporia indicates a difficulty of passing or the lack of a way. Owens makes thispoint quite clearly, and he points out the variety of words related to aporia that Aris-totle employs. See Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 214–9. This further justifies our talkof the “paths of Aristotle’s thinking” rather than “the development of his thought.”

3. Metaphysics, 1003a5–17.

4. For examples, see Categories, 1b6; 3a34, 38, 39; 3b2, 7, 12.

5. Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy, 50.

6. Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 159n9.

7. Adorno, Metaphysics, 35.

8. Metaphysics, 1003a7–18.

9. This aporia appears at 999a24–999b24.

10. Metaphysics, 999a26–28. Edward Halper clarifies this position very nicelywhen he writes, “. . . the principle needs to be apart because one is the principle of


knowledge and only something that exists apart can be one.” See Edward Halper, Oneand Many in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989),245.

11. Metaphysics, 999b4–16.

12. For an in-depth treatment of Plato’s so-called “late ontology,” see Kenneth Sayre,Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Solved (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).

13. Sayre discusses the similarities and differences between Plato’s own use of theterms in the Parmenides and the Philebus. He argues that although the Parmenides usesthe terms apeiron ple \thos, “unlimited in quantity,” and the Philebus simply uses the termapeiron, the two formulations are essentially interchangeable. See Sayre, Plato’s LateOntology, 124ff. Mitchell Miller makes a strong case for the affinity between certainelements of Plato’s Parmenides and Aristotle’s Metaphysics, not the least of which is thatthe discussion of peras and apeiron ple \thos anticipates the form/matter distinction inAristotle. See Mitchell H. Miller, Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul (Uni-versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986), 129–37, 260–63.

14. Frede and Patzig suggest that the distinction between that which is eternaland that which comes to be and passes away without being in the process of genera-tion is more than simply a matter of semantics. They point out that Aristotle is verycareful to suggest that if the eidos is not eternal, then it does not necessarily follow thatit is transient like sensible beings. For example, in Meta. VII.15, 1039b23–26, Aristo-tle suggests that “definitions exist or do not exist without being generated or destroyed.”See also VIII.3, 1043b15ff.: “ousia must either be eternal or destructible without beingin the process of being destroyed and generable without being in the process of beinggenerated.” See Frede and Patzig, Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Kommentar, 136ff. Cf.Metaphysics VI.3, 1027a29–30.

15. Owens makes precisely this point. See Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 245.

16. In his book Substantial Knowledge, C. D. C. Reeve makes much of the inter-connection between the ontological and epistemological demands that Aristotle placeson the notion of primary ousia in the Metaphysics. He calls the conflicting directions inwhich this pulls Aristotle the “Primacy Dilemma”: “For to be ontologically primary,Aristotle’s own substances have to be particulars. But to be substances they must alsobe epistemologically primary,” and thus, one might add, universal. See Reeve, Substan-tial Knowledge, 17. The decision here to treat the ontological in isolation from the epis-temological side of the aporia by no means denies the legitimacy of Reeve’s appeal tothe “Primacy Dilemma.”

17. See Metaphysics, VII.3, 1029a27.

CHAPTER 5

1. Mary Louise Gill agrees that Book VII of the Metaphysics is fundamentallyexploratory. See Gill, Aristotle on Substance, 15.

2. Aristotle, Physics, I.7 191a4–7.


3. Metaphysics, VII.3, 1029a34.

4. Michael J. Loux, Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z and H(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 77.

5. Ibid., 76; emphasis added.

6. Loux’s book Primary Ousia is in many respects wonderfully insightful. Thedistinction between species and form predications is especially enlightening. However,to put it somewhat hyperbolically, the entire trajectory of the book is misguided, inso-far as it is obsessed with the Population Problem: the attempt to determine whichthings are ousiai. Thus the book falls victim to the hegemony of entitative thinking,and, true to this mode of thought, throughout the book, Loux attempts to argue forone side of the false dichotomy set up by the universal/singular aporia—namely, thatforms are universal, and that they count as the primary things. (See ibid., 103, for agood formulation of the dichotomy and Loux’s ultimate stance.) However, by focusingon the Population Problem, the movement from the foundational economy of princi-ples operating in the Categories to the dynamic economy of principles established inMetaphysics VIII and IX is obfuscated. The extent to which this is true can be seen onceit is recognized that Loux does not follow the story of ousia into Metaphysics, Book IX,where the dynamic picture is established.

7. See Metaphysics, XIII.4, 1078b15ff.

8. Fritsche points to Aristotle’s “great ability to arrive at a technical term byfocusing on the grammatical structure of several sentences and then transformingthat structure into a noun by placing the definite article in front of it.” See JohannesFritsche, “Genus and To ti en einai (Essence) in Aristotle and Socrates,” GraduateFaculty Philosophy Journal 19/20, no. 2/1 (1997): 163–202, 168. He cites the discus-sion of the four causes in the Physics (193b16ff.) as another place where Aristotledoes this.

9. For the former quotation, see Metaphysics, VII.4, 1029b14–16; for the latter,see Metaphysics, V.18, 1022a26. The noun appearing in the dative is not necessarily, noreven most frequently, a “kind term,” as Loux suggests. See Loux, Primary Ousia, 73.The two examples given here are precisely not kind terms: “you” and “Callias” do notmean “Man,” but rather this individual person. Contra Loux, who claims that the termapplies only for universals, Fritsche argues that Aristotle’s use of to ti e \n einai appliesprecisely to individuals such as “you” and “Callias.” See Fritsche, “Genus and To ti eneinai,” 179. For a discussion of the significance of the manifold usages of the dativecase in the Greek language, see the characteristically long and illuminating footnote 7in Fritsche’s article (ibid., 192–98).

10. Aristotle uses these later two examples at Metaphysics, 1078b23–24.

11. The two passages are to be found at Metaphysics, I.6, 987a29–987b14, andXIII.4, 1078b9–32. Gregory Vlastos argues that there is a clear distinction between thePlatonic and historical Socrates. He suggests that one of the main differences is thedenial of separately existing forms. See Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and MoralPhilosopher (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 46ff. This coincides with Aristo-tle’s comments, which alone concern us here. Vlastos’s argument, while forceful andilluminating, depends on a questionable chronological division of the dialogues and


assumes that we have the hermeneutical capacity, 2,400 years later, to disentangleunequivocally the historical Socrates from the dramatic figure that appears in Plato’sdialogues.

12. Both Vlastos and Ross agree that it is Plato himself (along with the membersof his school) who is implied at Metaphysics XIII.4, 1078b31, when Aristotle speaks ofthe thinkers who thought that the ideas existed separately from sensible things. Rosssuggests that Aristotle often referred obliquely to Plato when criticizing him. SeeW. D. Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary,vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), xxxviii. Cf. Vlastos, Socrates, 91, esp. n.38.

13. Here we are careful to use the vocabulary that Aristotle deploys in speakingabout the forms not as a “theory,” theoria, but as an “opinion,” doxa. Drew Hyland hassuggested that there is no “theory”—strictly so-called—of forms in Plato, and thatAristotle’s use of doxa here reinforces this. See Hyland, Finitude and Transcendence,170ff.

14. Metaphysics, XIII.4, 1078b30–33. The parallel to this passage, to cite it forcomparison, is found in Metaphysics, Book I: “But Socrates, being occupied with ethi-cal matters but not at all with the whole of nature, sought the universal and was thefirst to fix his thought on definitions; the former [Plato], inheriting this sort ofthought, held that this [inquiry] was concerned with other things and not with sensi-ble things, for it is impossible for there to be a common definition of certain sensiblethings when these, indeed, are always changing. On the one hand, he called things ofthis other sort ‘ideas’ and, on the other, [he thought] sensible things were separate fromthese [ideas] and that they all were spoken about according to these [ideas]”(987b4–9).

15. For two examples of Aristotle’s critique of participation, see Metaphysics I.6,987b10–14, VIII.6, 1045a14–1045b10.

16. See Physics, 193b5–6, where Aristotle introduces the concept that form is not,strictly speaking, separate, but only separate in logos. The same idea is expressed moreclearly in Metaphysics, VIII.1, 1042a26–33.

17. Johannes Fritsche has argued that the vocabulary of to ti e \n einai has impor-tant political significance as well. Relating the term to Aristotle’s early dialogue OnGood Birth and emphasizing that the importance of determining the good birth of cit-izens was vital during the transition from aristocracy to democracy in Athens, Fritscheargues that “the question, ‘ti e \n einai?’, was the political question par excellence.” SeeFritsche, “Genus and To ti en einai,” 171.

18. Michael Frede and Günther Patzig, Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Einleitung, Textund Übersetzung, vol. 1 (München: C. H. Beck, 1988), 35. Thus they translate the termdas ‘Was es heißt, dies zu sein,’ which nicely indicates the manner in which the term sig-nifies a question, but which also obfuscates the important temporal element buried inthe use of the imperfect. In this respect, the usual German translation of the termWesen is quite appropriate insofar as it is built out of the past participle of the verb “tobe”—gewesen—and therefore includes this vital temporal dimension. Hegel points outthe link between the German Wesen and the past in his Wissenschaft der Logik, when hewrites: “The language has preserved in the verb to be the essence (Wesen) in the past


time, gewesen [the past participle of the verb Sein in German]; for the essence is past,but timelessly past, being.” See G. W. F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik: Die Lehre vomWesen, vol. 376 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1992), 3. Here, however, Hegel insistson the timelessness of the essence.

19. Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 183.

20. Ibid., 184.

21. Tugendhat, Ti Kata Tinos, 18.

22. Ibid., 17–19.

23. Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 184ff.

24. Aristotle does use to ti e \n einai to refer to eternal beings, but when he doesthis, he is certain to explicitly indicate that the ti e \n einai for such beings does notinclude their matter. Thus to use Tugendhat’s distinction between the two dimensionsof the term, the term is being used in the sense in which it points to the simple inde-pendence of the form. At de Caelo I.9, 278a2, Aristotle says that when we state the tie \n einai of the spheres, we do not include the account of gold and bronze, but if we arespeaking of a gold or bronze sphere, we do include them. At Metaphysics XII.8, Aris-totle does refer to the first immoveable mover as the first ti e \n einai when he identifiesit with actuality, entelecheia. But here too he is careful to qualify that the ti e \n einaireferred to “does not have matter.” Such qualifications already suggest what we willinsist upon later: that the term to ti e \n einai, when applied to contingent beings, is notexclusively identifiable with the formal principle but in some way refers to the mater-ial principle as well. It may indeed be the case that the “e \n” in the ti e \n einai of an eter-nal being, because it no longer includes the material principle that renders it potential,no longer retains the historical dimension upon which we insist. However, in the realmof contingent being, with which we are exclusively concerned here, this historicaldimension, and the sort of temporality to which it points, is vital.

25. Metaphysics, VII.4, 1029b13–14. The distinction between the “logical” and the“physical” approach to to ti e \n einai and much of the argument for the mutual depen-dence of form and matter offered later has been inspired by Michael Ferejohn’s article,“The Definition of Generated Composites.” See Michael Ferejohn, “The Definitionof Generated Composites,” Unity, Identity, and Explanation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,ed. Theodore Scaltsas, David Charles, and Mary Louise Gill (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1994).

26. Metaphysics, VII.4, 1029b14–15.

27. Ibid., VII.11, 1036b23.

28. See Ferejohn, “Definition of Generated Composites,” 308.

29. In the Theaetetus, for example, Theodorus claims that Theaetetus is not beau-tiful and likens him to Socrates in having a snub nose and prominent eyes (143e4). SeePlato, Platonis Opera I, ed. E. A Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, D. B. Robin-son, and J. C. G. Strachan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). In the end,however, Socrates will assure himself and Theaetetus that beautiful is as beautiful does(185e3), and it will be clear that the man with the snubbed nose, the individual per-sonifying the active identity of form and matter, is beautiful because he acts beautifully.


30. Ross assures us that there is a credible tradition that tells of the mocking dis-position of Aristotle that showed itself in his expression, and that he seems to have hada “ready quick wit.” See W. D. Ross, Aristotle (London: Routledge, 1995), 6. It is easyto lose this more human Aristotle behind the façade of his all-too-often prosaic prose.The wit of Aristotle seeps through the example of the snub.

31. Ferejohn, “Definition of Generated Composites.”

32. Metaphysics, VII.4, 1029b25–1030a2.

33. Ferejohn, “Definition of Generated Composites,” 297. Here Ferejohn rehearsesthe argument itself, breaking it down into nine distinct steps. He goes on to show thatAristotle’s argument is based on the assumption that (1) “snub nose” is defined by “con-cave nose,” and (2) that the “snub” is defined by “concave nose.” Thus Ferejohn arguesthat the infinite regress is produced by an alternating replacement of these two assump-tions (ibid., 299): (a) the snub nosed by (2) becomes the concave nose nose, (b) the con-cave nose nose by (1) becomes the snub nose nose, (c) the snub nose nose by (2)becomes the concave nose nose nose. . . . Besides being obviously humorous, this exam-ple does seem to suggest that there is a problem with the definition of composites. Thepossibility that the snub may be defined in a way that makes mention of its materialprinciple without falling into the regress is what must be established in the course ofBook VII.

34. Metaphysics, VI.1, 1025b35–1026a6.

35. Ibid., VII.5, 1030b34–1031a1.

36. It seems to be one of the many questions related to the composition and his-tory of the Metaphysics that simply will never be answered definitively.

37. While Frede and Patzig seem to agree that Aristotle inserted the chaptershimself, they argue that the insertion of these chapters in their present context is dis-ruptive to the natural flow of the argument. See Frede and Patzig, Aristoteles “Meta-physik Z” Einleitung, Text, 24–25. In fact, they argue that these chapters intrude soaudaciously upon the sequence of thought (Gedankengang) at work in Book VII thatno one other than Aristotle would have trusted himself to place them in their currentposition. Although their reasoning that VII.7–9 is intrusive is questionable, their con-clusion is acceptable. The so-called London Group also conjectures that Aristotleinserted the text himself. See Myles Burnyeat, Notes on Book Zeta of Aristotle’s Meta-physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). As for the stronger claim that theargument found in VII.7–9 is fundamental to the overall development of Book VII,this is supported by a number of authors to one degree or another. In Primary Ousia,Loux writes: “. . . were we to move directly from Z.4–6 to Z.10, we would find themove disorienting. In Z.10–11, Aristotle discusses the notion of essence from the per-spective of the conceptual tools developed in Z.7–9. Without the detailed discussionof matter, form, and composite these latter chapters provide, we would have nothingmore than Z.3’s statue example to orient us.” See Loux, Primary Ousia, 110–11. Fere-john agrees with this position as well: “. . . the doctrines developed in chs. 10–11depend essentially on insights developed in the preceding chapters.” See Ferejohn,“Definition of Generated Composites,” 294n.

38. Ferejohn, “Definition of Generated Composites,” 308.


39. Metaphysics, VII.7, 1033a2ff. There is something of a debate about the precisemeaning of this amphotero \s, “in both ways.” Mary Louise Gill suggests that one of the“ways” is to mention the matter and the other to mention the form. Her translation ofthe passage emphasizes that the significance of “both ways” in this case indicates thenecessity, as Aristotle clearly states, of including matter in the formula of the bronzesphere. See Gill, Aristotle on Substance, 122. Ferejohn takes issue with this reading,arguing that it amounts to a single way of defining that mentions two items, form andmatter. Furthermore, he looks to amphotero \s for further justification for his distinctionbetween the logical and physical modes of analysis. In the logical mode, it would besufficient to mention the form alone; in the physical mode, it would not, for mattermust be mentioned as well. Although Ferejohn is correct to distinguish the logicalfrom the physical mode of analysis in Aristotle, the term amphotero \s at 1033a2 may nothave the wide-ranging implications that he suggests. However, it is employed to makethe simple point: to define something composite, we must mention both its matter andits form. This Aristotle clearly states immediately following the use of amphotero \s.

40. Metaphysics, VII.7, 1033a5.

41. Ibid., 1033a5–7.

42. Ibid., 1033a8–13.

43. Cf. chap. 3.

44. See Physics, 190b1ff.; also see chap. 3 of this book.

45. Metaphysics, VII.7, 1033a17–23. Ferejohn argues that Aristotle appeals toartifacts in passages such as this one, not only for heuristic purposes but also becausesuch examples allow him to avoid the problem of discussing precisely what counts asthe form of a living being, that is, it allows him to bracket the present investigationfrom the complicated discussion of the soul. See Ferejohn, “Definition of GeneratedComposites,” 296n.

46. Aristotle’s ambivalence about unequivocally affirming the difference betweenalteration and generation comes into focus when VII.7’s ambivalent attitude towardthe linguistic practice of using the adjectival phrase to refer to the material principle ofa composite is compared to the straightforward affirmation of it in IX.7. For a discus-sion of the difference between these two passages, compare Gill, Aristotle on Substance,122–25, 151–55, to Ferejohn, “Definition of Generated Composites,” 302, 307. Gillargues that Aristotle disapproves of this linguistic practice in VII.7 but approves of itin IX.7. However, given the fact that he has clearly established the decisive distinctionbetween activity and potency by the time he writes IX.7, it is more reasonable toassume that his position on the matter is simply less ambivalent. He can see moreclearly the virtue of appealing to the material principle by the derivative adjective,because he has a clear view of precisely how the active identity of form and matter isto be thought. In VII.7, he remains ambivalent, because he continues to misleadinglyattempt to understand generation from the perspective of alteration.

47. Metaphysics, 1036b23.

48. See Physics, 190b1–5; also see chap. 3 of this book.



50. The static ontology of the Categories seems only to have been able to think thepart/whole relationship from the perspective of something’s being present-in some-thing else. Thus Aristotle avoided this issue, because it would have led to the conclu-sion that the parts of an ousia, because they are merely “present-in” and thus not “nei-ther present in nor said-of a subject,” are themselves not ousiai. This would have placedthe Aristotle of the Categories in the embarrassing position of holding that the parts ofan ousia are themselves not ousiai. Thus he evades the issue by commanding his stu-dents not to fall into “confusion.”

51. Metaphysics, VII.10, 1035a2–9.

52. “Arguably” because the concept of concavity must, in order to have any deter-mination at all, involve matter of some sort, be it the physical matter that displaysempirical examples of concavity in objects or what Aristotle points to in this very chap-ter, VII.10, 1036a4ff., as “intelligible matter,” which is perhaps a condition for the pos-sibility of thinking mathematical objects in which concavity occurs. In this sense, it ispossible to apprehend that Aristotle’s intelligible matter is an anticipation of whatKant called “sensible intuition.” See note 64.

53. Metaphysics, VII.10, 1035b14–25.

54. Aristotle mentions that the form of living beings, namely, the soul, seems tohave parts. He does not, here at least, go on to problematize this position. This givessome credence to Ferejohn’s position that Aristotle does not want to allow the difficultproblems surrounding the nature of the soul to cloud the discussion as to the meaningof ousia at this point. See Ferejohn, “Definition of Generated Composites,” 296n.

55. Metaphysics, VII.10, 1035b13.

56. This is not to argue for the traditional conception of prime matter as pureindeterminacy, for to have an existence independent of, and in this sense prior to, itsbeing worked up into a given composite is not necessarily to argue that matter can existwithout any form at all. The bronze from which a statue becomes had a differentform—say that of being a block of metal or even a “heap”—but it did not have no format all. It seems that this is part of what Aristotle argues in Metaphysics, IX.7,1049a18ff., when he discusses the proximate matter of a given composite. On the otherhand, as will be discussed later, Aristotle does seem to want to argue that matter doesnot have such an independent existence before being worked up. See Metaphysics,VII.16, 1040b9–10. Mary Louise Gill argues for a more radically independent con-ception of matter by suggesting that pure matter is not totally indeterminate—as thetraditional view of prime matter would have it—but elemental, existing with definitenatures, yet not as composites of form and matter. In this way she is able to convinc-ingly argue that finite beings are primary ousiai, at least in the sublunary realm, andthat sensible composite individuals exist as the tension between form and matter. SeeGill, Aristotle on Substance.

57. GA, 722b19.

58. Metaphysics, 1040b5–10. The phrase “worked up” translates pepthe \, the aorist,passive subjunctive of phuein, which has the connotation of the “. . . metabolic ‘concoct-ing of residues’ among animals” (Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche, 125n.). “Workedup” links in English this conception of pepthe \ to both the notion of function or work,


ergon, operating in VII.10, and the ultimate thematization of the activity of being interms of energeia, being-at-work. However, Hippocrates Apostle’s translation of pepthe \as “transformed” has the advantage of stressing the role of the form in this activity. SeeHippocrates G. Apostle, Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1979), 133.

59. Metaphysics, VII.8, 1033b19–1034a8. Compare the comments about genera-tion at the beginning of this passage to the separate existence aporia, outlined in chap-ter 4. Aristotle seems to see that establishing the separate existence of form is a deter-rent to a proper account of generation.

60. See Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche, 122.

61. A similar formulation—temporal clause combined with the adverb e \de \—isdeployed to make the same point in a somewhat more perspicuous manner at Meta-physics, IX.7, 1049a15–16. For a discussion of this passage, see “The Model of Motion”section in chapter 6 of this book. We have already seen this sort of vocabulary anticipatedin the formulation of the separate existence aporia discussed at the end of chapter 4.

62. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans. John P.Rowan (Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books, 1995), n. 1435.

63. Metaphysics, 1036b22–32.

64. Again, it is arguable if an account can be given even of mathematical objectssuch as a circle without reference to something that functions as the material principle,for it is difficult to imagine how we can think a circle without determining it in somemanner. In order to think a determinate concept, something must be determined, evenif it is what Aristotle calls “intellectual matter” (Metaphysics, VII.10, 1036a5ff.). This isthe significance of Kant’s comment that we cannot think a line, a triangle, or a circlewithout actually drawing it in our mind. See Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft(Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1990), B154. For the significance of the active nature of therelationship between sensibility and the understanding in Kant, see Christopher P.Long, “Two Powers, One Ability: The Understanding and Imagination in Kant’s Crit-ical Philosophy,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 36, no. 2 (1998): 233–53.

65. Metaphysics, VII.11, 1037a23–b7.

66. See Guzzoni, Grund und Allgemeinheit, 162.

67. Ibid., 188.

68. See Balme, “Aristotle’s Biology Was Not Essentialist,” 305. Here Balme readsthose passages where Aristotle explicitly identifies form with the ti e \n einai (e.g., at1032b1 and 1035b32) as evidence for the fact that the two are not always so identified.

69. Metaphysics, VII.17, 1041a7–9.

70. Ibid., 1041b5.

71. Ibid., 1041b7–9.

72. L. A. Kosman, “The Activity of Being in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” in Unity andIdentity in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, ed. Theodore Scaltsas, David Charles, and MaryLouise Gill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 198.

73. Metaphysics, VII.17, 1041b12ff.


CHAPTER 6

1. Metaphysics, VIII.6, 1045b20–21.

2. Ibid., VII.3, 1029a27–28.

3. Donald Morrison, “Separation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” Oxford Studies inAncient Philosophy 3 (1985): 125–57, 126.

4. J. A. Smith, “Tode ti in Aristotle,” in Classical Philosophy: Collected Papers, ed.Terence Irwin (New York and London: Garland, 1995), 51.

5. We have been arguing for the latter throughout. For a clear expression of Aris-totle’s claim that no universal is ousia, see Metaphysics, VII.131038b1–1039a23. For aninteresting argument that this text does not establish the claim that nothing universalcan be ousia, see Michael J. Loux, “Form, Species, and Predication in Metaphysics Zeta,Eta, and Theta,” Mind 88 (1979): 1–23; Loux, Primary Ousia, chap. 6. For a contrast-ing view, see Frede and Patzig, Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Kommentar, 241–63.

6. Smith, “Tode ti in Aristotle,” 51.

7. Smith seems to avoid this by saying that the universal nature is named whenthe “what is it?” question is asked.

8. Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 388–89.

9. Ibid., 388.

10. Mary Louise Gill has convincingly argues that the composite and even mat-ter, understood as basic elements, remain strong candidates for primary ousia through-out the middle books. Further, she insists that with finite, living beings, it is the com-posite of form and matter that is primary. See Gill, Aristotle on Substance.

11. See Tugendhat, Ti Kata Tinos, 26. Tugendhat argues further that the indeter-minate character of the tode ti is shown in the fact that it is accidentally determinablethrough other presences, and that the tode ti should not be thought exclusively in termsof the category of ousia.

12. Ibid., 29. Tugendhat insists that this twofold nature of the tode ti requires akind of perception that itself is twofold: no longer can it be merely a noein, but it mustbe a sort of legein as well (ibid., 23). This already suggests the importance of develop-ing a conception of ontological knowledge that is not merely noetic but also logical.We will suggest later that phrone \sis is precisely such a knowledge.

13. Metaphysics, VIII.1, 1042a25–33.

14. Aristotle, Aristotelis De Anima, ed. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1988), 412a6–9.

15. This account owes much to Ute Guzzoni’s thematization of form and matteras the ontological grounds of the composite. Guzzoni writes: “Matter and form haveno reality in themselves, their being grounds itself does not have a ground character.Grounds alone are the concrete determining moments.” See Guzzoni, Grund und All-gemeinheit, 103. These are grounds universally by analogy, because in all compositesthere is the analogous function of form and matter. Tugendhat seems to affirm this way


of conceptualizing the composite as the relation of form and matter when, juxtaposingAristotle’s conception of the composite ousia with the Platonic conception of form, hesays: “Being (presence) has become twofold, and one can only say of each of the twosides that they are when each is combined with the other.” See Tugendhat, Ti KataTinos, 22. Although Theodore Scaltsas denies that it is possible to think the compos-ite as a relation—because a relation in Aristotle is, strictly speaking, dependent on thecategory of ousia and thus only exists between ousiai—he seems to endorse somethinglike this picture of the composite when he argues that the form “reidentifies” the mate-rial components to make them identity dependent on the whole, which itself is neitherthe form nor the matter prior to this reidentification. See Theodore Scaltsas, Substanceand Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 2–5.

16. Metaphysics, VIII.6, 1045a14–19.

17. Ibid., 1045a20–33. The problem seems here to be framed so that the univer-sal Animal (as matter) is differentiated by the form Biped. Admittedly, this is ratherodd, as the form more often seems to be the universal, while it is the matter that is theprinciple of difference (see, e.g., the model of generation at work in VII.8, 1034a1–8).This difficulty may be explained away as endemic to the kind of entitative thinking atwork in this Platonic appeal to the universal. It is clear that Aristotle is criticizing it,and the main point is to develop a way to think the strong identity of form and mat-ter. The significance of the passage is that Aristotle sees the notions of energeia anddunamis as being vital to this attempt.

18. Metaphysics, VIII.6, 1045b17–23.

19. Ibid., IX.1, 1045b35–1046a2, emphasis added. This passage illustrates quitewell Aristotle’s willingness to use energeia and entelecheia interchangeably.

20. Kosman has recognized this as the issue at stake. See Kosman, “The Activityof Being,” 200ff. and Kosman, “Substance, Being, and Energeia,” Oxford Studies inAncient Philosophy 2 (1984): 121–49.

21. Heidegger’s interpretation of Metaphysics IX.1–3 agrees that Aristotle’s maininterest in developing the meaning of dunamis in terms of motion is negative, that hisinterest lies elsewhere. See Martin Heidegger, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Theta 1–3: On theEssence and Actuality of Force, trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1995), 42. However, because Heidegger reads Metaphysics,IX.10, where the main concern is the nature of truth with respect to noncompositebeings, as the “proper end” of Book IX and its “highest point” (ibid., 8), and further,because he is concerned not only to sequester the question of energeia and dunamisfrom the sphere of the logos but also to establish the fundamental ontological differ-ence between Being and beings, he does not recognize that the investigation into thenature of dunamis and energeia in Book IX is fundamentally guided by the search for away to think the finite composite as the dynamic identity of form and matter.

22. Physics, II.1, 192b13–19. This is a vital distinction in Aristotle, and it pointsto the special status of natural entities in his philosophy. Indeed, the fact that naturalthings have their principle of movement and existence in themselves seems to indicateone reason, in his discussion of the meaning of ousia, Aristotle most often seems tohave natural beings foremost in his mind.


23. Physics, II.1, 193a13–17.

24. Metaphysics, IX.2, 1046b2–4.

25. The sense in which the house exists no longer in potentiality must be understoodfrom the standpoint of the two-level conception of potentiality as developed quite clearlyby Gill. See Gill, Aristotle on Substance, 171–240. The first-level passive potentiality is, inGill’s view, a state of privation (not-Þx), whereas a second-level passive potentiality is astate of possession of Þ without using it. Therefore, knowledge is a first-level passivepotentiality only as long as the student has the capacity to learn but has not yet beentaught. Once she or he has been taught, she or he may either choose to use her or hisknowledge or not. As long as she or he does not use it, it is a second-level passive poten-tiality. The point here is that the building of a house involves the change from a privation(the not-house-bricks) to possession (the house-bricks) and therefore involves a loss of thefirst-level potentiality. In this sense, potentiality and actuality are not the same, for oncethe building is finished, the motion stops. It ceases to exist as potentially a house andbegins its existence as an actual house. This need not imply that all potentiality whatso-ever is lost, for the house can retain its ability to be something else, namely, a heap of bricksagain, or even a bridge, if the process of motion is taken up again with a new end in view.

26. See Kosman, “The Activity of Being,” 203. This is a particularly effective wayof characterizing the nature of motion, because it deploys the category mistake that Aris-totle is in the habit of using in the opposite direction. Rather than, as Aristotle oftendoes, attempt to understand living processes on the model of production, in a reversal,Kosman clarifies the meaning of motion (and thus production) on the model of life.

27. In chapter 3, it was shown that, in Aristotle’s view, the female role in genera-tion is ambiguous. The “s” in brackets has been added here to capture this ambiguityand to do justice to the active role the discussion in GA IV.1–3 ascribes to the female.

28. Metaphysics, IX.7, 1049a14–18. The analogy with the earth becoming bronzeis poor, for although it is true that we would not call any earth potentially a statue, butonly earth that has been worked up in such a way that it would lend itself to becominga statue, the earth does not have the capacity to take its principle into itself, that is, totake on the capacity of self-movement and self-determination, as does the living being.

29. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n. 1442b.

30. Richard A. Lee, “Mana and Logos: Violence and Order in Thomas Aquinas,”Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 22, no. 2 (2001): 29–48, 33.

31. Cf. Metaphysics, VII.16, 1040b5ff. This is in part what Scaltsas suggests whenhe speaks of the form’s reidentifying the material components of a substance so that itbecomes a being in its own right. See Scaltsas, Substance and Universals, 3. John Her-man Randall Jr. emphasizes the emergence of novelty in this discussion of generationin Aristotle. See Randall, Aristotle, 207–42.

32. Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche, 121–27.

33. Metaphysics, IX.6, 1048a25–30.

34. Ibid., 1048a37–1048b4. Note that Aristotle again deploys the perfect tense—the participles apokekrimenon and apeirgasmenon—to gesture to the moment ofautarchy.


35. Thus Scaltsas is correct to insist that the difference between means/ends andpotentiality/actuality must be held with respect to the model of motion, for means arenot potentially ends, and ends are not actually the means. Further, it is correct to insistthat on the model of motion, we must keep apart three related concepts: (1) activationof a potentiality; (2) completion of the realization of a potentiality; and (3) exercise ofa capacity. Thus for Scaltsas, motion is properly designated as an “activated potential-ity, which serves as the means towards the achievement of the goal.” See TheodoreScaltsas, “Substratum, Subject, and Substance,” in Aristotle’s Ontology, ed. AnthonyPreus and John P. Anton (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 189.

36. Physics, 202a13–20.


38. Scaltsas, Substance and Universals, 3.


40. Actually the tendency to understand teaching in terms of the hegemony ofform is already a perversion. Rather, it is much more like the process that Aristotledescribes in GA IV.1–3, in which the female principle is shown to have an active role.Learning is not just the result of the imposition of knowledge, but it results from thedynamic interplay between teacher and student so that both are transformed in theprocess.

41. Metaphysics, IX.6, 1048b18–23. It should be mentioned that this passage issomewhat corrupt. It is not corrupt insofar as the term praxis is in question but ratherinsofar as some of the perfect forms of the verbs that appear in the present are miss-ing. However, Ross follows Bonitz’s amendment of the passage that supplies the miss-ing perfects based on corresponding passages in IX.6 as well as in De Senu Animaliumand Sophistici Elenchi. The manuscripts give the present tenses hora, phronei, and noei,but they only explicitly give the perfect for “thinking,” nenoe \ken. As Ross points out,“in the rest of the section Aristotle is careful to supply all the perfects”; he thereforeagrees with Bonitz’s amendment of the passage that supplies them here too. See W. D.Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 253–54.

42. In the passage cited earlier, which actually appears just after the one cited here,Aristotle employs the term energeia to designate the sort of activity that differs fromkine \sis in the manner outlined here. Further, as mentioned, he also establishes a stronglink between energeia and entelecheia, thus the terms energeia, entelecheia, and praxis canall be understood as indicating the sort of activity by which energeia and dunamis canbe thought together.

43. A number of commentators have seen in this formulation a sort of test accord-ing to which different processes can be classified as either genuine actions or as motions.Although Ackrill’s seminal and explicitly aporetic article seems to be an early expressionof the notion that Aristotle deploys a “linguistic test” to distinguish energeia from kine \sis(see J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Distinction between Energeia and Kinesis,” in New Essayson Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough [New York: Humanities Press, 1965], 126), themost detailed account of the “tense test” is given by Graham. See Daniel W. Graham,“States and Performances: Aristotle’s Test,” Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1980): 117–29.


For a good critique of it, see Charles Hagen, “The Energeia-Kinesis Distinction andAristotle’s Conception of Praxis,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 22, no. 3 (1984):263–80. Talk of a grammatical test for classifying different processes fails to recognizethat the impetus behind the strange expression is not classificatory. Rather, it is anattempt to give expression to the dynamic identity of energeia and dunamis.

44. For an interesting discussion of the progressive aspect of the present tense inAristotle, see R. Allan Cobb, “The Present Progressive Periphrasis and the Metaphysicsof Aristotle,” Phronesis 18 (1973): 80–90. His claim that the inflected present—roughly, “she lives”—has the same meaning as the present periphrasis—“she is liv-ing”—in Aristotle supports the suggestion here that the present tense has a progres-sive aspect. However, the broader significance of this article is that it argues thatAristotle himself was attuned to the function of verb tense, specifically that of aspect,and he did not hesitate to put verb tenses in the service of his metaphysical theory.

45. Cf. Physics, IV.11.219b1–2, where Aristotle defines time in terms of motionas “the number of motion with respect to a before and after.”

46. See Scaltsas, “Substratum, Subject, and Substance,” 192. He does recognizethat in one corrupt text, the dative of energeia does apply to privation (1071a8–10), buton the whole, he asserts that in the dative energeia does “not apply to nonenmatteredpredicable forms” (ibid., 207n58).

47. Metaphysics, IX.8, 1049b12–14. The final clause in Greek is: “to \i gar endech-esthai energe \sai.”

48. Ibid., 1049b23–27.

49. Ibid., IX.7, 1049a14–16.

50. Ibid., IX.8, 1049a8.

51. Ibid., 1050a6–7. It is important that Aristotle characterizes the spermatos hereas not having an eidos yet, for this suggests that perhaps the eidos only first appears inthe interaction between the matter and the seed.

52. David Charles’s interesting and helpful article makes this distinction clear. Seehis “Aristotle: Ontology and Moral Reasoning,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4(1986): 119–44. Cf. Physics, II.2, 194a30–194b1.


54. Ibid., 1050a34–1050b2.

55. Ibid., 1050b4–6.

56. Ibid., 1050b23–28.

57. This process of conceptualization will only come into focus in chapter 9, oncethe ontological significance of phrone \sis is established, for only in the discussion ofontological phrone \sis is the manner in which concepts are deployed critically consid-ered. Adorno has recognized clearly the implications of Aristotle’s tendency to appealultimately to a conception of the prime mover devoid of potency: “The universal man-ifesting itself as pure form is, of course, the existing form of social dominance inabstracto; and according to this definition the bigger battalions in world history are jus-tified in advance.” See Adorno, Metaphysics, 79–80.


CHAPTER 7

1. The precise nature of Aristotle’s rejection of the possibility that ousia is uni-versal is a matter of some controversy. For a strong argument that Aristotle leaves openthe possibility that ousia might be universal in some sense and precisely what this senseis, see Loux, Primary Ousia, 197–235. For a strong argument that Metaphysics, VII.13,amounts to an unequivocal rejection of the possibility that ousia is universal, see Fredeand Patzig, Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Kommentar, 241–63. While Loux’s argument isbrilliant and insightful, the most natural and straightforward way to read VII.13 is asa strong renunciation of the universality of ousia.

2. Julia Annas, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books M and N, ed. J. L. Ackrill (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1976), 191.

3. Metaphysics, XIII.10, 1087a18.

4. Owens, The Doctrine of Being, 430.

5. Frede and Patzig, Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Einleitung, Text, 56.

6. Annas, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books M and N, 188–92.

7. Charles Kahn, “The Role of Nous in the Cognition of First Principles in Pos-terior Analytics II 19,” in Aristotle on Science, ed. Enrico Berti (Padova: EditriceAntenore, 1981), 403.

8. See Aristotle, Aristotelis Analytica Priora et Posteriora, ed. W. D. Ross and L.Minio-Paluello (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), II.19, 100a15–b17; AristotelisDe Anima, II.5, 417a10–14; Nicomachean Ethics, VI.9, 1142a24–31. It seems that Aris-totle’s insistence that actual episte \me \ is of the tode ti is inconsistent with other texts inwhich episte \me \ is contrasted to aisthe \sis precisely because the former is of the universalwhile the latter is of the singular. For example, in the De Anima, Aristotle juxtaposesactual sensation (he \ kat’ energeian aisthe \sis) with actual episte \me \ by saying: “actual sen-sation is of the singular (kath’ hekaston), but actual episte \me \ is of the universal” (DeAnima, II.5 417b23–24). However, in this passage, neither is the universal/singularaporia an explicit issue, nor is the vocabulary of tode ti deployed. Furthermore, justprior to this passage, Aristotle had said: “The person already theorizing is [a knower]in actuality and in the most proper sense is knowing this A” (kurio \s epistamenos tode toA) (ibid., 417a28–30). This sentence not only refers to the object of knowledge as a“tode” but also is quite consistent with the treatment of actual episte \me \ in Metaphysics,XIII.10. Ross has suggested that despite its inconsistency with some passages in theAristotelian corpus, the doctrine established in Metaphysics, XIII.10, is genuinely Aris-totelian (see Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 466).

9. In the Nicomachean Ethics, the concrete individual is referred to by the term kath’hekaston which, because it is no longer understood to be unknowable, no longer deservesto be translated as “singular” as it was throughout the discussion of the Metaphysics.

10. Metaphysics, XIII.1087a15–21.

11. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “More on Aristotelian Epagoge,” Phronesis 24(1979): 301–19, 305. Compare Aristotle, Aristotelis Analytica Priora et Posteriora, ed.W. D. Ross and L. Minio-Paluello (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).


12. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, II.19, 100a3–7.

13. Allan Bäck, “Aristotle’s Discovery of First Principles,” in From Puzzles to Prin-ciples? Essays on Aristotle’s Dialectic, ed. May Sim (Lanham: Lexington Books, 1999),164. The difficulty in interpreting Posterior Analytics, II.19, is well known. There is noneed here to enter into a prolonged discussion of the specifics of this text, for the gen-eral point to be established is that Aristotle’s position in XIII.10 is not radically dif-ferent from what he says about knowledge elsewhere, insofar as the direct encounterwith the object of knowledge is always decisive.

14. Posterior Analytics, II.19, 100b5–17. We must say “seems” here, because it isunclear whether what nous intuits in Post. An., II.19, is really universal or individual—perhaps the first principles are themselves individuals. If nous does in fact directly intuitthe individual, then it bears a strong affinity to the episte \me \ energeia developed inXIII.10.

15. De Anima, II.5, 417a10–14, for example.


17. Ibid.

18. Metaphysics, XIII.10, 1086b16–20.


20. Metaphysics, XIII.10, 1087a12.


22. Ibid., 388–89. Cf. Frede and Patzig, Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Einleitung, Text,56. It is not clear that this passage can do the sort of justificatory work that Frede andPatzig would like it to do. Even if it is granted that what is actually known is the formitself—a point that we are attempting to undermine, but for which there is plausibleevidence—the most that can be shown by this passage is that the form is a tode ti,which can be interpreted as the technical term for a form that is neither universal norindividual—as Owens himself argues. Thus this passage alone does not establish theindividuality of forms. However, this is obviously not the only evidence that Frede andPatzig bring to bear on this issue. For an interesting critique of Frede’s and Patzig’sposition, see Scaltsas, Substance and Universals, 229–51. Scaltsas differentiates betweenCharlotte Witt’s claim that there are individual forms and Frede’s and Patzig’s, forWitt derives the oneness of the forms from the oneness of composite substances, whileFrede and Patzig attempt to account for the oneness of the composite through the one-ness of the form. For Witt’s position, see Charlotte Witt, Substance and Essence in Aris-totle: An Interpretation of Metaphysics VII–IX (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989),179. The argument presented here agrees with Witt and Scaltsas, that the individual-ity of the form is derived from the composite.

23. Metaphysics, XIII.10, 1086b17.

24. A modicum of insight into this issue may be gained by a brief look at two otherplaces in which Aristotle uses the example of the syllable. In VII.17, Aristotle suggeststhat the composite is not just a heap, but like the syllable BA, which is something morethan its mere elements, A and B (1041b11–14). Here, however, the form is neither of the


elements, the individual A nor the individual B, but rather “something else besides” (allakai heteron ti), which Aristotle calls a “principle.” It seems odd then, that in XIII.10, whenspeaking explicitly about the principle, he should appeal to the individual A, if he in facthas the form of the individual in mind. However, in XII.5, a slightly different image isset forth. There Aristotle explicitly claims that the principle of an individual is individ-ual and then appeals to the following examples: “Peleus [is the principle] of Achilles, yourfather of you, and this B of [the syllable] BA, and in general, B [is the principle] of BAwithout qualification” (1071a20–24). Here it seems that the analogue of B is in fact aconcrete existing individual, namely, the father of the being in question. Of these twoinstances of the “BA” example, one treats the individual letter as an element and the othernot only speaks of the principle but also implies that this is something like a concreteindividual. In neither case is the example used to designate the substantial form. How-ever, it is possible to take the father example as referring to the form passed down by thefather, and thus to suggest that the second instance of the example may supply some sup-port for the theory that it is the form to which Aristotle appeals in XIII.10.

25. To be clear, Owens himself never appeals to the need for a “noetic apprehen-sion” of substantial form in his interpretation. However, we have seen that somethinglike this—namely, seeing through the concrete individual to the form—is required ifthere is to be a direct encounter with the form. Perhaps this is what Owens would sayis implied in the use of the term episte \me \, but if this is the case, then the same claimcan be made based on the view offered here with regard to epago \ge \.

26. Annas, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books M and N, 191.


28. Of course, it remains a matter of great controversy even in the Posterior Ana-lytics as to precisely how such universal principles themselves are known. For details onthis debate, see, for example, Kahn, “The Role of Nous”; L. A. Kosman, “Understand-ing, Explanation, and Insight in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics,” in Exegesis and Argu-ment, ed. E. N. Lee, A. D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973);Engberg-Pedersen, “More on Aristotelian Epagoge.”

29. The clearest expression of the former strain of Aristotle’s thinking can be seenin VII.13, where Aristotle argues against the possibility that ousia is universal, and ofthe later in IX.8, where the priority of energeia is unequivocally endorsed.


31. Ibid.

32. Metaphysics, XIII.10, 1086b34–37.


34. Cf. 999a24ff.; 1087a13.


36. Metaphysics, IV.1, 1003a20ff.

37. Nicomachean Ethics, I.6, 1098a26–29.

38. A number of scholars have recognized, to one degree or another, the intimaterelationship between Aristotle’s Ethics and his Metaphysics. Edward Halper, Deborah


Achtenberg, and May Sim all argue versions of the thesis that the Metaphysics is anindispensable basis for understanding the Ethics. See May Sim, The Crossroads of Normand Nature: Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics and Metaphysics (Lanham: Rowman and Little-field, 1995). Charlotte Witt uncovers the complexity of the normative nature of theontology developed in the middle books of the Metaphysics when she observes thatnorms and values enter into a theory not only from the side of the theorist but fromthe side of nature as well. See Charlotte Witt, “Form, Normativity, and Gender inAristotle: A Feminist Perspective,” in Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, ed. CynthiaA. Freeland (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 133.David Charles argues that the nature of ethical reasoning as expounded in the Ethicscan be clarified once its ontological underpinnings are properly understood. ForCharles, this concerns specifically ascertaining a clear picture of the distinctionbetween energeia and kine \sis in the Metaphysics and the parallel distinction in the Ethicsbetween praxis and poie \sis. See Charles, “Aristotle: Ontology and Moral Reasoning.”

39. Posterior Analytics, 87b25, 96a10–18. For an interesting discussion of theextent to which the Nicomachean Ethics may be considered a sort of episte \me \, see Reeve,Practices of Reason.

40. Although a number of interpreters use the conceptual apparatus of the Meta-physics to clarify certain features of the Ethics, few, if any, use the conceptual apparatusof the Ethics to resolve central problems found in the Metaphysics. This is most likelydue to the traditional tendency to posit the priority of ontology over ethics. This ten-dency has historically covered over the extent to which ontology—because it is alwaysultimately grounded in the encounter with the Other—is itself always ethical.

41. Werner Wilhelm Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Develop-ment, trans. Richard Robinson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 81ff.

42. Ibid., 82.

43. See Plato, Platonis Opera II, ed. Ionnes Burnet (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1901), Philebus, 59d1ff. and Plato, Platonis Opera IV, ed. Ionnes Burnet (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1902), Timaeus, 90b7ff., for example.

44. Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals, 82.

45. For an excellent discussion of the primacy of sight for the Greeks, and thus forthe Western tradition, see Hans Jonas, “The Nobility of Sight: A Study in the Phe-nomenology of the Senses,” in The Philosophy of the Body: Rejections of Cartesian Dual-ism, ed. Stuart Spicker (New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1970),312–33. For a discussion of Jonas’s essay and the more recent French philosophical reac-tion to the primacy of vision, see Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Visionin Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

46. The history of the concept of nous has been traced beautifully in von Fritz. SeeKurt von Fritz, “Nous, Noein, and Their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy(Excluding Anaxagoras),” in The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed.Alexander P. D. Mourelatos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 23–85. Thisessay shows that nous did not always have this significance. For a more detailed dis-cussion of von Fritz’s essay as it relates to the dimension of nous in phrone \sis, see chap-ter 9 of this book, “Intuiting the Singular—Archic Incipience.”


47. See Nicomachean Ethics, VI.12, 1143b5, where Aristotle speaks about howindividuals are known and says: “It is necessary to have perception (aisthe \sis) of thesethings, and this is intuition (nous).”

48. Apostle, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 152. Ironically, though his commentarytouches on seeing and thinking, he does not mention the appearance of phronein. Seeibid., 357. Ross chooses the more Platonic sense “to understand” as a translation of“phronein” in Metaphysics, IX.6. See Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle: TheRevised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1984), vol. 2, 1656.

49. Nicomachean Ethics, VI.5, 1140b1–20.

50. Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle; De Caelo, II.12, 292a23.

51. Ibid., 292b4–6.

52. Cf. De Caelo, II.12, 292b13–24, with Metaphysics, IX.6, 1048b24–33.

53. Aristotle, De Le Génération des Animaux, II.23, 731a25.

54. Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, History of Animals, I.1 487a14, b34ff.

55. Ibid., IX.49, 631b5–19. Aristotle speaks of the praxeis of hens who, after beat-ing a cock, will begin to crow like him and often attempt to “ride” (ocheuein) him, andof cocks, who, upon the death of a hen, take on maternal duties.

56. Metaphysics, I.1, 981a17.

57. See ibid., 988b6, 996b22, and 1022a7, for example.

58. Ibid., VI.6, 1011a11.

59. Ibid., V.20, 1022b5–9.

60. Ibid.

61. Life without potency would be no life at all. Thus when Aristotle understandsGod’s existence as a sort of life in Metaphysics, XII.7, he must be speaking metaphor-ically, for God is pure act, completely devoid of potency. The metaphor seems back-ward though, for it seems a perversion of God’s Being to conceptualize it in terms ofsomething as bound up with potency as life. Cf. Long, “Totalizing Identities.”

62. Ackrill presumes a close relation between the two distinctions. See Ackrill,“Aristotle’s Distinction,” 121, while Kenny seems to identify the two, saying that whathe calls “performances” corresponds to Aristotle’s kine \sis in the Metaphysics and poie \sisin the Nicomachean Ethics, while his “activities” correspond to Aristotle’s energeia/praxisin the two texts. See Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion, and Will (Atlantic Highlands,N.J.: Humanities Press, 1963), 173n2. David Charles uses the distinction developed inthe Metaphysics to shed light on the meaning of the praxis/poie \sis distinction found inthe Ethics. See Charles, “Aristotle: Ontology and Moral Reasoning.”


64. Pertinent here is Charles Hagen’s excellent critique of Graham, Penner, andanyone else who wants to see in the present-perfect formulation as a sort of “tensetest,” by which different actions may be categorized. Hagen writes: “However, if onelooks closely at the Metaphysics passage itself, there is reason to doubt that the tense


test is being used in this way [i.e., as a way to distinguish different activities from oneanother]. The presents and perfects are introduced rather weakly by “hoion” (as, forinstance), which would indicate that they are serving as an illustration of what has gonebefore rather than giving a reason for it.” See Hagen, “The Energeia-Kinesis Distinc-tion,” 265.

65. For a clear indication of this dimension of praxis, see NE, X.3, 1074a21–b13.

66. Hagen, “The Energeia-Kinesis Distinction,” 276.

67. Nicomachean Ethics, VI.4, 1140a1–6.

68. Ibid., VI.4, 1140a13.

69. Ibid., VI.4, 1140a15–16.

70. Ibid., VI.5, 1140b2–7.

71. Ibid., 1140b16–17.

72. Charles Hagen insists on this point and beautifully illustrates the affinitybetween this sense of praxis found in the biological works and the sense deployed inMetaphysics, IX.6. See Hagen, “The Energeia-Kinesis Distinction,” 278.

73. Stephen G. Salkever, Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in AristotelianPolitical Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 43.

74. Balme, “Teleology and Necessity,” 275.

75. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 78–79.

76. When Oded Balaban says that praxis is without end and non-purposeful,he is mistaken, though he is correct to distinguish between two types of telos. SeeOded Balaban, “Praxis and Poiesis in Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy,” The Journalof Value Inquiry 24, no. 3 (1990): 185–98, 194. On his own account, a praxis mightend, but it is not done for the sake of the ending. To say that a praxis is not donefor the sake of an external end does not mean that it is not done for the sake of somepurpose; rather, the key is that the purpose cannot be externally imposed but ratheris internally determined. Finally, two other points about Balaban’s article need to bementioned. First, he denies that moral action (praxis) can be interpreted in a tele-ological manner (190). However, if one understands the telos to inhere in the beingin action, then there is no problem in interpreting praxis in a teleological manner.It is only when the telos is understood as imposed from without that a praxis comesto be understood on the model of poie \sis, which Balaban is correct to reject. Second,Balaban argues that praxis is an act devoid of potency (191). However, Aristotledoes not use the term praxis for the sort of activity that is devoid of potency—thatis, for the activity of God—but rather, energeia, as he does at 1071b19–22, forexample. Aristotle’s uses of praxis in the biological works, in the ethical works, andeven in Metaphysics, IX.6, all refer to contingent beings, that is, beings that may beotherwise, that have a dimension of potency inherent in them. Indeed, praxis is thename for the very identity of energeia and dunamis—this is its core ontological sig-nificance.

77. Engberg-Pedersen has emphasized that the meaning of kine \sis outlined in theMetaphysics cannot be simply mapped onto that of poie \sis developed in the Nicomachean


Ethics. See Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1983), 33ff.

78. Physics, II.1, 192b13–14.

79. Cf. 985a4–5.

CHAPTER 8

1. Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe: Platon: Sophistes, vol. 19, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), 165; forthe English, see Martin Heidegger, Plato’s Sophist, trans. Richard and André SchuwerRojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 113. Although in these lec-tures he gestures to the importance of phrone \sis, Heidegger ultimately follows the tra-ditional Greek tendency to give priority to sophia. For a discussion of the implicationsof this, see Long, “The Ontological Reappropriation of Phronesis.”

2. There has been extensive debate concerning the precise debt that Sein und Zeitowes to Aristotle’s treatment of phrone \sis, some finding evidence for its being the pre-cursor to Verstehen, others for Entschlossenheit, or Umsicht, and still others for Gewissen.Robert Bernasconi provides a good introduction to the entire debate. See RobertBernasconi, “Heidegger’s Destruction of Phronesis,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy28, Supplement (1989): 127–47. See, too, Walter Brogan, “A Response to RobertBernasconi’s ‘Heidegger’s Destruction of Phronesis,’” The Southern Journal of Philoso-phy 28, Supplement (1989): 149–53.

3. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 317–29/312–24.

4. Gadamer is one such notable exception. See Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode,328–29 and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Aristoteles: Nikomachische Ethik VI (Frankfurt amMain: Vittorio Klostermann, 1998), 14–16. See also Nancy Sherman, The Fabric ofCharacter: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 13–22.

5. See Nicomachean Ethics, VI.10, 1142b22, VI.13 1144a31–36, for examples of“syllogism,” and VI.12, 1143b3 for “premise.”

6. See Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 701a6ff. For a good discussion of Aristo-tle’s use of sullogismos, both here and in the Nicomachean Ethics, also see Nussbaum,Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 165–220.

7. W. F. R. Hardie, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1980), 243.

8. Cf. 248–49. Anthony Kenny has reinforced this position by asserting that“‘Practical syllogisms’ are not, and most of them do not even look like, syllogisms.” Seehis Aristotle’s Theory of the Will (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 112.

9. Nussbaum writes: “There is no hint of a system of rule-case deductions, andno evidence of a plan to work towards a grand hierarchical system” (see Nussbaum,Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 184). This statement seems to directly challenge theapproach to the Nicomachean Ethics taken by C. D. C. Reeve in which there is anattempt to delineate ethics as a genuine science. See Reeve, Practices of Reason.


10. Carlo Natali, The Wisdom of Aristotle, trans. Gerald Parks (Albany: State Univer-sity of New York Press, 2001), 99–100, 209, note 51. One scholar Natali seems to have inmind here is Gadamer, who never thematizes phrone \sis in terms of the practical syllogism.

11. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 187; Natali, The Wisdom of Aristo-tle, 109.

12. For a discussion of the rather bold translation of sunesis offered here, see Long,“The Ontological Reappropriation of Phronesis.” Cf., the section on “The JuridicalAspects of Phrone \sis,” below.

13. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI.3, 1139b15–16.

14. Aristotle establishes the difference between episte \me \ and phrone \sis primarily interms of the object with which each is concerned. The object of episte \me \ is necessary(NE, VI.3, 1139b20–21), that of phrone \sis, contingent (NE, VI.5, 1140b1–2).

15. Two important studies that look to the practical syllogism for insight into theelements of phrone \sis include Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 165–220, andNatali, The Wisdom of Aristotle, 63–109. From a slightly different perspective, C. D. C.Reeve seeks to bring phrone \sis in line with episte \me \by focusing on the contingent natureof episte \me \ itself. He argues that scientific knowledge is possible in ethics, and that theuniversals deployed by phrone \sis are provided by episte \me \. See Reeve, Practices of Reason.


17. Ibid., 1141b14–16. Throughout the discussion of the Ethics, we will translate“kath’ hekaston” as “individual” rather than as “singular”—as we had in the discussion ofthe universal/singular aporia in the Metaphysics. The reason we chose to translate “kath’hekaston” in the Metaphysics as “singular” was to bring out the fact that it is conceptu-alized as unknowable. However, with the development of the term tode ti in the Meta-physics, room has been made for the possibility that there might be genuine knowledgeof the individual. As we will see, the kath’ hekaston in the Ethics is more like the tode tiin the Metaphysics insofar as it is not immediately assumed to be unknowable, and itmanifests the same duality the tode ti suggests in the Metaphysics—namely, it points tothat which is determinate and indeterminate simultaneously: the contingent being.


19. John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1975), 31.

20. Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 701a13–23.

21. Cooper is correct to argue that, in this passage at least, “ta kath’ hekasta” doesnot refer to the individual as such. However, he seems misguided in saying that it refersto “specific types” (ibid., 30), for what the term seems to refer to is not some entity atall but to a particular judgment concerning the individual, that is, to the recognition ofthe individual as a particular of a specific sort. The confusion here, and the entire con-troversy as to how to take “ta kath’ hekasta” in Book VI, is a symptom of the dualityendemic to knowledge of the contingent individual, for we do not ever have access tothe singularity of the individual as such. Rather, we must always apprehend the indi-vidual through concepts and particularize it to some degree. This renders the individ-ual itself inherently ambiguous.


22. Engberg-Pedersen, “More on Aristotelian Epagoge,” 305. L. A. Kosman sug-gests a similar vision of epago \ge \when he writes: “Epago \ge \ is thus the act of insight, ofseeing in revealed particulars these more fundamental natures which are their princi-ples and explanations.” See Kosman, “Understanding, Explanation, and Insight,” 389.Kosman, however, does not insist on the fallibility of nous to the degree that Engberg-Pedersen does.

23. Ibid., 308. This far more fallibilistic conception of science in Aristotle isextremely well defended by Allan Bäck. See Bäck, “Aristotle’s Discovery of First Prin-ciples.”


25. Ibid., VI.9, 1142a21–23.

26. Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 701a32–33.

27. See De Anima, II.12, 424a22–25.

28. Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 701b17–22.

29. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 257.

30. De Anima, III.8, 432a8–10. There Aristotle claims that some phantasia is nec-essary to think. It is no accident that the formulations about the imagination soundKantian, for Aristotle seems to have recognized something obliquely that Kant fleshesout in great detail: that the synthesis of the imagination itself is a condition for the pos-sibility of cognition. See Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B152. Ross has ascribed avery Kantian flavor to Aristotle’s conception of phantasia when he writes: “. . . sensa-tion would accordingly be reduced to the level of a mere passive affection which has tobe interpreted by phantasia before it can give information or misinformation aboutobjects.” See Ross, Aristotle, 147. For a more skeptical, but by no means dismissive,attitude concerning these Kantian connotations, see Malcolm Schofield, “Aristotle onthe Imagination,” in Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima, ed., Martha Nussbaum and AmélieOksenberg Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 249–78. Finally, Dorothea Fredeseems to endorse the Kantian conception by recognizing the specifically synthetic andnoetic dimensions of phantasia in Aristotle, though she does this without rejecting thefact that phantasia has other dimensions as well. See Dorothea Frede, “The CognitiveRole of Phantasia in Aristotle,” in Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima, ed. Martha Nussbaumand Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 279–96. Specifically,she is careful to insist that not all phantasiai are informed by thought (ibid., 294).

31. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 260–61. For Aristotle’s identifica-tion of aisthe \sis and phantasia, see Aristotle, The Complete Works, De Insomniis, I.1,459a15. There he identifies them and then asserts that they are in fact different ineinai, being. Compare De Anima, III.9, 432a31, where Aristotle makes a rather cryp-tic remark that the einai of phantasia is different from all other capacities, but that itmight still be the “same as” some capacity. For a discussion of this see ibid., 234.

32. Jana Noel makes a strong argument for granting phantasia a role in phrone \sis.See Jana Noel, “Interpreting Aristotle’s Phantasia and Claiming Its Role withinPhronesis,” Philosophy of Education (Urbana: Philosophy of Education Society, 1997).Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon is skeptical. See Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon, “Aristo-


tle’s Phantasia and Its Role within Phronesis: A Question,” Philosophy of Education(Urbana: Philosophy of Education Society, 1997).


34. Aristotle had distinguished between phrone \sis and episte \me \ earlier in NE, VI,and he qualifies the distinction between phrone \sis and nous in a passage (1143a35–b5)to be considered later.

35. Cf. De Anima, II.6, 418a8ff., where Aristotle distinguishes the “proper” fromthe “common” sensibles, that is, the objects sensed directly through a specific faculty ofsensation—as color is sensed by the eye alone—versus those requiring multiple facul-ties of sensation—as motion is sensed by touch and vision. The third sort of sensationAristotle calls “accidental.” The example to which he appeals is that of the sensation ofa particular ousia, the son of Diares, who is sensed indirectly through an accidentalattribute—his being white, for example. But that which is sensed is not the color, butthe ousia itself.

36. Engberg-Pedersen, Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight, 206. See also Sherman,The Fabric of Character, 39, who suggests that the triangle (rather than the point,stigme \) is the ultimate figure, because it is peculiarly relevant to the specific problem.

37. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 246.

38. Nicomachean Ethics, VI.12, 1143a35–b5.

39. Heidegger highlights the discursive dimension of logos in his lecture on Plato’sSophist. See Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe: Platon: Sophistes, 180, 188. Ernst Tugendhathas recognized that the structure of this logos, the need to speak of “something as some-thing”—“ti kata tinos”—itself points to the twofold character of being. See Tugendhat,Ti Kata Tinos, 6.

40. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A51/B75.


42. Ibid., 1143b13–14.

43. Engberg-Pedersen, “More on Aristotelian Epagoge,” 305.

44. Here it is tempting to agree with Cooper’s suggestion that Aristotle speaks interms of practical syllogisms, because they seem to help explain how desires and per-ceptions work together to produce action. See Cooper, Reason and Human Good, 55.

45. Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a4–19.

46. Ibid., VI.13, 1145a5–6.

47. Ibid., VI.13, 1144b30–32.

48. Ibid., VI.5, 1140b24–25.

49. Ibid., VI.5, 1140b4–7.

50. Carlo Natali gives an excellent summary of the various positions; see Natali,The Wisdom of Aristotle, 183–89.

51. Ibid., 58.


52. The sort of circularity manifest here is not unlike the circularity to which Hei-degger points in his discussion of the fore-structure of Dasein’s understanding asBeing-in-the-world. See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 153.

53. Deliberation, disposition, and experience are treated here together in order tocounteract the misimpression—exacerbated by Aristotle’s own decision to introducethe moral virtues in isolation from the so-called intellectual virtues in NE, II.1—thatdispositions are established by rote habit and so are nonintellectual. Richard Sorabjihas effectively argued against this misconception, suggesting that habituation “is not amindless process . . . habituation involves assessing the situation and seeing what iscalled for. So habituation is intimately linked with the kind of intuitive perception(nous) that we have been discussing.” See Richard Sorabji, “Aristotle on the Role ofIntellect in Virtue,” in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press, 1980), 216.

54. Nicomachean Ethics, II.6, 1106b36–1107a2.

55. Sorabji, “Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue,” 204–205. Charles Lar-more suggests that Aristotle’s great insight is his insistence on the importance of judg-ment in ethical education, and his unwillingness to posit abstract universal moral laws.One expression of this is found in Aristotle’s definition of virtue mentioned here: by“defining” virtue in relation to the phronimos, Aristotle situates the judging subject atthe center of his ethical theory. See Charles E. Larmore, Patterns of Moral Complexity(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

56. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animatium, 263.

57. De Anima, III.11, 434a9.

58. Ibid.

59. Sherman, The Fabric of Character, 79. Here Sherman speaks of an “overall endof character,” which is surely part of the operation of prohairesis. However, it is arguedhere that prohairesis has a role in determining all ends as good, whether they are con-cerned with the overall ends according to which one’s life is set in order or more spe-cific ends concerning the concrete situation. For Aristotle, the pursuit of specific endsis constitutive of the pursuit of overall ends.

60. Nicomachean Ethics, III.5, 1113a9–12.

61. Ibid., III.7, 1113b3–5.

62. Sherman, The Fabric of Character, 71.

63. Nichomachean Ethics, II.3 1105a26–b5.

64. Sherman, The Fabric of Character, 91.

65. Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 312–30.

66. Jaeger fails to see the codetermination of the universal and the individual inthe application of phrone \sis. This leads him to mistakenly suggests that phrone \sis is “notconcerned with the universal but with the fleeting details of life.” See Jaeger, Aristotle:Fundamentals, 82–83. This mistake was also made by Jacques Taminiaux, who writesthat phrone \sis “is not concerned with anything universal.” See Jacques Taminiaux, Hei-degger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology, trans. and ed. Michael Gendre (Albany:


State University of New York Press, 1991), 124. The misinterpretation is, however,somewhat understandable, because Aristotle never tires of emphasizing that phrone \sisis peculiar, because it is primarily concerned with the individual, and, indeed, con-cerned with it in a way that episte \me \ and techne \ are not.

67. See George Henry Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed.(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 1712.

68. Nicomachean Ethics, VI.11, 1143a10–15. Gadamer has argued that the use ofthe genitive absolute, allou legontos, suggests that sunesis is not pursued in isolation butis always situated in dialogical encounters with others. See Gadamer, Wahrheit undMethode, 328/322.

69. Natali argues that phrone \sis and sunesis are “radically” different. “Starting fromdoxa, sunesis results in another doxa; there is no transmission of desire.” See Natali, TheWisdom of Aristotle, 95. While it is true that there is a difference between phrone \sis andsunesis, to claim that they are radically different is to deny that they are intimatelyinterconnected. The analysis offered here agrees with Engberg-Pedersen’s suggestionthat nous, sunesis, and gno \me \ (judgment) are all parts of the wider mental state that isphrone \sis. See Engberg-Pedersen, Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight, 213.

70. Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 1712. Liddell and Scott explicitlyestablish “conscience” as one of the meanings of sunesis, linking it to suneide \sis.Suneide \sis, which means, “a joint knowledge or consciousness,” or “conscience,” how-ever, is derived from a different root, namely, *sunidein (ibid., 1704). This verb is linkedto verbs of knowledge related to the sense of sight: sunoran, “to see together,” andsuneidenai, “to share in the knowledge” of a thing, or “to be conscious” to oneself (whenused with the dative). Taken together, the cluster of words to which sunesis is relatedclearly suggests that it connotes a sort of intelligence directed toward and intimatelyrelated to others. The translation offered later is designed to bring out this dimensionof the term that is otherwise eclipsed when merely translated into English as “intelli-gence” or “understanding.”

71. Heidegger’s own insistence on “Gewissen,” “conscience,” as a translation ofphrone \sis must not be permitted to obfuscate our translation of sunesis as “conscientiousapprehension,” which remains un-Heideggerian insofar as it is designed to capture oneaspect of the dialogical dimension of phrone \sis in Aristotle. As P. Christopher Smithhas suggested, Heidegger’s transformation of phrone \sis into Gewissen is a superimposi-tion of the New Testament’s idea of suneide \sis onto Aristotle, but what is worse, it ren-ders conscience one more facet of the existential analysis of Dasein that serves to solid-ify its own-most (eigenstes), authentic (eigentliches), solitary nature. See P. ChristopherSmith, “The I-Thou Encounter (Begegnung) in Gadamer’s Reception of Heidegger,”in The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, ed. Lewis Edwin Hahn (Chicago: OpenCourt Press, 1997), 521. Heidegger writes, “. . . conscience is, in its ground and essence,in each case mine. And this not only in the sense that one’s own-most potentiality-for-being is in each case called, but also because the call comes from that being which Imyself always am.” See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 278. If the term conscience is permit-ted to be used in conjunction with Aristotle’s conception of sunesis, then this mono-logical connotation of conscience must not be permitted to hold sway.



73. Ibid., V.14, 1137b26–27.

74. Ibid., VI.11, 1143a21–22.

75. Gadamer, Aristoteles: Nikomachische Ethik VI, 14.

76. The manner in which these universals become fixed via epago \ge \ links episte \me \more closely to phrone \sis than one might think. However, episte \me \, unlike phrone \sis,remains guided by an ideal of absolute certainty.

77. For a detailed discussion of the totalizing dimensions of sophia, see Long,“The Ontological Reappropriation of Phronesis.”

CHAPTER 9

1. See Cooper, Reason and Human Good, 29–30, 184.

2. See 1142a21–23. Cf., Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 701a32.


4. Paul Ricœur has emphasized the primacy of the individual in phrone \sis, sug-gesting that this is the most important implication of the concept in Aristotle. See PaulRicœur, “À la Gloire de la Phronèsis,” in La Vérité Pratique: Éthique à Nicomaque LivreVI, ed. Jean-Yves Chateau (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1997), 22.


6. Nicomachean Ethics, VI.12, 1143a35–b5.

7. Ibid., VI.12, 1143b4.

8. Ibid., VI.12, 1143b9–11.

9. Adorno, Negative Dialektik, 24–25/13.

10. Von Fritz, “Nous, Noein, and Their Derivatives.”

11. Ibid., 23, 59. In Aristotle, vision and touch take on a priority that seems toanticipate and perhaps consolidate the “delusion of philosophy.” At various points inthe Metaphysics, particularly when discussing the mode of direct encounter with thatwhich is incomposite or, indeed, the manner in which God knows himself, Aristotleuses the vocabulary of nous and thigganein (to touch) (1072b20–32; cf. 1051b17–33).In discussing the meaning of nous in De Anima, III, Aristotle employs a similar vocab-ulary (424a17–25, 429a15–18). For an excellent discussion of the importance of touchin Aristotle’s De Anima, see Michael Golluber, “Aristotle on Knowledge and the Senseof Touch,” Journal of Philosophical Research 26 (2001): 655–80.

12. Von Fritz, “Nous, Noein, and Their Derivatives,” 24.

13. Ibid., 24–25.

14. Cf. De Anima, III.1, 425a14ff.

15. The image here is borrowed from Walter Benjamin’s Ursprung des DeutschenTrauerspiel: “The content [of beauty] however does not come to light by being exposed;rather it shows itself in a process that one might metaphorically describe as the burn-


ing of the husk as it enters the circle of ideas, as an incineration of the work, in whichits form comes into the highpoint of its illumination.” See Walter Benjamin, Gesam-melte Schriften I/1, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhaeuser (Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp, 1990), 211.


17. To appreciate the extent to which the blessings of order were alluring to Aris-totle, see Metaphysics, XII.6, 7, and 9, 10. There the absolute primacy of God is positedas the ultimate guarantor of stability. Adorno has recognized the tension in Aristotlebetween what may be called the “nominalist” and “realist” dimensions of his thinking.While we have attempted to highlight the nominalist strain of his thinking by point-ing to the priority of the tode ti, the realist elements cannot be denied. As Adorno putsit: “to understand Aristotle means to recognize that both these moments are containedin his work; and that the conflict between them is resolved by giving precedence to theuniversal concepts or Forms.” See Adorno, Metaphysics, 38. This was seen with someclarity in our discussion of the priority of energeia in Metaphysics, IX.8, at the end ofchapter 6.

18. Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 122/118. Levinas makes this statement as heattempts to develop the ipseity of the I, which, he says, exists “without having a genus,without being the individuation of a concept. The ipseity of the I consists in remain-ing outside the distinction between the individual and the general” (ibid.). The discus-sion of singularity developed here owes much to Levinas’s—and here it must be said—conception of ipseity. Yet there is, even in Levinas’s own formulation, a tension we havealways sought to hold in mind; it is the tension inherent in the attempt to develop aconception of the nonconceptual, the tension, endemic to finite existence itself, thathaunts Levinas’s text throughout. Levinas, well aware of this tension, warns the readerat the end of his Preface: “But it belongs to the very essence of language, which con-sists in continually undoing its phrase by the forward or the exegesis, in unsaying thesaid, in attempting to restate without ceremonies what has already been ill understoodin the inevitable ceremonial in which the said delights” (ibid., 16/30). Rather than opt-ing to unsay the said, we have attempted to focus attention on the ineluctable hege-mony of the logos in order to conscientiously temper the violence of its necessarydeployment.

19. Adorno, Metaphysics, 35.

20. Cf. Metaphyisics, VII.4, 14.



23. See, for example, Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1048b25.

24. Cf. Adorno, Metaphysics, 91. Adorno says that in his ruminations concerningGod as thought thinking itself, Aristotle comes “palpably close” to a reflection on sub-jectivity. This, however, is only an anticipation of the decontextualized subject of mod-ern philosophy (cf. Long, “Totalizing Identities”). The sort of subjectivity that Aristo-tle thinks in the Nicomachean Ethics is the embedded subject of finite existence, thesubject as it relates to its object.


25. Ibid., 71.

26. For the link between deliberation and choice, see Nicomachean Ethics, III.3,1113a3–13. For the connotations of the word prohairesis, see Nicomachean Ethics, III.2,1112a15–17; cf. Aristotle, Aristotelis Ethica Eudemia, ed. R. R. Walzer and J. M. Min-gay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1226b5–9.

27. The distinction that Aristotle establishes in a rather convoluted mannerbetween the continuous, suneches, and the successive, hexe \s, in Metaphysics,1068b26–1069a18, is perhaps interesting in this context, for Aristotle suggests that itis contact that turns succession, hexe \s, into contiguity, echomenon, of which continuity,suneches, is a species. There Aristotle calls something “suneches” “whenever the limit oftwo things that are touching and held together become one and the same.” Thus whatdifferentiates the successive from the continuous is precisely the touching that reducesdifference to the same. Succession, on the other hand, respects this difference but rec-ognizes that that which is successive is determined both by what came before and whatwill come after.

28. Cf. Physics, IV.11.219b1–2. Taminiaux has recognized that Aristotle hints at,but never explicitly develops, another conception of temporality when he establishesthe difference between kine \sis and praxis in Metaphysics, IX.6, and further in Nico-machean Ethics, VI.5, when he establishes the difference between poie \sis and praxis. Theanalysis of the temporality of phrone \sis found here owes much to Taminiaux’s basiccontention that “. . . praxis includes its own goal, and, as such, is teleia, or complete. Itmeans that at each moment, praxis unifies what it previously was and what it will be,its past and its future, whereas the kinesis of which poiesis is a species leaves its past andfuture unrelated to one another” (see Taminiaux, Heidegger and the Project of Funda-mental Ontology, 125).

29. Aristotle uses this sort of phrase to refer to prohairesis at NE, III.4.1111b27,to bouleuesthai at NE, III.5.1112b11–12, and phrone \sis at NE, VI.13.1144a7–8.


31. For the self-sufficiency of sophia, see Nicomachean Ethics, X.7, 1177a27–b1; forits capacity to know all things without attending to each individually, see Metaphysics,I.2, 982a8–9. For a discussion of these dimensions of sophia, see Long, “The Ontolog-ical Reappropriation of Phronesis.” For an indication of its effect, see McCumber,Metaphysics and Oppression.


Ackrill, J. L. 1965. Aristotle’s Distinction between Energeia and Kinesis. In New Essayson Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough, 121–41. New York: Humanities Press.

Adorno, Theodor W. 1966. Negative Dialektik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.

——— . 1994. Negative Dialectics. Trans. E. B. Ashton. New York: Continuum.

——— . 2001. Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. Trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. RolfTiedemann. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Aeschylus. 1989. Eumenides. Ed. E. J. Kenney and P. E. Easterling. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

Annas, Julia, trans. 1976. Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books M and N. Ed. J. L. Ackrill,Clarendon Aristotle Series. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Apostle, Hippocrates G., trans. 1979. Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Grinnell, Iowa: PeripateticPress.

——— , trans. 1980. Aristotle’s Categories and Propositions. Grinnell, Iowa: PeripateticPress.

Aquinas, St. Thomas. 1995. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Trans. John P.Rowan. Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books.

Aristotle. 1894. Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea. Ed. I. Bywater. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press.

——— . 1949. Aristotelis Categoriae. Ed. L. Minio-Paluello. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

——— . 1961. De Le Génération des Animaux. Ed. and trans. Pierre Louis. Paris: Asso-ciation Guillaume Budé.

——— . 1964. Aristotelis Analytica Priora et Posteriora. Ed. W. D. Ross and L. Minio-Paluello. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

——— . 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed.Jonathan Barnes, vol. 1 and 2. Bollingen Series, LXXI, 2. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

——— . 1988. Aristotelis De Anima. Ed. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

209

References

——— . 1991. Aristotelis Ethica Eudemia. Ed. R. R. Walzer and J. M. Mingay. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

——— . 1992a. Aristotelis Metaphysica. Ed. Werner Wilhelm Jaeger. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

——— . 1992b. Aristotelis Physica. Ed. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bäck, Allan. 1999. Aristotle’s Discovery of First Principles. In From Puzzles to Principles?Essays on Aristotle’s Dialectic, ed. May Sim, 163–81. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Balaban, Oded. 1990. Praxis and Poiesis in Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy. The Jour-nal of Value Inquiry 24, no. 3: 185–98.

Balme, D. M. 1987a. Aristotle’s Biology Was Not Essentialist. In Philosophical Issues inAristotle’s Biology, ed. Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox, 291–312. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

——— . 1987b. Teleology and Necessity. In Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology, ed.Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox, 275–85. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press.

Benjamin, Walter. 1990. Gesammelte Schriften I/1. Ed. von Rolf Tiedemann and Her-mann Schweppenhaeuser, vol. Band I, 1, 931. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Bernasconi, Robert. 1989. Heidegger’s Destruction of Phronesis. The Southern Journalof Philosophy 28, Supplement: 127–47.

Bernstein, Richard J. 1982. From Hermeneutics to Praxis. Review of Metaphysics 35:823–45.

——— . 1992. The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Post-modernity. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Bolotin, David. 1998. An Approach to Aristotle’s Physics with Particular Attention to theRole of His Manner of Writing. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Bonitz, H. 1955. Index Aristotelicus. Berlin: Graz.

Brogan, Walter. 1989. A Response to Robert Bernasconi’s “Heidegger’s Destruction ofPhronesis.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 28, Supplement: 149–53.

Buber, Martin. 1994. Das Dialogische Prinzip. Gerlingen: Verlag Lambert Schneider.

Burnyeat, Myles, ed. 1979. Notes on Book Zeta of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Charles, David. 1986. Aristotle: Ontology and Moral Reasoning. Oxford Studies inAncient Philosophy 4: 119–44.

Cobb, R. Allan. 1973. The Present Progressive Periphrasis and the Metaphysics ofAristotle. Phronesis 18: 80–90.

Cooper, John M. 1975. Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press.

Descartes, René. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Trans. John Cottingham,Robert Stoothff, and Dugald Murdoch, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

210 References

——— . 1985. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Trans. John Cottingham, RobertStoothff, and Dugald Murdoch, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. 1979. More on Aristotelian Epagoge. Phronesis 24: 301–19.

——— . 1983. Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Ferejohn, Michael. 1994. The Definition of Generated Composites. Unity, Identity,and Explanation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Ed. Theodore Scaltsas, David Charles,and Mary Louise Gill. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Frede, Dorothea. 1992. The Cognitive Role of Phantasia in Aristotle. In Essays on Aris-totle’s De Anima, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 279–95.Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Frede, Michael. 1987. Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Min-nesota Press.

Frede, Michael, and Günther Patzig. 1988a. Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Einleitung, Textund Übersetzung, vol. 1. München: C. H. Beck.

——— . 1988b. Aristoteles “Metaphysik Z” Kommentar, vol. 2. München: C. H. Beck.

Fritsche, Johannes. 1986. Methode und Beweisziel im ersten Buch der “Physikvorlesung”des Aristoteles. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Anton Hain Meisenheim GmbH.

——— . 1997. Genus and To ti en einai (Essence) in Aristotle and Socrates. GraduateFaculty Philosophy Journal 19/20, no. 2/1: 163–202.

Furth, Montgomery. 1988. Substance, Form, and Psyche: An Aristotelian Metaphysics.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer PhilosophischenHermeneutik. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

——— . 1994. Truth and Method. 2nd ed. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.Marshall. New York: Continuum.

——— , trans. and comm. 1998. Aristoteles: Nikomachische Ethik VI. Frankfurt amMain: Vittorio Klostermann.

Gill, Mary Louise. 1989. Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton:Princeton University Press.

Golluber, Michael. 2001. Aristotle on Knowledge and the Sense of Touch. Journal ofPhilosophical Research 26: 655–80.

Graham, Daniel W. 1980. States and Performances: Aristotle’s Test. PhilosophicalQuarterly 30: 117–29.

——— . 1987. Aristotle’s Two Systems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Guthrie, W. K. C. 1957. Aristotle As a Historian of Philosophy: Some Preliminaries.Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, no. 1: 35–41.

Guzzoni, Ute. 1975. Grund und Allgemeinheit: Untersuchung zum Aristotelischen Ver-ständnis der Ontologischen Gründe. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain.

Hagen, Charles. 1984. The Energeia-Kinesis Distinction and Aristotle’s Conception ofPraxis. Journal of the History of Philosophy 22, no. 3: 263–80.

211References

Halper, Edward. 1989. One and Many in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Columbus: Ohio StateUniversity Press.

Happ, Heinz. 1971. Hyle: Studien zum Aristotelischen Materiebegriff. Berlin: DeGruyter.

Hardie, W. F. R. 1980. Aristotle’s Ethical Theory. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Haroutunian-Gordon, Sophie. 1997. Aristotle’s Phantasia and Its Role within Phrone-sis: A Question. Philosophy of Education 297–300. Urbana: Philosophy of Educa-tion Society.

Hartmann, Nicolai. 1957. Kleinere Schriften. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter & Co.

Hegel, G. W. F. 1986. Werke in Zwanzig Bänden. Ed. Eva Michel Karl Markus Mold-enhauer, vol. 1–20. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.

——— . 1992. Wissenschaft der Logik: Die Lehre vom Wesen, vol. 376. Hamburg: FelixMeiner Verlag.

Heidegger, Martin. 1976a. Gesamtausgabe: Platon: Sophistes. Ed. Friedrich-Wilhelmvon Herrmann, vol. 19. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

——— . 1976b. On the Being and Conception of Physis in Aristotle’s Physics B, 1.Man and World 9, no. 3: 219–70.

——— . 1976c. Vom Wesen und Begriff der physis. Aristoteles, Physik B, 1. In Gesam-tausgabe: Wegmarken, vol. 9, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, 239–302.Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

——— . 1986. Sein und Zeit. 16th ed. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

——— . 1988. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Bloom-ington: Indiana University Press.

——— . 1995. Aristotle’s Metaphysics Theta 1–3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force.Trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

——— . 1997. Plato’s Sophist. Trans. Richard and André Schuwer Rojcewicz. Bloom-ington: Indiana University Press.

Hyland, Drew A. 1995. Finitude and Transcendence in the Platonic Dialogues. Albany:State University of New York Press.

Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm. 1948. Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Develop-ment. Trans. Richard Robinson. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

Jay, Martin. 1993. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-CenturyFrench Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jonas, Hans. 1970. The Nobility of Sight: A Study in the Phenomenology of theSenses. In The Philosophy of the Body: Rejections of Cartesian Dualism, ed. StuartSpicker, 312–33. New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co.

Kahn, Charles. 1981. The Role of Nous in the Cognition of First Principles in Poste-rior Analytics II 19. In Aristotle on Science, ed. Enrico Berti, 385–414. Padova:Editrice Antenore.

Kant, Immanuel. 1990. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.

212 References

Kenny, Anthony. 1963. Action, Emotion, and Will. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humani-ties Press.

——— . 1979. Aristotle’s Theory of the Will. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Kosman, L. A. 1973. Understanding, Explanation, and Insight in Aristotle’s PosteriorAnalytics. In Exegesis and Argument, ed. E. N. Lee, A. D. Mourelatos, and R. M.Rorty, 374–92. Assen: Van Gorcum.

——— . 1984. Substance, Being, and Energeia. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2:121–49.

——— . 1994. The Activity of Being in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. In Unity and Identityin Aristotle’s Metaphysics, ed. Theodore Scaltsas, David Charles, and Mary LouiseGill, 195–214. New York: Oxford University Press.

Larmore, Charles E. 1987. Patterns of Moral Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

Lee, Richard A. 2001. Mana and Logos: Violence and Order in Thomas Aquinas.Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 22, no. 2: 29–48.

——— . 2002. Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology. New York: Palgrave.

Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh:Duquesne University Press.

——— . 1971. Totalité et Infini: Essai sur L’extériorité. Paris: Kluwer Academic.

Liddell, George Henry, and Robert Scott. 1968. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed.Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

Long, Christopher P. 1998. Two Powers, One Ability: The Understanding and Imag-ination in Kant’s Critical Philosophy. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 36, no. 2:233–53.

——— . 1999. The Hegemony of Form and the Resistance of Matter. Graduate FacultyPhilosophy Journal 21, no. 2: 21–46.

——— . 2002. The Ontological Reappropriation of Phronesis. Continental PhilosophyReview 35, no. 1: 35–60.

——— . 2003. Totalizing Identities: The Ambiguous Legacy of Aristotle and Hegelafter Auschwitz. Philosophy and Social Criticism 29: 213–44.

——— , and Richard A. Lee. 2001. Between Reification and Mystification: Rethink-ing the Economy of Principles. Telos 120: 92–112.

Loux, Michael J. 1979. Form, Species, and Predication in Metaphysics Zeta, Eta, andTheta. Mind 88: 1–23.

——— . 1991. Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z and H. Ithaca: Cor-nell University Press.

Mann, Wolfgang-Rainer. 2000. The Discovery of Things: Aristotle’s Categories and TheirContext. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Marx, Werner. 1971. Heidegger and the Tradition. Trans. Theodore Kisiel and MurrayGreene. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

213References

McCumber, John. 1999. Metaphysics and Oppression: Heidegger’s Challenge to WesternPhilosophy. Studies in Continental Thought. Ed. John Sallis. Bloomington: Indi-ana University Press.

Miller, Mitchell H. 1986. Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul. UniversityPark: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Montaigne, Michel de. 1987. The Complete Essays. Trans. M. A. Screech. New York:Penguin.

Morrison, Donald. 1985. Separation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Oxford Studies inAncient Philosophy 3: 125–57.

Natali, Carlo. 2001. The Wisdom of Aristotle. SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philoso-phy. Trans. Gerald Parks, ed. Anthony Preus. Albany: State University of NewYork Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1967. The Will to Power. Trans. Walter Kaufman and R. J.Hollingdale. New York: Vintage Books.

Noel, Jana. 1997. Interpreting Aristotle’s Phantasia and Claiming Its Role withinPhronesis. Philosophy of Education 289–96. Urbana: Philosophy of Education Soci-ety.

Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 1985. Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Owens, Joseph. 1978. The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics. 3rd ed.Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

Plato. 1901. Platonis Opera II. Ed. Ionnes Burnet. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

——— . 1901. Platonis Opera IV. Ed. Ionnes Burnet. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

——— . 1995. Platonis Opera I. Ed. E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, D. B.Robinson, and J. C. G. Strachan. New York: Oxford University Press.

Porphyry. 1992. On Aristotle’s Categories. Trans. Steven Strange. Ithaca: Cornell Uni-versity Press.

Randall, John Herman. 1960. Aristotle. New York: Columbia University Press.

Reeve, C. D. C. 1992. Practices of Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

——— . 2000. Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett.

Ricœur, Paul. 1997. À la Gloire de la Phronèsis. In La Vérité Pratique: Éthique à Nico-maque Livre VI, ed. Jean-Yves Chateau, 13–22. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin.

Ross, W. D. 1924a. Aristotle’s Metaphysics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Com-mentary, vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

——— . 1924b. Aristotle’s Metaphysics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commen-tary, vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

——— . 1995. Aristotle. London: Routledge.

Salkever, Stephen G. 1990. Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Polit-ical Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

214 References

Sayre, Kenneth. 1983. Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Solved. Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press.

Scaltsas, Theodore. 1992. Substratum, Subject, and Substance. In Aristotle’s Ontology,ed. Anthony Preus and John P. Anton, 177–210. Albany: State University of NewYork Press.

——— . 1994. Substance and Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Ithaca: Cornell Uni-versity Press.

Schofield, Malcolm. 1992. Aristotle on the Imagination. In Essays on Aristotle’s DeAnima, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 249–77. Oxford:Clarendon Press.

Schürmann, Reiner. 1987. Heidegger, On Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy.Trans. Christine-Marie Gros and Reiner Schürmann. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press.

Sherman, Nancy. 1989. The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue. Oxford:Clarendon Press.

Sim, May, ed. 1995. The Crossroads of Norm and Nature: Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics andMetaphysics. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

Smith, J. A. 1995. Tode ti in Aristotle. In Classical Philosophy: Collected Papers, ed. Ter-ence Irwin, 51. New York and London: Garland.

Smith, P. Christopher. 1997. The I-Thou Encounter (Begegnung) in Gadamer’sReception of Heidegger. In The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, ed. LewisEdwin Hahn, 509–25. Chicago: Open Court Press.

Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1956. Greek Grammar. Rev. ed., ed. Gordon Messing. Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press.

Sorabji, Richard. 1980. Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue. In Essays on Aris-totle’s Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty, 201–20. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Taminiaux, Jacques. 1991. Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology. Trans.and ed. Michael Gendre. SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philoso-phy, ed. Dennis Schmidt. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Tugendhat, Ernst. 1958. Ti Kata Tinos: Eine Untersuchung zu Struktur und UrsprungAristotelischer Grundbegriffe. München: Verlag Karl Alber.

Vlastos, Gregory. 1991. Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Ithaca: Cornell Univer-sity Press.

Von Fritz, Kurt. 1974. Nous, Noein, and Their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy(Excluding Anaxagoras). In The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed.Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, 23–85. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Witt, Charlotte. 1989. Substance and Essence in Aristotle: An Interpretation of Meta-physics VII–IX. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

——— . 1998. Form, Normativity, and Gender in Aristotle: A Feminist Perspective. InFeminist Interpretations of Aristotle, ed. Cynthia A. Freeland, 118–37. UniversityPark: Pennsylvania State University Press.

215References

action. See praxisactivity/actuality. See energeia and ent-

elecheiaAdorno, Theodor, xii, 154, 179n56,

192n57, 206n17, 206n24; critique ofwestern ontology, 4–10, 156–58, 161;on Aristotle’s tode ti, 5, 52, 157–58;on mediation in Aristotle, 41,176n30, 178n48

aisthe \sis, 114, 117; as operating inphrone \sis, 137–43

alteration, 72–74, 185n46Annas, Julia, 111–12, 117–22aporia, meaning of, 50, 179n2. See also

separate existence aporia and univer-sal/singular aporia

Apostle, Hippocrates, 186–7n58Aquinas, St. Thomas, 5, 78, 97arche \, 16, 64, 82–83, 86, 94–98, 102–3,

108, 127, 133; dual meaning of, 1–2;meaning in the ethics of ontology,155–65

arete \, 133–34, 142, as related tophrone \sis, 143–48

artifacts: as paradigmatic ousiai, 32, 42,78–79, 92, 94–96, 174n3, 185n45

autarchy, 29, 31, 41, 49–50, 55–60, 149,154, 158; Aristotle’s commitment to,64, 69, 86–87, 107, 160; defined, 20,171n3; moment of, 97–98, 101, 103,190n34

Balme, D.M., 81, 128Benjamin, Walter, 205–6n15Bernstein, Richard, 12, 167n5

causality, 19, 42–47, 177n33, 177n36Charles, David, 196n38, 197n62cho \riston, 85–93composite, dynamic identity of, 56, 65,

72, 85, 112, 154, 189n21conscientious apprehension. See sunesis,

translation ofCooper, John M., 135–36, 153, 200n21

Descartes, René, 2–3, 8, 167n2, 167n4,168n6, 169n19

developmentalism, 14dunamis, 60, 75, 77, 85, 91–109, 191n42

economy of principles: defined, 14;dynamic, 15–16, 60, 65, 67, 81,85–109; foundational, 15, 20, 29, 72,75, 89; hylomorphic/kinetic, 15,32–47, 60, 90, 95, 101, 104–9

eidos. See formend. See telosenergeia, 75, 77, 91–109, 191n42; as the

active identity of form and matter,100, 104–9, 161; vs. kine \sis/motion,73, 85, 100–4, 122–30

Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, 114, 137,139–40, 143, 198n77

entelecheia, 93, 95, 189n19, 101–3,191n42

epago \ge \, 21, 114, 117, 137, 141, 143,195n25, 201n22

epieikeia, 133–34, 142, 148–50, 159–60episte \me \, 16, 89, 165, 193n8; limits of,

154, 160; of ousia, 111–21; vs.phrone \sis, 135–51, 200n15

217

Index

equity. See epieikeiaergon, 76–83, 125, 128essence. See to ti e \n einaiethics: defined, 6–8; of ontology, xiii, 6,

64–65, 154–65; vs. morality, 7

fabrication: as heuristic device, 174n3; asmodel for genesis/phusis, 42–47, 60,73–74, 92, 96–98, 101, 177nn33–36

Ferejohn, Michael, 68–70, 183n25,185n39,185n45, 185n46, 186n54

form: as determining/groundingmoment, 37, 59–60, 61, 63, 73,75–81, 90, 93, 100, 108–9, 175n17,188n15; domination/hegemony of,40–47, 49, 59–61, 64, 74, 98, 101;ontological efficacy of, 33, 38–40,49–50; priority of, 69

Frede, Michael, 20, 21, 171n3, 173n24Frede, Michael and Günther Patzig: on

Aristotle’s tode ti, 86–87; on form,176n27, 180n14; on ousia as individ-ual, 188n5, 194n22; on the imperfectin to ti e \n einai, 65–66; on the statusof Metaphysics VII.7–9, 184n37,188n5

Fritsche, Johannes: on principles in thePhysics, 38, 40, 175n16, 176n21,176n25; on to ti e \n einai, 181n8,181n9, 182n17

function. See ergonFurth, Montgomery, 173n33; on

Aristotle’s biology, 178nn41–42,178n49, 179n55, 186–87n58; onindividuation, 78, 97–98, 178n38

Gadamer, Hans-Georg: hermeneuticalapproach, 10–13; on phrone \sis, 132,150, 162, 204n68

generation. See genesisgenesis, 54–55, 80, 92, 125; in Generation

of Animals, 43–47; in Metaphysics, 68,70–74, 80, 96–98, 100–1, 185n46; inthe Physics, 36–40

Gill, Mary Louise, 168n11, 180n1,185n39, 185n46, 186n56, 188n10,190n25

God, as ultimate principle, xiii, 5, 6–7,10, 60, 75, 106–7, 197n61, 206n17,206n24

Ground, form and matter as, 37, 41, 60,63, 73, 75, 78–83, 90–91, 100, 108–9

Guzzoni, Ute, 31, 33, 80–81, 174n1,175n17, 188–89n15

Hagen, Charles, 127, 197n64Halper, Edward, 179–80n10Hegel, G.W.F., 4, 7, 182–83n18Heidegger, Martin, 3, 203n52; critique

of the history of metaphysics, 4, 19,177n36; on Metaphysics IX, 189n21;on phrone \sis, 132, 199n1, 202n39,204n71

historicity, 92, 103hyle. See matterhypokeimenon, 103, 174n40; in the

Categories, 15, 20–21, 24, 28–29; inthe Metaphysics, 61, 71–75; in thePhysics, 32–42

identity: diachronic, 24, 27–29; syn-chronic, 24–27

imagination. See phantasiaindividual, 144, 153–65; atomic, 21–28,

37, 53, 62–63, 69, 171n7; form as,194n22; knowledge of, 113–22, 140,150–51, 200n21; rendered particular,41, 49, 114, 141, 158, 200n21; vs. sin-gular and particular, 9, 51–52, 87–89,135–36, 138, 141, 153–55, 200n17

individuation: in principle indiscernible,78, 97; use of adverb e \de \ to designate,55, 78, 96–98, 187n61

induction. See epago \ge \intuition. See nous

Jaeger, Werner, 123, 203n66

Kant, Immanuel, 2, 142, 162, 186n52,187n64, 201n30

kine \sis, 32–33, 60, 73, 94–98, 106–7,122–30

Kosman, L.A., 82–83, 95, 190n26,201n22

218 Index

Levinas, Emmanuel, 132, 206n18; cri-tique of western ontology, 4–10,169n14, 177n36; on Aristotle’s todeti, 8–9, 158; singularity of the Other,155–59

logic of things, 15, 20–22, 24, 26, 33, 72,82, 99–100; limits of, 23, 28–29

Loux, Michael, 62–63, 88, 181n6,181n9, 184n37, 188n5

Mann, Wolfgan-Rainer, 19, 170–71n2,172n17, 173n27

matter: as determining/groundingmoment, 37, 42, 46, 59–60, 73,75–81, 90, 93, 100, 108–9, 175n17,188n15; irreducibility of, 42, 64–65,67, 73, 75, 79, 179n56; mentioned indefinitions, 71–81

morphe \. See formmotion. See kine \sis

Natali, Carlo, 134, 145, 200n15, 204n69natural beings, 94–98, 102nous, 114, 194n14, 195n25; history of

the concept, 155–57; practical,139–43; role in epago \ge \, 114, 137,194n14, 201n22

Nussbaum, Martha, 128, 134, 138–40,200n15

ousia: as parameter, xi–xii; dynamic con-ception of, xiii, 73, 85–109, 151;legacy of, 9, 20

Owens, Joseph: on Aristotle’s tode ti, 88,194n22; on meaning of aporia,179n2; on Metaphysics XIII.10, 112,114–18, 195n25; on translation of takath’ hekasta, 51, on translation of toti e \n einai, 65–66; on unity of theMetaphysics, 168n11

particular. See individual and tode tiperception. See aisthe \sisperfect tense: Aristotle’s use of, 55, 66,

98–103, 126–27, 161, 190n34, 197n64phantasia, 138–40, 143, 146, 155, 159,

201nn30–32

phrone \sis: history of the concept, 123–24;in the Ethics, 131–51; ontologicalappropriation of, 16–17, 121,159–65, 188n12, 192n57

Platonism: knowledge of universal in,111–12, 119–20; ontological efficacyof the universal in, 22–23, 26, 90;separation of Forms in, 2, 118; ten-dency in Aristotle, 50, 54–55, 59,61–65, 87; understanding of phrone \sisby, 123–24; vs. Plato, 167n4, 172n17

poie \sis, vs. praxis, 122, 126–30, 145. Seealso fabrication

population problem, 91, 181n6postmodernism, 2–3, 10, 11potency/potentiality. See dunamispractical syllogism, 133–51practical wisdom. See phrone \sispraxis: ontological, 16, 93–109, 151,

161–65, 191n42, 198n76; technicalmeaning of, 112, 122–30, 145

Prime Mover. See Godprinciple. See arche \privation. See stere \sisproduction. See fabrication

qualified becoming. See alteration

Randall, John Herman, 171n5, 172n11,190n31

Reeve, C.D.C., 46, 168n11, 175n13,180n16, 199n9, 200n15

Ross, W.D., 182n12, 184n30, 191n41,193n8

Salkever, Stephen G., 128Scaltsas, Theodore, 101, 104,

188–89n15, 190n31, 191n35,192n46, 194n22

Schürmann, Reiner, 42, 167n1, 177n33,177n34, 177n36

science. See episte \me \sensation. See aisthe \sisseparable. See cho \riston and separate exis-

tence aporiaseparate existence aporia, 53–57, 91, 93,

98–99, 115, 187n59, 187n61

219Index

Sherman, Nancy, 146–47, 202n36,203n59

singular. See individual and tode tisnubnose, 67–70Socrates, 61, 63–65, 82, 123sophia, 132, 134–35, 150, 154, 164–65,

199n1, 205n77, 207n31stere \sis, 36–40strategy of evasion, 24–29, 173n33sunesis, 133–34, 142, 148–50, 159–60;

translation of, 148, 200n12, 204n70,204n71

techne \. See fabricationteleology, 128–29telos, 95, 108; in the ethics of ontology,

155–56; location of in praxis, 102–3,106, 126–29

temporality, 103; existential, 103,161–62, 207n28; of to ti e \n einai, 66,183n24

thinking: Aristotle’s vs. thought, xii, 5,10–11; entitative, 20, 93, 181n6,189n17; paths of Aristotle’s, xii,14–17; totalizing and totalitarian, 2–3

to ti e \n einai, 60–75, 92, 100, 103, 107,114, 158; as different from form, 81;

imperfect tense in, 65, 81, 158; logi-cal treatment of, 67–70; physicaltreatment of, 70–75; technical senseof, 61–67, 183n24

tode ti: as individual, 9, 51–52, 78,157–58; knowledge of, 112–21,193n8; non-technical sense of,25–26; resistant to conceptualization,52, 98, 157–58; technical sense of,86–93, 103, 108–9; translation of, 8

Tugendhat, Ernst, 67, 88, 174n40,188n11–12, 188–89n15, 202n39

underlying subject. See hypokeimenonunicity, of ousia, 20, 49, 52, 64, 101,

104universal/singular aporia: epistemological

side of, 115–17, 120–21, 126,132–33, 155, 163, 180n16; formula-tion of, 15–16, 50–57; ontologicalside of, 61, 93, 108–9, 111–13,117–22

unqualified becoming. See genesis

virtue. See arete \Vlastos, Gregory, 181n11, 182n12von Fritz, Kurt, 156–57

220 Index

Documents

Christopher P. Long-The Ethics Of Ontology_ Rethinking An Aristotelian Legacy (S U N Y Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy) (2004).pdf