CHAPTER THREE
The Interpretation of the Being-There of Human Beings with regard to the
Basic Possibility of Speaking-with-One-Another Guided by Rhetoric
§13. Speaking-Being as Ability-to-Hear and as Possibility of Falling: The
Double-Sense of Ἄλογον (Nicomachean Ethics Α13; De Anima Β4)
So far, this consideration came to a preliminary end when we set forth the basic determinations that pertain to this being of human beings. We reached the definition of the being of the ζωή of human beings. Aristotle defines it as ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια κατ’ ἀρετὴν τελείαν.1 Ἐνέργεια is a character of those beings that are ensouled, that are in the mode of being in a world. Ζωή is a type of living that is there in an active mode, such that this being-there lives genuinely in concern, so that it has its τέλος in such a way that it brings the being-there of the human being to its genuine end. In the concrete elaboration of the being of human beings, ἀρετή must now be dealt with. This also coincides with Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics, the detailed consideration of the ἀρεταί. You can see from the preceding what this topic genuinely means by keeping the aim of the consideration in view.
We will not follow out the consideration of the ἀρεταί. Here, we are not interested in the concrete elaboration of the interpretation of being-there, but rather in another aspect that is found here, namely, that the being of human beings, ἐνέργεια κατ’ ἀρετήν, has the character of speaking: πρᾶξις μετὰ λόγου. In a certain sense, this consideration goes together with the others (κατ’ ἀρετὴν τελείαν). Here, we put the emphasis on the μετὰ λόγου insofar as we are always inquiring into the λόγος, into that speaking about, and addressing of, the world, wherein concept and conceptuality are at home. We are seeking the basis, the indigenous character, of concept formation in being-there itself. Concept formation is not an accidental affair, but a basic possibility of being-there itself insofar as being-there has made a decision in favor of science.
The preliminary determination of ζῷον λόγον ἔχον already showed that a basic character of being-there as ζῷον πολιτικόν is revealed therein: the human being is in the mode of being-with-one-another; the basic determination of
1. Eth. Nic. Α 13, 1102 a 5 sq.