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Metaphysics θ 2.

(980b21). Here it should be noted that besides ethical and practical behavior, φρόνησις also signifies the self-sensing of human beings. On this point, I am leaving aside the difficult passage (De an. B 12, 424a26ff.) where αἴσθησις is directly designated as λόγος τις. We should understand λόγος in this passage neither merely as relationship, nor simply as reason or discourse in the sense of language; rather, what is in fact meant by the λόγος τις is the perceiving exploration of ..., and the conversant relating to ..., the relation which takes cognizance of its surroundings, the relation to what presents itself in the surroundings as lying opposite, as ἀντικείμενον.

We have thereby clarified, to the extent necessary for us, the relaτionship of the two divisions: ἄψυχον—ἔμψυχον and ἄλογον—λόγον ἔχον. Now let us return to our text (Met. θ 2, 1046a36ff.). We are now in a position to read with more precision and to observe that Aristotle has already taken into account everything just said. With αι μέν—αι δέ, he is not simply setting apart ἄψυχα and ἔμψυχα, soulless and besouled; rather, he defines more closely in what respect he means ἔμψυχα when he says: καὶ ἐν ψυχῇ (a37), and indeed the besouled, that is, the besouled body taken only according to its besouledness ("in the soul as such"). Thus, the bodily is thereby excluded. This is in fact not identical with corporeality in the sense of the constitution of a material thing of nature, but it nevertheless displays processes, for example physico-chemical processes, which are able to be grasped within certain limits without observing the besouledness. In this excluded realm, which nonetheless belongs to the besouled, there is ἄλογα. But not even ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ is an unequivocal determination; besouledness is also the specific life form of plants, which (although they have soul) are always nevertheless ἄλογον. Only when the besouled in its besouledness is taken in an entirely different way—as the besouled being that has λόγος—only then is the ἔμψυχον the opposite of the ἄλογον.

When we speak of the besouled being who has λόγος, we do not mean that λόγος, conversance (discourse), is merely added on; rather, this ἔχειν, having, has the meaning of being. It means that humans conduct themselves, carry themselves, and comport themselves in the way they do on the basis of this having. The ἔχειν means having in


Martin Heidegger (GA 33) Aristotle's Metaphysics θ 1-3