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The Interpretation of the Being-There of Human Beings [168–169]

which we are praised or blamed. With respect to the passion, for example, with respect to the fact that we are in a rage, “we are neither praised nor blamed.”176 The manner and mode in which I am in a rage, in what situation, on what occasion, against whom—that is what underlies praise or blame, the πῶς. Ἕξις relates to the πῶς ἔχομεν πρὸς τὰ πάθη, “how we carry ourselves,” “what composure we have,” with such a πάθος. Πάθος is a determinate losing-one’scomposure.

The δυνάμεις relate to those being-determinations of living things that Aristotle too characterizes as φύσει ὄν: in the possibility of our factical beingthere, there are co-given the possibilities of being enraged, of being sad, of being happy, of hating, and so on177 These δυνάμεις are also γινόμενα ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ.

The being-co-given of πάθη as γινόμενα is important as modes of being itself, and insofar as we are living, as modes of becoming, relating to beingin-a-world, as well as the fact that the πάθη have a possible connection with ἕξις. On the basis of a more precise understanding of what is meant by ἕξις, we will understand the analysis of the πάθη, seeing how what is designated as πάθος defines being-in-the-world in a fundamental sense, and how it comes into consideration as such a basic determination of being-in-the-world with the cultivation of κρίσις, of “taking-a-position,” of “deciding” a critical question. By showing this fundamental role of πάθη in κρίνειν itself, we will also gain the possibility of seeing the basis of λόγος itself more concretely.

The ἦθος of the speaker must be something altogether determinate with which he appears to the audience as one who, as a person, in fact speaks for the matter that he represents. The ἦθος must satisfy the definitions of ἀρετή, φρόνησις, and εὔνοια. The ἦθος is nothing other than the manner and mode in which is revealed what the speaker wants—willing in the sense of the προαίρεσις of something. In this way, Aristotle also determines the role of ἦθος in the Poetics: ἦθος “makes manifest, at the moment, the being-resolved of the speaker.”178 There is no ἦθος in the sort of discourse whose sense does not depend upon being resolved about something or bringing others to a definite resolve. Rather, such discourse depends on διάνοια: that which is necessary in order to be able to exhibit something with respect to its being-character. Setting down these conditions of discourse at each moment is not something that has been exhausted up to now, as one can ask to what extent, in scientific and philosophical accounts, λόγος is to be taken simply as δεικνύναι, and to what



176. Eth. Nic. Β 4, 1105 b 31 sqq.: κατὰ μὲν τὰ πάθη οὔτε ψεγόμεθα [ . . . ], κατὰ δὲ τὰς ἀρετὰς καὶ τὰς κακίας ἐπαινούμεθα ἢ ψεγόμεθα.

177. Eth. Nic. Β 4, 1105 b 23 sqq.: δυνάμεις δὲ καθ’ ἃς παθητικοὶ τούτων λεγόμεθα, οἷον καθ’ ἃς δυνατοὶ ὀργισθῆναι ἢ λυπηθῆναι ἢ ἐλεῆσαι.

178. Aristoteles, Über die Dichtkunst. Griechisch und Deutsch. Mit sacherklärenden Anmerkungen, edited by F. Susemihl, second edition, Leipzig 1874. 1450 b 8 sq.: ἔστιν δὲ ἦθος μὲν τὸ τοιοῦτον ὃ δηλοῖ τὴν προαίρεσιν, ὁποία τις.


Martin Heidegger (GA 18) Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy

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