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§26 [178-179]


Even the expression ἦθος corresponds to this conception of the Being of man; ἦθος means comportment, the proper way of Being. If one keeps in mind this point of view, this primarily ontological questioning, one can understand the peculiar fact that σοφία. may be compared with ὐγίεια., health. This idea of the Being of man determines in advance the meaning of εὐδαιμονία, which Aristotle defines as ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν τελείαν. The ψυχή is what is proper to a being which is alive. This being that lives is in εὐδαιμονία insofar as it is simply present at hand with regard to its highest possibility of Being. This highest possibility of Being of the living being called man is νοῦς. Νοεῖν, as ἐνέργεια θεωρετική, most satisfies the ἐνέργεια of this living being, its pure simple presence. To this extent, νοεῖν most properly satisfies εὐδαιμονία. Therefore human life in its most proper Being consists in νοῦς. This most proper Being is grasped in a radically ontological way so that it is as such the ontological condition of the factual concrete existence of man.

We must still gain more clarity on the relation νοῦς has to λόγος.


§26. Extent and limit of λόγος.


a) Λόγος and νοῦς. Νοεῖν and διανοεῖν. The grasping
of the πρῶτα and ἔσχατα by νοεῖν.


Νοῦς is the highest determination of man, such that it must even be understood as divine; life in νοῦς is a θεῖον (b30f.). Nevertheless, human comportment moves for the most part, and especially at first, not in pure νοεῖν but in διανοεῖν. Because the Being of man is determined as ζῷον λόγον ἔχον, because man speaks, and discourses about the things he sees, pure perceiving is always a discussing. Pure νοεῖν is carried out as θιγεῖν.1,2 The νοεῖν carried out within a being that has λόγος is a διανοεῖν. In this way there exists a διαφορά between pure νοῦς and νοῦς σύνθετος (cf. b28f.) : the νοῦς of man is always carried out in the mode of speaking. The νοῦς of man is not the proper one but is ὁ καλούμενος νοῦς.3 It must be kept in mind that λόγος is intrinsic to the Being of man and that at first and for the most part discernment is carried out in λόγος: discerning is νοεῖν μετὰ λόγου. And so we find the justification of Aristotle's characterization of the modes of ἀληθεύειν we have spoken of, namely ἐπιστήμη, τέχνη, φρόνησις, and σοφία, as ἕξεις μετὰ λόγου.4 Thorough looking, διανοεῖν, is a speaking, λέγειν.


1. Reading θιγεῖν for τιγεῖν, an obvious misprint.-Trans.

2. Met. I X, 1 0, 1051b24.

3. De An. III, 9, 432b27.


Martin Heidegger (GA 19) Plato's Sophist