Today I’d like to conclude my preliminary background thoughts with Aristotle and then transition to an initial take on Hölderlin.

Naas cites an instructive passage from Heidegger’s Zur Frage nach der Bestimmung der Sache des Denkens, “Heidegger recalls a passage from the Odyssey (16. 161) in which Athene appears as a young woman to Odysseus and his son Telemachus though only Odysseus can see that she is Athene, for as the poet says … ‘it is not to all that the gods appear enargeis. Odysseus and his son Telemachus both see the young woman before them but only Odysseus apprehends the presencing of the goddess.‘  So, for example, Niagara Falls may appear as Nature incarnate to the tourist, but as noise pollution to the local resident.

Calasso notes:

Yet there was a time when the gods were not just a literary clich?, but an event, a sudden apparition, an encounter with bandits perhaps, or the sighting of a ship. And it didn’t even have to be a vision of the whole. Ajax Oileus recognized Poseidon disguised as Calchas from his gait. He saw him walking from behind and knew it was Poseidon “from his feet, his legs.”… But how does a god make himself manifest? In the Greek language the word theos, “god,” has no vocative case, observed the illustrious linguist Jakob Wackernagel. Theos has a predicative function: it designates something that happens. There is a wonderful example of this in Euripides’ Helen: “O theoi. theos gar kai to gigno’ skein philous”–“O gods: recognizing the beloved is god.” Kerenyi thought that the distinguishing quality of the Greek world was this habit of “saying of an event: ‘It is theos.'” And an event referred to as being the?s could easily become Zeus, the most vast and all-inclusive of gods, the god who is the background noise of the divine. So when Aratus set out to describe the phenomena of the cosmos, he began his poem thus: “From Zeus let our beginning be, from he whom men never leave unnamed. Full of Zeus are the paths and the places where men meet, full of Zeus the sea and the seaports. Every one of us and in every way has need of Zeus. Indeed we are his offspring.”…”Iovis omnia plena,” Virgil would later write, and in these words we hear his assurance that this was a presence to be found everywhere in the world, in the multiplicity of its events, in the intertwining of its forms. And we also hear a great familiarity, almost a recklessness, in the way the divine is mentioned, as though to encounter divinity was hardly unusual, but rather something that could be expected, or provoked. The word atheos, on the other hand, was only rarely used to refer to those who didn’t believe in the gods. More often it meant to be abandoned by the gods, meant that they had chosen to withdraw from all commerce with men.

Heidegger notes for Aristotle in the Physics: We say of a painting by van Gogh, ‘[Now] this is art[!],’ or, when we see a bird of prey circling above the forest, ‘That is nature’ … [We do not say this in regard to anything, not] just when some piece of canvas hangs there smeared with dabs of colour, not even when we have just any old ‘painting’ there in front of us, but only when a being that we encounter steps forth pre-eminently into the appearance of a work of art …[W]e find what is phusis-like only where we come upon a placing into appearance; ie., only where there is morphe. Thus morphe constitutes the essence of phusis, or at least co-constitutes it .(PA, Phusis, 212)  It’s only Art [or Nature] if artness appears radiantly in the piece.  Aristotle thus says in Physics B1 “For the word ‘nature’ is applied to what is according to nature and the natural in the same way as ‘art’ is applied to what is artistic or a work of art.”

Beauty and houseness co-appear incarnate in the mansion, are merely present in the average house, and appear deficiently in the dilapidated shack.  But this all presuppose a movement/appearing which is the vehicle through which Beauty and houseness can do their work.  Marx, in Heidegger and the Tradition, speaks of Aristotle ‘”possibilities press toward their actualization,” energeia. The carpenter selects wood that is appropriate for the project. The poised runner (dunamis), for instance, is not indifferent towards the enactment of the running (energeia), but precisely has this in view in itself, and in this sense has the entelecheia in itself. It is this poise in which the end and the dunamis lie stable before the work is enacted that is the stable presencing. Therefore, as peculiar as it sounds, Aristotle can say actuality {energeia) is prior to potentiality {dunamis). Hölderlin notes the blueing of the sky after the storm shows us the sky is always subtly blueing/appearing, just that we don’t usually notice it.

Aristotle was the first one to use the term ousia as a philosophical term. The ordinary meaning of this word is “house and home, holdings, financial means; we might also say ‘present assets,’ ‘property,’ what lies present [at hand].” (PA, Phusis, 199)  For the Greeks, Aristotle’s technical term ousia meant, in everyday parlance, that which was at hand, “[t]he Being of beings obviously is understood here as permanence and constancy. What projection is to be found in this understanding of Being? The projection upon time … [A]uthentic being comes to be understood as ousia, parousia in a sense which basically means the ‘estate’ [Anwesen], the immediate and always present [gegenwartigen] possession, the ‘property.'” (KPM, 164; also IM, 61) In Aristotle’s time, when it already had a firm terminological meaning philosophically and theoretically, this expression ousia was still synonymous with property, possessions, means, wealth (BP, 108).  To say that, for the Greeks, an entity’s existence, or mode of being is presence-at-hand, means that an entity, in accordance with its being a finished or produced thing, is present or available for our disposal, but more specifically it is there in our immediate vicinity or field of concerns. This is the case whether or not the being is an artifact, whether it is produced by human hands or not.  An entity is extant or actual to the extent that it is actually produced and hence available for us. The entity is produced, whatever the specific purpose it will serve, in such a way that it is a production towards the producing of a finished, available, present-at-hand entity. The presence at hand is intended in the production, what Heidegger calls an out-look upon the look (eidos) of that which is to be produced, like the idea the carpenter has of the house before building, or the idea of grapeness the shopper already has before her mind’s eye which makes a successful shopping trip possible.  I explored what present-at-hand meant in the last post. For example, if it is in dispute or question whether the table is green, we resolve the issue by appealing to the table “at hand” right now. Similarly, if a mathematical statement is in dispute, we enact the proof.

The key for Aristotle is appearing/movedness. Nereids, the fifty sea-nymph daughters of Nereus, are sometimes depicted as accompanying ships, playing around them, or even guiding them. They embody the beauty and grace of the sea, potentially adding to the aesthetic of a ship’s movement through the water.  The movement of the appearing of houseness incarnate of the mansion points to movement as the basic principle or the god of movement in Aristotle.

Just as health is meant in different senses (e.g., walking is healthy; a sign of health [a healthy complexion]; etc] there are different senses in which beings “are,” ways in which they are spoken “as:”

τὰ μὲν {…} ὄντα λέγεται (1003b6) [“for beings are spoken of as”:]  1.  (1003b6), in themselves “things present-at-hand.” 2.  (1003b7), “states of what is present-at-hand.” 3. (1003b7), “a way toward being present-at-hand.” 4.  (1003b7f.), “disappearances,” “deprivations.” 5. (1003b8), “qualities.” 6. 1003b9), “negations.” … Being occurs in a multiplicity of modes. Unity: πρὸς ἕν, analogy. The analogical meaning of Being = question of Being in general. The problem of this analogy is the central problem for penetrating into Being in general. Where is the seat of this analogy? Whence derive the possibility of a relation of beings to beings and the possibility of various relations of that kind? λόγος–ὄν, something as something, together, one with the other. … Category, λόγος—“assertion,” analogy. ὂν ᾗ ὄν: how it shows itself in logos and is encountered in the mode of the “as something.” (Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (pp. 128-129). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

The categories are not random but reflect the ways of addressing beings:

Beings in themselves with respect to their possible modes of Being. There are as many of these modes as there are modes of λέγειν, modes of the “showing” of something as something. The categories are therefore grounded in, and signify nothing other than, the determinations of Being that are grasped in the “as something.” … This mode of Being is in each case, inter alia, already understood in every concrete showing of a being as this or that. The “something as something” articulates Being-with; i.e., the mode of Being expressed in the category is the possible content of a regard. This regard is constitutive of the possibility of assertion. .. The categories are therefore the most general predicates. (Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 132-3). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

The categories are co-thought, at the same time as the thing, like how materiality is always co-intended with the chalk:

The phenomenon of οὐσία in general, παρουσία [“co-presence”]); i.e., a being is συγκείμενον [“something combined”]. Categories are conditions of possibility, basic modes of possible co-presence-at-hand. It becomes clear how Being in the proper sense is understood. ἐπίσταμαι signifies “understanding” in the broadest sense, to be involved with something in a understanding way, to deal with beings in an oriented way: e.g., house building. This orientation is related to something, to the thing one wants to produce, so that it will be ready-to-hand as a house in accord with what belongs to it as a work of craftsmanship. (Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 136). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

It is the gathering power of the logos/legein where the being is separated and combined, which reflects not the structure of reality but the understanding-way of the person, that in comporting themselves to beings humans have an understanding of Being.

Uncoveredness and coveredness stand together, grounded in conjunction and disjunction. λόγος, something as something; apart and together within the unitary steadfastness of the pre-given being. “The window is not closed”: denying closedness to the window and thereby showing that the two are not gathered together… Uncovering—covering over: an attribution and speaking about something as something. That gives expression to the intending of something as something: ἅμα καὶ {…} χωρίς: “at the same time,” “in unity,” the being itself that is to be shown; or “separated,” “apart,” disjoined. But this ὥστε μὴ τὸ ἐφεξῆς (1027b24), “not as one after the other,” not at first the whole in its unity and then separated, but, rather, ἀλλ᾿ ἕν τι γίγνεσθαι (1027b25) “such that a unity comes to be,” i.e., the whole itself in and through the separation, and precisely throughout the separation as a unitary whole and as the being itself in the “how” of its Being. ἄλλος λόγος [“another logos”]: Met. Ζ 12; De anima Γ 6ff… Conjunction and disjunction are carried out in διάνοια. Something as something, a structure that is “not in the things” themselves, οὐκ ἐν τοῖς πράγμασι (1027b30f.), but a structure of the understanding and disclosing, of uncoveredness and coveredness, constituted through and in the comportment to the uncovered thing itself. Uncoveredness does not pertain pertain to beings in themselves; they can be without uncoveredness and coveredness. These latter are only insofar as there is διάνοια. (Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 138). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Heidegger says for Aristotle motion always is, there is always something moved, for coming-to-be and passing-away are possible only if κίνησις is.  [“each kind of motion necessarily presupposes the things with the potential for such motion”] (251a10f.).

[“Could there be the before and the after if there were no time? Could there be time if there were no motion?”]136—“There is no ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ without time, and no time without motion.” But time is eternal, and so motion is eternal as well… [“for there is nothing else to be found in time (except the now)”] (251b24)… [“There is something eternally moving with a motion that never ceases, and that is motion in a circle: which is evident not only in logos but also in fact”]. Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 148). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.

In this regard, insofar as the beingness of beings uses appearing/movement as a vehicle, the most proper being is not Beauty as Plato argued but the source of all movement. Heidegger says

Being of the categories: ὄν [“a being”], ἕν [“one”], ἀγαθόν [“good”], ἕτερον [“other”], ἐναντίον [“opposite”], μὴ ὄν [“nonbeing”]….θεῖον [“the divine”]154 and θειότατον [“the most divine”] have nothing to do with religiosity; on the contrary, it simply means τιμιώτατον ὄν [“the most eminent being”] (cf. 1064b5), Being in the proper sense, a neutral, ontological concept. Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 150). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.

Heidegger points out with Aristotle there is genuine philosophy going on and it must be emphasized that many things have become common to us today which Aristotle had to wrest from the phenomena over and against extant dogmatic theories about them and also in the face of an insufficient conceptual framework. [The philosopher is the most exemplary case of human life in general:

Essence of life.174 Life and Dasein, λόγον ἔχον: to disclose the world and oneself explicitly as these beings and as such and such, to make them accessible, understand them from various perspectives, comprehend them, ground them. Disclosure of the ground. (Heidegger, Martin. Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 153). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

The “to be thought” is Being, simple, everlasting: “Being is everlasting constancy. θεωρειν [“contemplation”] is without χρήσις [“use”], no ἔργον [“product”] (cf. 1178b3f.); its object is άεί ον [“eternal Being”].” The to-be-thought for Aristotle is not something new, but rather only what is and always was, thought in a more penetrating way – like we said previously when we deconstruct and reconstruct the traditional definition of marriage because it does violence to LGBTQ+ rights, we are not inventing Justice out of whole cloth but uncovering more fully what Justice is and always was. Theoria was precisely the highest mode of human existence because it attuned the erratic soul to the permanent and constant and so bring rest.

Heidegger comments “Therein resides the peculiar tendency of the accommodation of the temporality of human Dasein to the eternity of the world … This is the extreme position to which the Greeks carried human Dasein (PS, 122).”

Hölderlin says in Hyperion’s Song of Fate the following:

“Radiant the gods’ mild breezes / Gently play on you / As the girl artist’s fingers / On holy strings. – Fateless the Heavenly breathe / Like an unweaned infant asleep; / Chastely preserved / In modest bud / For even their minds / Are in flower/And their blissful eyes / Eternally tranquil gazey / Etemally clear. – But we are fated / to find no foothold, no rest, / And suffering mortals / Dwindle and fall/ Headlong from one/ Hour to the next Hurled like water / From ledge to ledge / Downward for years to the vague abyss (Holderlin’s “Hyperion’s Song of Fate” quoted in Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink, Heraclitus Seminar, 101)” … [Heidegger and Fink commenting on the passage say] “the gods wander without destiny, their spirit eternally in bloom, while humans lead a restless life and fall into the cataract of time and disappear.” (Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink, Heraclitus Seminar, 101)

Man is fated to go from the fire of youth to the listless tedium of old age.  Where is Holderlin getting this from?  Aristotle speaks of the epitome of human life as Theoria, the contemplative life, which is  godliness/deathlessness: athanatizein.  Deathlessness doesn’t mean immortality, since the Greeks thought everyone were immortal, but rather childlike absorption in life like the eternally youthful ambrosia eating gods among even the old.  By contrast Apollo spoke of most humans in the passage Holderlin bases his Hyperion’s Song of Fate on: “Mortals, who are as wretched as the leaves on the trees, flourishing at first, enjoying the fruits of the earth, but then, their hearts no longer absorbed in life (Akerioi), vanishing (my translation modifying Krell, 1999, 105).”  We have Apollo contrasting between the fire and absorption of youth and the listless tedium of old age.  In Epistles 1.8 Horace describes the lethargic illness of boredom as a trait of old age.

The thinker, by contrast, is a tranquil absorbed youth even in old age.  Heidegger comments regarding thinker Heraclitus’s Fragment 52: “The Geschick of being, a child that plays …the being of beings (Heidegger, 1991b, 113).”  We will see that restlessness being brought to repose with a calm mind is what Heidegger argues as the purpose the Greeks had for philosophy.  Aristotle clarified only a beast, or a god, delights in solitude (Politics 1253a28), and so we picture the general tragic character of the masses (hoi polloi) apart from their distractions as cabin fever.  Lucretius for instance speaks of the restless lives of the Roman rich pursued relentlessly by anxiety and boredom.  Regarding Aristotle’s Theoria, Heidegger comments “[T]he ‘useful’ as ‘what makes someone whole,’ that is, what makes the human being at home with himself … In Greek Theoria is pure repose, the highest form of energeia, the highest manner of putting-oneself into-work without regard for all machinations. It is the letting come to presence of presencing itself. (Heidegger, 2001b, 160-61).”

These three preparatory posts looked at various topic like logos – something “as” something. So, that brings us to Hölderlin, which I will start with next time.