Subject: Re: "metaphysical and not phenomenology"?
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 00:09:32 +0000


Michael Eldred wrote:

> > and what does Heidegger do with the mode of presence? He subordinates
> > it because it is not how beings are encountered for the most part. So
> > Aristotles metaphysics is not Heideggerian on two counts: (1) Aristotles
> > metaphysical investigation of first causes is purely an ontic search for
> > cause, and is therefore not phenomenological in any sense whatsoever,
> > Husserlian or Heideggerian,
>
>That must be an interesting book in Aristotle. Is it the unwritten 
>Aristotle?
>
> > and (2) his OTHER metaphysical enterprise (the
> > analysis of being qua being and the governing modes of being) proceeds 
>in
> > the mode of presence, so that to the extent that it is phenomenological, 
>it
> > is closer to Husserls phenomenology than to Heideggers.
>
>At least you now admit that half of Aristotle's metaphysics is 
>phenomenology.
>But I don't know where you hope to find the other, purportedly "purely 
>ontic"
>half you postulate.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you here, but if you grant that his 
investigation of first causes is not his analysis of the being of beings 
(since the latter includes physical things while the former excludes them), 
then his metaphysical investigation of first causes is not a categorial 
analysis of the modes of being. How then could it be anything other than an 
attempt to prove that there are non-physical beings that are the ultimate 
causes of physical phenomena, which is precisely what he does at Met. 
1071b3-23? And therefore how can it possibly be phenomenological in any 
sense whatsoever?

>Aristotle's "analysis of being qua being and the governing modes of being)
>proceeds in the mode of presence"? Pure and utter nonsense.
>
>Presence encompasses also absence, especially in Aristotle's metaphysics;
>_steraesis_ which is a key concept in dealing with absence especially in 
>his
>uncovering of the being of _kinaesis_ in his Physics. _Dynamis_ is also a 
>mode
>of being involving absence since it signifies in a being its suitability 
>for
>something else, e.g. wood is suitable for making a table, and thus wood is
>_dynamei_ a table, although the table is not present. And _energeia_ is
>'being-at-work' and therefore also a mode of being as coming-to-presence of 
>what
>is not-yet-present, e.g. while the carpenter is working on a table, the 
>wood is
>_energeiai_ a table, although the table is not present yet. Only the 
>finished
>table is _entelecheiai_ a table, i.e. present as the finished (_teleios_) 
>table.

Take energeia and dynamis, for example. If Aristotle’s conception of these 
were purely phenomenological, how on earth could he explicitly use these 
notions to prove that there is an immaterial and eternal substance which is 
the first cause (1071b13-22)? A purely phenomenological analysis could never 
do this. The only way he could possibly do this is if there is an ontic 
element (at the very least, an element) in his notions of these.

Anthony Crifasi

>For Aristotle too, beings are not encountered as present for the most part.
>There is always something lacking in their presence, something absent. E.g. 
>the
>T-shirt is present in its how (its quality, _poion_) not as pure white, but 
>as a
>shade of white. Therefore the importance of _steraesis_ for his 
>metaphysics.
>That is also why the Aristotelean categories are all always _dichos_, i.e.
>double, i.e. both present and absent. "Each and every category _hyparchei
>dichos_, is doubly there." (Heidegger GA18:311; Phys. Gamma 1 201a3)

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