This document analyzes differences between Aristotle and Heidegger regarding the relationship between theory and praxis. There is a shift from Aristotle to Heidegger of: (1) priority of actuality to priority of possibility, which grounds a (2) shift from priority of theory to priority of praxis. This is seen in how (3) Heidegger's notion of "Theorie" modifies poiesis. The temporal ground is (4) Heidegger's notion of transcendence towards the world rather than an eternal being.
The Essential Writings of Karl Marx; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, The Communist Manifesto, Wage Labor and Capital, and Critique of the Gotha Program
This document analyzes differences between Aristotle and Heidegger regarding the relationship between theory and praxis. There is a shift from Aristotle to Heidegger of: (1) priority of actuality to priority of possibility, which grounds a (2) shift from priority of theory to priority of praxis. This is seen in how (3) Heidegger's notion of "Theorie" modifies poiesis. The temporal ground is (4) Heidegger's notion of transcendence towards the world rather than an eternal being.
This document analyzes differences between Aristotle and Heidegger regarding the relationship between theory and praxis. There is a shift from Aristotle to Heidegger of: (1) priority of actuality to priority of possibility, which grounds a (2) shift from priority of theory to priority of praxis. This is seen in how (3) Heidegger's notion of "Theorie" modifies poiesis. The temporal ground is (4) Heidegger's notion of transcendence towards the world rather than an eternal being.
This document analyzes differences between Aristotle and Heidegger regarding the relationship between theory and praxis. There is a shift from Aristotle to Heidegger of: (1) priority of actuality to priority of possibility, which grounds a (2) shift from priority of theory to priority of praxis. This is seen in how (3) Heidegger's notion of "Theorie" modifies poiesis. The temporal ground is (4) Heidegger's notion of transcendence towards the world rather than an eternal being.
ABSTRACT: The discussion of Heidegger's destructive retrieve of Aristotle has been
intensified in recent years by the publication of Heidegger's courses in the ye
ars surrounding his magnum opus. Heidegger's explicit commentary on Aristotle in these courses permits one to read Being and Time with Aristotle's Nicomachean E thics and Metaphysics. My paper analyzes a network of differences between the tw o thinkers, focusing on the relationship between theory and praxis. From Aristot le to Heidegger, there is: (1) a shift from the priority of actuality to the pri ority of possibility. This shift, I argue, is itself the metaphysical ground of: (2) a shift from the priority of theory to the priority of praxis. This shift i s seen most clearly in the way in which (3) Heidegger's notion of Theorie is a m odification of his poesis. The temporal ground of the reversal is seen in (4) Hei degger's notion of transcendence towards the world, and not towards an eternal b eing.
I. From Aristotle's Actuality to Heidegger's Possibility
For Heidegger, possibility precedes actuality: though human beings have a factic al structure, the way that we interpret the world is on the basis of possibility . For Aristotle, however, actuality is prior to potentiality (Meta: 1049b 4ff). Now Aristotle's notion of physical potentiality and what Heidegger calls possibi lity are not identical. But nor is Aristotle's notion of potentiality limited to the coming-to-be of form in sensible things. In Metaphysics Theta, Aristotle distinguishes between rational potencies [dunmeis logoi] and irrational potencies [dunmeis logoi]. Irrational potencies are those t hat admit of only one result, thus something hot must produce heat; this is the physical and metaphysical notion of potency, that everything tends, by nature, t owards fulfillment of its potency. In the physical world, sensible ousa are finit e as particulars, but the universal character of ousa, the universal form, is ete rnal. The physical cosmos is the eternal cycle of movement from potentiality to actuality in sensible things. In book Lambda, it is shown that this eternal move ment is grounded formally and finally by a first mover, an eternal being, who is fully actual. Thus actuality precedes potentiality in the physical cosmos. The notion of rational potency is perhaps closer to what Heidegger intends by po ssibility. Rational potencies, such as the tchnai (the poietic sciences), admit o f contrary results: the science of medicine can produce sickness or health. The actualization of rational potencies is determined by desire (particularly in the case of animals) or by rational choice [rexin proaresin], though it depends on wh ether the desire or choice is directed towards that for which we have a given ca pacity (Cf: Meta: 1046a 36-b 9; 1047b 31-1048a 15). But desire and choice are al so directed towards some end. Choice is the efficient explanation of action; and the final explanation of choice is desire and reason, themselves directed to so me end (NE:1139a 6).
The Essential Writings of Karl Marx; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, The Communist Manifesto, Wage Labor and Capital, and Critique of the Gotha Program