5

The Praxis of Human Life Revealed as Care

The Seminar on Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics from SS1923

AT THE SAME TIME THAT HEIDEGGER WAS TEACHING Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics in the summer continuation of the WS1922-23 seminar, he was teaching Book I in a seminar for so-called beginning students (Anfänger).¹ In a letter to Karl Löwith of April 21, 1923, Heidegger anticipated this seminar with some enthusiasm, writing: “The only thing I am committed to are the Aristotle exercises [Aristotelesübungen] for beginners on the Nicomachean Ethics. Perhaps among the completely fresh young people sits one or the other who will be gripped” (Denker 2017, 85). His expectations were apparently met, since in a subsequent letter of May 8 he tells Löwith, “Among the young people, some make a very good impression—in the exercises for beginners (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics), there are 80! Around 70% ‘master’ Greek—I took much pleasure in the first two hours—in any case, I should now be completely free so as to be able to commit myself precisely to this exercise” (87). The focus of the seminar was more precisely the first six chapters of Nicomachean Ethics I.² These chapters are discussed and commented on in order, starting with the very first line of the book and ending just before Aristotle’s definition of the highest good for human beings. The other place in which Heidegger interprets this part of the Nicomachean Ethics is in the course of the subsequent summer (SS1924), Die Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie.³ The overall interpretation is largely the same in the two cases, though there are differences of emphasis and detail. These will be noted in the course of the subsequent discussion. The most obvious and substantial difference is that the 1923 seminar discusses in some detail Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Idea of the Good in chapter 4 (chapter 6 in modern editions), whereas the 1924 course has less to say (GA18, 79, 305–307).

As for the guiding theme of this reading of the early chapters of the Nicomachean Ethics, it is announced right away in the first class, which is undated but probably held May 5.⁴ Opening, rather surprisingly, with a reference to the phrase philia êthikê (friendship of character) in the discussion of friendship in Book VIII, the transcript notes that the term êthos concerns “the factical existence [Dasein] of a human being in the πόλις” and that “[t]his is therefore here the theme” (WNE, 1). A little later we read that “the object of consideration is life in the πόλις.” We should not assume, however, that Heidegger is going to give a reading of the Ethics that emphasizes its political dimension. This is because, as becomes clear right away, existing or living in the polis as the determination of human being has nothing to do with “politics.” Instead, “in the polis” means “in the world with others in the sense of shared taking care of things within the world.” Heidegger thus identifies all of the things said to aim at the good in the first line, that is, technê, methodos, praxis, proairesis, with “taking care of something [etwas besorgen] (in a completely indifferent sense = settling something [erledigen])” (WNE, 1). The guiding concept for these phenomena, despite being one of the four listed, is, Heidegger proceeds to claim, praxis. But praxis must be understood here in a broad sense in contrast to a narrower one: “A broader, more extended sense of πρᾶξις (to take care of, settle) to be distinguished from πρᾶξις in a narrower sense: that kind of taking-care-of [Besgorgen] that is complete [fertig] in its own performance [Vollzug], that has its τέλος in itself” (WNE, 1). Heidegger notes that Aristotle, immediately after the above list of kinds of activities that aim at the good as their end (τέλος), distinguishes between two kinds of ends: those that are the activities themselves and those that fall outside the activities (1094a4; παρ᾽αὐτὰς). As Heidegger also notes, activities whose ends fall outside themselves are poiêseis and their organized development technai; activities that are their own ends would then be praxeis in the narrower sense. But Heidegger insists that it is not this narrower sense that is at issue in chapter 1, but the broader sense: a sense in which praxis means simply Besorgen.⁵

What characterizes all activities as forms of Besorgen is having a telos, whether this telos is the activity itself or falls outside it. But what is meant by telos? A natural assumption would be that it here means “aim” or “goal,” so that the point being made is that all activities aim at a goal, whether they are their own goal or their goal lies outside them. But it is in no way an overstatement to say that Heidegger’s entire reading depends on rejecting this interpretation of the term telos, an interpretation that gives it a purely psychological rather than ontological significance and therefore makes it unsuitable to being a determination of the being of human beings. Already in this first class, Heidegger makes a claim he will repeat throughout the seminar: “The categorial character of τέλος is πέρας. It is a determinate limit. . . . It can encounter [us] in the form of a goal. It can be a goal only because it is a being-complete [Fertigsein], not vice versa” (WNE, 1). The claim, then, is that what telos fundamentally means is “limit”: “end” in the sense of what completes a thing, finishes it, not in the sense of a “goal” it aims at. Telos can refer to a “goal,” but only in a completely derivative sense that presupposes the prior sense of “end = limit.” Heidegger here refers to Metaphysics Δ.16 and 17: in the former chapter teleion is defined as that of which no part is outside it or which is not exceeded by anything belonging to its genus, and thus as what has “limit” in a positive sense; in the latter chapter, “limit” (πέρας) has as one of its senses the telos of something. Both chapters will be discussed in detail later in the seminar.

Heidegger next draws attention to the other crucial concept in the opening lines of the Ethics: dunamis. The term is found at line 1094a10 in reference to one power or capacity under which different arts can fall: what turns out to be the capacity of a master art. The implication is that all arts, and indeed all activities, that have an end also have the determination of being dunameis. After pointing out that a dunamis is an archê in the sense of that from which something happens, and that an archê is also a peras—Heidegger is alluding to Metaphysics 1022a7–8, to receive detailed discussion later—Heidegger claims that Aristotle dealt with dunamis for the first time in a purely categorial sense. Heidegger then brings together the two key notions of dunamis and telos, each one a peras or limit, though at opposite ends of an action, in the following claim: “That which I can, I can from out of this ‘can’ in the form of ἐπιτελεῖν, so that I really arrive at being-complete” (WNE, 2). If dunamis is a determination of human existence in the sense of the I-can, as we have seen Heidegger maintain since SS1921, this dunamis can be understood in terms of the completeness at which it aims. Heidegger can therefore proceed to claim that the being-complete at issue when Aristotle speaks of telos and the good (ἀγαθόν) is “the being-complete . . . of the concrete existence of a human being in the πόλις” (WNE, 2). We see here why it is so important for Heidegger to give the term telos a purely ontological meaning: what is at issue here is not the reaching of a goal, not even the highest goal, but rather the becoming complete of the existence of a human being as a being-in-the-world with others.

This explains a claim that Heidegger immediately proceeds to make: “The concept of the ἀγαθόν is not the genuine and central one, but is only a way in which the τέλος is given, a way in which it presents itself as an object” (WNE, 2). This is startling indeed: the concept of the good is not the important one in the Nicomachean Ethics, but is in fact completely dispensable in favor of the notion of “limit” expressed by the word telos. A year later in the SS1924 course, Heidegger will give a purely ontological interpretation of the agathon along the lines of that of telos.⁶ Here, however, he seems more willing to dispense with the notion of the good altogether. In case we are in any doubts about this, the transcript continues: “Aristotle alone has understood that ‘good’ is a mere word. For the Greeks being-complete is genuine being. Only from here is the argument with the ἀπεῖρον conclusive” (WNE, 2). The last sentence refers to Aristotle’s argument for there being a highest good that is pursued for its own sake and is not itself pursued for the sake of anything else; without such a highest good, our choices and wishes would go on indefinitely (εἰς ἀπεῖρον), with the result of our desires becoming empty and futile (1094a20–21). Heidegger’s suggestion is clearly that the sole function of the good here is to serve as a limit; why then do we need the word “good” when we can just speak of the limit that renders something complete? Heidegger will even cite Aristotle’s claim at the end of chapter 1 that “these things are the aim of the inquiry” (1094b10–11)—taking these things to refer to action, knowledge, friendship and, in general, the human being’s position in the πόλις—as evidence that “therefore the theme of ethics is not the ‘good’” (WNE, 3).

Heidegger next comments on Aristotle’s claim, immediately following the “infinite regress” argument, that gnôsis of the highest good, which he translates as “being-acquainted” (Vertrautsein) with the highest good, will have great weight in life (1094a23; μέγαλην ἔχει ῥοπήν). Heidegger explains that “every πρᾶξις presupposes knowledge concerning that which should be made and the manner in which it must be made. Each person must be informed about the object with which he deals. He does not simply go ahead, but lives in the ἐπιστήμη with each blow of the hammer. ἐπιστήμη belongs to πρᾶξις. ἐπιστήμη is itself a πρᾶξις, and πρᾶξις has as its manner of being realized [Vollzugsweise] a determinate ἐπιστήμη” (WNE, 3). It is noteworthy that while Aristotle immediately proceeds to identify the knowledge of the highest good with “political science” (ἡ πολιτική ἐπιστήμη), a knowledge he will sharply distinguish from technê in Book VI, the example Heidegger chooses to explain the weight that a knowledge of the good has for our lives is the knowledge of how to hammer. What he proceeds to say indeed makes clear that he understands the gnôsis in question as that circumspection (Umsicht) that gives our practical dealings with things like hammers their “sight.”

As to what kind of knowledge of the good is possible, Aristotle himself warns us not to expect anything more than a rough outline (1094b20), given the fluctuation to which the good is subject both in opinion and in reality, and adds a general rule in the line Heidegger turns to next: “For it belongs to the educated person [πεπαιδευμένου] to search for precision in each kind of thing only to the extent that the nature of the thing itself allows” (1094b23–25). To clarify the meaning of pepaideumenos, Heidegger cites the first line of the Parts of Animals: “With regard to every study and investigation, the humblest and the noblest alike, there appear to be two ways of being disposed, one of which can be well declared to be knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) of the subject, and the other some kind of education (οἷον παιδείαν τινά). For it belongs to the educated person in a way to be able to judge accurately what in the speaker’s exposition is well or not well said” (639a1–6). Heidegger insists that the pepaideumenos here is not the “cultured” (Gebildete) person since such a person “prattles on about everything and indeed in the same indifferent way” (WNE, 4). Instead, what is meant is someone who is schooled or formed (geschult) and has an instinct for the subject matter. With this ends the class and Heidegger’s discussion of (his) chapter 1.

One thing in chapter 1 Heidegger unfortunately has not discussed is Aristotle’s assertion, in apparent tension with the earlier suggestion that knowledge of the good has great weight, that the end of the present study “is not knowledge, but action” (1095a5–6; τὸ τέλος ἐστὶν οὺ γνῶσις ἀλλὰ πρᾶξις). Yet the class of June 2 begins, before turning to the reading of chapter 2, with a claim that identifies the aim here with neither the one nor the other. The aim is neither to know what the good is nor to become good, neither to know how to act well nor to act well, but rather to become complete, that is, to become completely what we are. “Dasein (always Dasein in the πόλις) should become what it genuinely is, arrive at its end. Become who you are” (WNE, 4). The concluding words are the same words from Pindar⁷ that Heidegger will cite in Being and Time when discussing Dasein’s projection of itself in understanding (SZ, 145). As the parallel citations show, the aim of Aristotle’s Ethics becomes on Heidegger’s reading hard to distinguish from Heidegger’s own in Being and Time. The aim is not to help us develop a better character that is better able to act well in particular situations with others; the aim is not to identify the activities that, pursued for their own sake and therefore inherently pleasurable, can make us happy; the aim is not to teach future statesmen how to make their citizens good. The aim is to show what it is for Dasein to be fully what it is, to be complete in its being. The aim is purely ontological.

The starting point of chapter 2 is, as Heidegger notes, the universal agreement that eudaimonia is what the highest end is to be called (1095a17–18; ὀνόματι μὲν οὖν σχεδὸν ὑπὸ τῶν πλείστων ὁμολογεῖται). When Aristotle further notes that people take the verb eudaimonein to be the same as “living well” (εὖ ζῆν) and “acting well” (εὖ πράττειν), Heidegger uses this claim to defend an ontological reading of eudaimonia by way of the following little syllogism: “Therefore, εὐδαιμονία relates to life. Life is a mode of existing. Therefore, εὐδαιμονία relates to being. (Life as a mode of being is explicated in De Anima)” (WNE, 5). One could of course object that, while it is evidently true that eudaimonia is a way of living, and therefore a way of being for a living being, it is more than that: it is living well. But just as we have seen Heidegger dismiss any notion of the agathon distinct from telos understood in the sense of being-complete, so here he interprets the eu (well) as signifying simply the way in which the living being becomes itself: “εὖ = in such a way that it answers to the genuine tendency that life has within itself” (WNE, 5). This tendency, as we have seen, is in short expressed by the word “care.” This is why eudaimonia is also identified with eu prattein (doing well), a phrase Heidegger predictably translates as “besorgen.” So we could say that to the extant one is answering to one’s inherent tendency as a living being to take care of things in the world with others (Heidegger never loses sight of the dimension of Miteinandersein he takes to be expressed by the word polis), one is living well. But the specific question here concerns the highest good and therefore in what kind of life this tendency reaches a limit and becomes complete.

If there is general agreement that eudaimonia is a way of being (WNE, 5; significantly, the transcript does not describe the agreement as being about what is best), disagreement begins when we seek to determine what this way is. Heidegger claims that the different views on eudaimonia arise from different relations to life itself, different ways of seeing life. He notes in particular, following Aristotle, that some identify eudaimonia with “enjoyment, amusement” (ἡδονή) and others with “reputation” (τιμή). Faced with this disagreement, how do we proceed? Aristotle notes that there are two possible methods here: one that argues from first principles and one that argues to them (1995a31–2). Aristotle then claims that Plato was in perplexity about which way to take (1095a32; ἠπόρει). Heidegger, like others, sees here a reference to Book VI of the Republic, specifically the account of the upper section of the Divided Line (511b). Plato, however, expresses no perplexity there, describing a dialectical method that first ascends to the first principle and then descends from it. The reference to Plato’s aporia or “difficulty” nevertheless leads Heidegger to reflect on the nature of aporia and to claim that “all discussion of aporias has its genuine methodological sense, is no empty debating, only when it is carried out in the possession of a determinate fundamental conception that has a peculiar indeterminacy, but this nevertheless again determined” (WNE, 6). Aristotle not only was aware of the importance of a proper discussion of aporiai (Heidegger refers to Metaphysics Β [III], which he calls “one of the hardest things bequeathed by Aristotle”), but also in the present case expresses clearly his fundamental conception when he declares, “Perhaps (ἴσως) we are to begin from the things known to us” (1095b3–4). Heidegger insists that the “perhaps” is only a piece of irony directed against Plato; what Aristotle means is that “one can naturally set out only from what is familiar.”⁸ And what is familiar to us is life itself. Heidegger, therefore, turning to the third chapter, cites Aristotle’s claim that the many, because arriving at this view from their lives (ἐκ τῶν βίων), do not without reason (οὐκ ἀλόγως) identify eudaimonia with pleasure (1095b14–16).⁹

Such a life directed at pleasure is what Aristotle calls the bios apolaustikos (1095b17). Heidegger draws attention to the word bios here which, he claims, does not mean simply life (ζωή) but “a directed life, a life that has a completely determinate direction, in which ὄρεξις has a fixed determinate direction, in which a How of Living, and therefore εὐδαιμονία, exists formally” (WNE, 7; my emphasis). What is to be examined, Heidegger adds, is in which bios eudaimonia is to be found really. But for this we need a criterion, and therefore a determinate conception of the agathon, by which to judge each kind of life. Heidegger sees Aristotle as working out two determinations: (1) the agathon must be oikeion, that is, “the good must concern my being”; and (2) it must be dusaphaireton, incapable of being taken away.¹⁰ It is these two determinations, according to Heidegger, that make the critique positive, as all genuine critique should be. He claims that the positive outcome of chapter 3 is not simply that the first two mentioned kinds of lives are done away with: that of pleasure and that of honor, and because both things can be taken away from us and are not proper to our being. The positive outcome is the identification of two essential determinations of the agathon, which Heidegger describes as two sides of the same thing but coming from completely opposed directions: what belongs to your own being is also what cannot be taken away from you by others. In conclusion, Heidegger notes that the third type of life, the bios theôretikos, is only named here and not yet discussed like the others.

The following class of June 9 turns immediately to the critique of Plato’s Idea of the Good in the next chapter (Heidegger’s fourth, the sixth in more recent editions). Heidegger first comments on the overall structure of the chapter, dividing it into three parts: (1) up to 1096b8 we have the argument that good is predicated in the different categories and that there is no one idea common to these (1096a22–23; ὥστ᾽ οὐκ ἂν εἴη κοινή τις ἐπὶ τούτοις ἰδέα); (2) from 1096b8 to 1096b32 we have the argument that “the good is not something common corresponding to one idea” (1096b25–26; οὐκ ἔστιν ἄρα τὸ ἀγαθὸν κοινόν τι κατὰ μίαν ἰδέαν) even for goods pursued and desired in themselves; (3) after 1096b32 we have the argument that if the good were predicated in common or were something existing separately by itself, it would not be something that could be put into practice or possessed by human beings (1096b33–34; οὐκ ἂν εἴη πρακτὸν οὐδὲ κτητὸν ἀνθρώπῳ). Heidegger suggests that all these parts of the critique are anticipated in Aristotle’s earlier identification of what is sought with “the highest of all practical goods” (1095a16–17; τὸ πάντων ἀκρότατον τῶν πρακτῶν ἀγαθῶν): “Here is already established the whole question from which the critique of the theory of Ideas [will be developed]” (WNE, 8). Heidegger here again reminds us that prakton means what is to be taken care of (das zu Besorgendes), “what encounters us in the form of something to be taken care of in πρᾶξις” (WNE, 8). This means that the critique of the theory of Ideas is rooted in this context of Besorgen. This point is emphasized when Heidegger, commenting on Aristotle’s example of the doctor looking not to health as such but to the health of this patient (1097a11–13), comments: “this sick person stands before the doctor, he is what is to be taken care of, that is the genuine good” (WNE, 8).

Before continuing with Heidegger’s interpretation, we should note what he identifies as a major question Aristotle raises in the second part of the chapter: if the good is not something common corresponding to one idea, how is it spoken (1096b26; πῶς δὴ λέγεται)? It cannot be compared, Aristotle adds, to chance homonyms (think of the “bark” of a dog and the “bark” of a tree). But if it is also not a synonym, possessing the same meaning in all cases, how then is it spoken? Aristotle offers the following possibilities: “is it by all [things called ‘good’] being derived from one [ἀφ᾽ ἑνὸς εἶναι], or coming together in relation to one [πρὸς ἓν συντελεῖν], or rather by way of analogy? For as sight is in the eye, so is the intellect in the soul, and another thing in another thing” (1096b27–29). As Heidegger notes, Aristotle declines to provide an answer here, claiming that the question belongs to another kind of philosophy (that is, not “ethics”). Yet the question is not answered anywhere else in Aristotle’s writings; and indeed, what would be a better context for addressing the question concerning the relation between the different meanings of “good” than the present study that has the highest good as its object?¹¹ Heidegger asserts that the question “has not been brought any further until the present day!” (WNE, 8). Heidegger himself will not pursue it any further in the present seminar. He will later in the class simply refer to the beginning of Aristotle’s Categories to explain the meaning of “homonym” (“one says the same in addressing different things!”) (WNE, 10) and “synonym” (the genus is the same): thus the two options Aristotle rejects in the case of the good. The positive alternatives Aristotle lists above Heidegger neither cites nor discusses. This is worth noting for the following reason: Heidegger’s earlier suggestion that the good is a mere word suggests that it is a “homonym,” while his insistence that it means simply the same as telos and thus “being-complete” suggests it is a “synonym.” Can Heidegger’s reading make any sense of the kind of third option Aristotle points toward?

If Heidegger earlier suggested that the critique of the theory of Ideas is based on praxis understood as Besorgen, after turning to the discussion of the categories in the first part of the chapter, he claims that the whole critique stands on the basis of logos (WNE, 9). These are not incompatible claims since, already in making the first point, Heidegger reminds his students that to every praxis belongs a vision (Sicht) and that this vision explicates itself in logos (WNE, 8). In dealing with things, I must address them, whether explicitly or not, as this or that. Heidegger here appeals to the original, pre-philosophical meaning of katêgorein: to publicly accuse someone and thus, more broadly, to announce someone or something as being this or that. The “category” is thus a determinate way of addressing something (Ansprechen), but Heidegger adds that it is also, and more genuinely, a way of being of that which is addressed. There are different categories because there are different ways of revealing (kundgeben) a thing in what it is, though Heidegger adds: “not so much the way of carrying out the revealing [Kundgebung] as the way of being [Weise des Daseins] of what is explicated” (WNE, 9). The access to being here is by way of logos. Heidegger notes that Plato himself accessed what he calls the “Idea” by way of legein understood as dialektikê. That Aristotle bases his critique of Plato’s Ideas also on logos shows that he understands Plato and that his critique hits its mark.

If the categories express different ways of being, does this make being itself a genus of which the categories are the different species? Heidegger replies that Aristotle’s fundamental insight is that being in fact is not a genus (WNE, 10). The class concludes with Heidegger’s suggestion that while this view remained operative in the Middle Ages, it was explicitly taken up first by Husserl when he directed his inquiry toward the “how” of intending and discovered the distinction between formalization and generalization. This rather obscure suggestion is unfortunately not developed further in the notes. Heidegger also does not explore Aristotle’s listed alternatives to seeing the good, and presumably being itself, as a common genus.

The next class of June 18 begins with the first line of chapter 4 (1096a11) that contains the phrase to katholou beltion (what is on the whole best) as what needs to be investigated. Heidegger reflects on the meaning of katholou: while it is normally translated as “general” or “universal” (allgemein), Heidegger asserts that this meaning is completely derivative; something is “universal” because it is katholou and not vice versa (WNE, 11). Because it is said in relation to the whole (kath’ holou), looking away from the singular, what is katholou is that whose nature it is to belong to many things, what is common (Metaphysics 1038b11; καθόλου λέγεται ὅ πλείοσιν ὑπάρχειν πέφυκεν). The reason, according to Heidegger, for why the katholou beltion needs to be examined in chapter 4 is that we are looking for “the highest of all practical goods” and the katholou, as referring to the whole, appears to be what is highest.

Heidegger next observes that the characterization of the good as katholou is not a claim about what it is, but rather a claim about how it is. The topic of chapter 4 is, therefore, the way of being that belongs to the good. The critical question is whether the way of being Plato attributes to the good—that is, that of being katholou, koinon (common)—is the one that corresponds to the good’s existence (Dasein) and substantive content (WNE, 12). To answer this question, something needs to be made out positively concerning the manner and way in which the good is there (da ist). In this context the notes contain in brackets a contrast between two sorts of critique that merits being cited in full, not only for what it tells us about how Heidegger sees Aristotle’s critique of Plato, but also for what it tells us about Heidegger’s own relation to Aristotle:

Critique-by-Standard (MaßstabsKritik): from a fixed standpoint comparing the results of another opinion with one’s own. Discussed from the outside, purely formal. Unproductive. Delivers nothing in terms of knowledge.

Positive-Critique: relation to a substantive fundamental problem. What does the other want, what does the other intend? How is the matter set up? In this way I position myself on the same ground with the other, vis-à-vis the subject-matter. No defensive position (Abwehrstellung). (WNE, 11)

There are certainly some who would consider Aristotle’s critique of the theory of Ideas to be an example of “critique-by-standard”: does not Aristotle critique the Ideas from the fixed standpoint of his own conception of being and the Idea of the Good in particular from the fixed standpoint of his own conception of the good? But we have already seen that this is not the case in Heidegger’s view: Aristotle positions himself on the same ground as Plato, namely, that of logos, and critiques him from this shared standpoint. Heidegger furthermore certainly sees his own relation to Aristotle as one of positive critique: we have seen in this seminar and others Heidegger’s determination to discover what Aristotle intends and to get back to that ground from which Aristotle’s thought arises. Never do we find in Heidegger’s seminars the kind of critique he rejects here and the kind we find in much of the contemporary literature on Aristotle: a critique that seeks to determine how close Aristotle came to getting it right, how close his logic is to modern logic, how close his biology to modern biology, and so forth. Such an approach is philosophically unproductive because it gets from the reading of Aristotle nothing more than self-serving confirmation of its own prejudices.

In addressing the question of what way of being belongs to the good, Heidegger provides some direction with the following example: if I want to know something about the way of being that belongs to a building, I look to how it is given in and for my perception, not to the act of perception itself. Yet how it presents itself to me, how it is there for me, is at the same time how I perceive it. Heidegger gives another example: “The way in which I am in the university, my manner of being-in, is at the same time how the university encounters me, how it is there” (WNE, 13). The way of access in which the good encounters us is not perception but speaking (λέγειν). Aristotle’s question is, as we have seen, “How is the good spoken [πῶς λέγεται]?” How then is the good present in logos, the latter being a “saying something of something” that thereby makes manifest? With this question and the brief account of the function of logos as a making-manifest, the class ends. This appears an abrupt conclusion since the next class will move to chapter 5. But presumably what we are to conclude from chapter 4 is the following: what is good is good in relation to praxis, is prakton; but praxis, as Heidegger reminds us, is meta logou. It is in logos, therefore, that the good is encountered, but the way in which it is present in logos is not as something common, not as a “synonym,” but in different ways according to the different ways of speaking or addressing that are the categories. If in my practical dealings I say “This is a good time to eat” or “This is a good place for a swim” or “This is a good amount of fertilizer” or “He is a good farmer,” and so on, the good presents itself and is spoken differently in each case. Yet this is really only a negative outcome. If being katholou cannot be the way of being of the good, contra Plato, the question of how it is spoken, and of what way of being belongs to it, receives no positive answer. As we have seen, Aristotle does not accept the view that good is a “chance homonym” and presents several possible ways in which it might be spoken neither homonymously nor synonymously, and therefore different ways in which it might be, but without defending any of them. As we have also seen, Heidegger himself does not pursue the question any more than Aristotle does and, surprisingly, does not make an issue of it.

In the next class of June 23, he indeed justifies moving ahead to chapter 5 with the observation that “the Platonic critique contributes nothing to determining the content of the good, but brings out its character as an object [gegenständlichen Charakter] (philosophically fundamental to bring this out first, whereas the naïve question would first proceed to the ‘What’)” (WNE, 14). This is an odd comment because the critique of Plato does not bring out in any positive sense the way of being of the good. What the critique accomplishes is only to justify the manner in which the question about the good was initially formulated, a formulation repeated by Heidegger at the beginning of the class: what is the highest of all the practical goods? Heidegger here suddenly asks what the search for such a good has to do with the polis. Or we could state the question in another way: why is the search for the highest practical good called “political science”? Heidegger’s answer is clear and direct: since “πρᾶξις is the genuine being of human beings” and “the being of a human being is being in the πόλις,” the human practical good cannot be defined without reference to the polis (WNE, 13).

Turning to chapter 5, Heidegger does find a positive determination of the being of the good, if one that does not directly answer the unanswered question from chapter 4, namely, how the good is spoken. Indeed, this positive determination has been there from the beginning of the inquiry and is only being made clearer now (1097a25; μᾶλλον διασαφῆσαι). The one thing that can be said of all goods is that they are ends at which we aim, as was said in the very first sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics, so that the chief good would appear to be “something complete” (1097a28; τὸ δ᾽ἄριστον τέλειόν τι φαίνεται). What exactly does teleion mean here? That of course depends on the meaning of the term telos, which Heidegger defines as follows: “end, being-complete, limit (not aim, goal [Ziel, Zweck])” (WNE, 14). As we saw already at the beginning of the seminar, Heidegger’s overall reading depends on not identifying the notion of telos with that of “aim” or “goal,” treating the latter as at most a completely derivative meaning of the term.¹² This is now developed and defended in the present class. Heidegger first notes the need to distinguish between the three concepts of “end,” “being-complete,” and “limit,” which means identifying the determinate contexts in which these concepts are rooted.

The notion of being-complete (fertig-sein) has its meaning in the context of taking care of something; it encompasses both what is dealt with (Womit des Umgangs) and the process of dealing with it (Gang des Umgangs). The notion of end refers to the end of this process, the point at which it arrives at a determinate position (WNE, 15; ist ein bestimmter Stand da). For the notion of limit (Grenze), Heidegger cites Aristotle’s claim in the Metaphysics (D.16, 1021b[27–]28) that death can be called a telos “metaphorically,” that is, by transference. This is possible because life reaches its limit in death. Death can be called a telos only because telos has the sense of limit. Yet the reason why death is a telos only metaphorically is that, while it is indeed a limit, it is not a limit of the kind that genuinely defines telos. Heidegger explains: “Life does not become what it is through death, but rather precisely ceases in death. . . . In contrast, through the τέλος something first arrives at its full being. Τέλος is a characteristic of being [Seinscharakter], and indeed the kind of characteristic of being through which the being in question first becomes what it is. Τέλος is not ‘coming into being,’ but actually ‘having come into being,’ being complete (fertig sein)” (WNE, 15–16). As Heidegger notes and will develop later in the class, the notion of telos is simply the counterpart here to that of archê: as the archê determines in advance the being of that of which it is the archê, the telos determines a thing’s being from the other direction in making it complete.

In case we have not noticed, Heidegger observes that in all of this there is no talk of goals or aims. Now he explains why by defining what a goal is. He first notes that there is actually no word in Greek for “‘goal”; the closest analogue is skopos (point of view). The archer has in view the goal at which he aims his arrow. This approaching of the goal of course brings with it the possibility of missing the goal (WNE, 16). Now Heidegger can explain that the telos need not be a goal because “it need not be the explicit object of an approach. Τέλος is a characteristic of being that constitutes a being in its being” (WNE, 17). Even if this claim is true regarding the term telos, we must wonder what is the point of making it in the context of Aristotle’s Ethics. Must not the good be a telos precisely in the sense of something we move toward but can miss, and thus precisely in the sense of a goal? Otherwise, Aristotle’s highest good would no more be something prakton (doable) than Plato’s Idea of the Good. Heidegger proceeds to grant that because the telos must be present in advance for a praxis, it can also be a goal (WNE, 17). But he insists that this is not the original or fundamental meaning of telos. Again we can ask: in what context? In the Ethics and as a determination of the highest practical human good, must not telos have precisely and fundamentally the meaning of something we can achieve or fail to achieve in aiming at it—thus the meaning of goal?

It is therefore significant that in further explaining the meaning of telos as supposedly more original than goal, Heidegger must turn to the Metaphysics and, specifically, the discussions of the terms teleion and peras in Book Δ.16–17.¹³ Heidegger cites the following passage at the beginning of Δ.17 that he will then comment on: “What is called ‘limit’ [πέρας] is the extremity of each thing outside of which no part of it is to be found and within which all of it is contained, and whatever is the form of a magnitude or of something possessing magnitude, and the end [τέλος] of each thing (such a thing is that toward which [ἐφ᾽ὅ] there is motion and action and not that from which—sometimes, however, both: that from which and that toward which” (1022a4–8). From this passage Heidegger draws the conclusion that “the fundamental character of τέλος is πέρας” (WNE, 17). This seems, however, an odd conclusion to reach. Aristotle in this chapter, as in other chapters of Book Δ, presents different meanings of the term: in this case, telos is one meaning of the term peras. Which one? Aristotle tells us: peras is telos in the sense of that toward which a movement moves and an action acts. Is this not to say that peras has the meaning telos only when it is the goal of a movement or action? And how could we infer from this that telos fundamentally means only peras (in which sense?) and not goal. Though the notes are not very clear here, Heidegger appears to have sought to avoid this result by insisting that the “ἐφ᾽ὅ” does not mean “that toward which” (auf das zu) and by weakening the meaning to something like “that in relation to which motion is what it is.” Indeed, he takes the last part of the passage cited as meaning that archê and telos are opposite limits of an action that determine its being. He even notes in this context that in genuine praxis in the narrower sense of the term, the archê and the telos are one and the same. This simply defines praxis as an “exceptional being” and has nothing to do for Heidegger with a praxis being pursued for its own sake and thus being its own goal. Instead, Heidegger protests that “aim and goal are not at all ontological categories” (WNE, 17). This is doubtlessly true, but the question is whether praxis and telos are themselves, at least in the context of the Ethics, ontological categories.

For Heidegger, the importance of separating the notion of telos from that of goal becomes especially clear in the extraordinary set of claims with which the class ends: claims that amount to saying that introducing talk of goals into the Ethics would render the text incomprehensible. Let us now consider these claims. Heidegger first asserts: “When one takes τέλος to be goal, the designations τελειότερον and τελειότατον are also completely incomprehensible” (WNE, 18). This is a strange claim. Is it really incomprehensible that something should be teleioteron than something else in the sense of being a higher goal toward which the latter is a means? Heidegger also asserts: “When by τέλος one understands ‘goal,’ it becomes completely incomprehensible how θεωρία can be the τέλος of being in the πόλις” (WNE, 18). Difficult, yes, as the extensive literature on the subject shows, but “completely incomprehensible”? As is well known, for Aristotle the polis should be so disposed as to facilitate and promote the goal of theôria. In general, Heidegger asserts that “without having understood the Aristotelian meaning of τέλος, the Nicomachean Ethics is as a whole incomprehensible” (WNE, 18). But the key here is what Heidegger means by the “Aristotelian meaning.” Immediately before this assertion, he makes what is perhaps the most problematic claim of all: that wherever Aristotle speaks of telos and teleioteron, we are to understand the terms in their full meaning (der volle Sinn). This is to say that even though Aristotle, in the very texts from the Metaphysics Heidegger cites, distinguishes between different senses of these terms, we are not to understand them in one sense in the Ethics and in another sense in the Metaphysics. Instead, everywhere and every time Aristotle uses them, we are to understand them in the full sense, which can only mean in all of their senses or in some sense that encompasses all of these senses. If there is some “hermeneutic violence” in this seminar, this could be its explicit principle.

Yet these objections should not prevent us from recognizing the extent to which Heidegger’s protests are justified. To reduce the notion of telos to that of goal in the modern sense, that is, something that is desired and pursued because subjectively valued, is indeed to render the Nicomachean Ethics, if not incomprehensible, at least greatly impoverished. If the highest good is our ultimate goal, this is only because it makes our existence complete. As we will learn, our highest good is the excellent performance of the function or work that defines the kind of beings we are. If this is a goal, it is one built into the very structure of our being. It is through the good as teleiotaton that we become and are completely what we are. Eudaimonia itself is not “happiness” in the sense of subjective satisfaction, but a state of fulfillment to which nothing is lacking and beyond which nothing else is to be sought (compare Aristotle’s first definition of peras in the passage from the Metaphysics cited above). Heidegger is perfectly justified in drawing our attention to this ontological dimension of Aristotle’s Ethics too much neglected by readings that interpret Aristotle from the perspective of modern ethics (and its assumed distinction between “is” and “ought”). The question is whether he does not go too far in the other direction in treating “good” as an empty word and the notions of “goal” and “aim” as completely derivative and inessential.

The next class of June 27 begins by summarizing the conclusion of the previous one: teleion means “constituting the being-complete of something” (WNE, 18). The sought-for highest good is what is most teleion in this sense, what is teleiotaton. Now Heidegger notes that the determinations of the highest good provided in chapter 5 are ontological determinations, not determinations of its content. He then addresses the two key ontological determinations Aristotle provides of the highest good as teleiotaton:

1. It must be “καθ᾽αὑτὸ διωκτόν” (1097a30–34). Heidegger in commenting on this phrase revealingly avoids the meaning of “pursued or desired for its own sake,” in keeping with his determination to avoid the introduction of the notion of goal. Instead, the phrase is taken to mean “something at which πρᾶξις halts, no longer grasped with a view toward something else that it would demand as still lacking to it” (WNE, 18).

2. It must be autarkes, “what needs nothing, suffices for itself, does not point away toward something else” (WNE, 18–19).

If Heidegger explicitly notes that this second determination has the character of limit (πέρας), it is clear that the first one also does on his reading. In support and following Aristotle (1097b8–11), Heidegger notes that autarkes is not to be understood superficially in a solipsistic sense that would make this determination of the good incompatible with living with parents, friends, and children. What the determination autarkes requires is that this circle of relations have some kind of limit, as Aristotle says (1097b12; ὅρος τις). Thus is confirmed for Heidegger the importance of the notion of peras for determining the good. He cites the following principle from the Generation of Animals: “Nature flees the indeterminate [ἄπειρον] because the indeterminate is incomplete [ἀτελές]” (715b15–16). Another confirmation is the next line Heidegger cites: the autarkes, Aristotle says, is not to be numbered as one among other goods (1097b17; συναριθμουμένη). The talk of a “quantity” of goods would be completely inappropriate here; the category of how much (πόσον) simply does not apply since we are dealing with a way, a “how,” of being. (Heidegger notes in this context that meson, the concept by which Aristotle will define virtue, is also not a quantitative concept; WNE, 19). If quantity were at issue, Heidegger continues, there would be no telos to the meaning of Dasein because there would constantly emerge new possibilities. Thus, in Aristotle’s rejection of numbering goods, a numbering that in principle could go on indefinitely (εἰς ἄπειρον), we see again that “limit” is an essential determination of the good.

Heidegger now turns to chapter 6, the last chapter the seminar will consider. It is in this chapter that Aristotle defines the highest good on the basis of the human being’s distinctive ergon. As Heidegger notes, ergon does not here mean “product,” but rather the kind of comportment in which a carpenter, for example, is a carpenter. What lies ontologically at the basis of the notion of ergon, Heidegger claims, is the movement (κίνησις) of taking care of something, bringing something about, “accomplishing something” (WNE 19; etwas zu etwas bringen). If Aristotle argues that the being of a human being as such has an ergon, this means that in a human being something is accomplished. Already in our individual limbs, we see this character of accomplishing; our limbs do something, perform a distinctive function. Aristotle’s argument is that this is true of a human being as such. Heidegger concludes: “Human being in the manner of bringing-itself-to-something. The being at issue here is life. What is sought is the character of the living thing as human” (20).

The language Heidegger uses and that is translated above as “accomplishing something” means literally “bringing something to something” (etwas zu etwas bringen), and one must wonder why he chooses such an expression given that it is not suggested by anything in Aristotle’s text. It is language that appears to privilege productive comportment. Heidegger’s example of the carpenter is one used by Aristotle himself (1097b28). But Aristotle also uses as examples the flute player and the lyre player. In what sense do these have the ergon of “bringing something to something”? This question is perhaps what prompts a strange addendum to the notes for this class (separated by a line from the rest). The example is given of the violinist (clearly to parallel the examples from Aristotle just mentioned) and we are told that the violinist does “bring it to something” (bringt es zu etwas) in being heard and in being taken for something in his surroundings. The point seems to be that the violin playing does indeed bring something about in producing the reaction to itself, in being taken or received in one way or another. But note that this explanation puts the emphasis not on the accomplishment of playing the violin well, but rather on the accomplishment of producing a certain effect.

The final class of July 7 begins with a review of the different tasks of chapters 5 and 6. The fifth chapter seeks to determine the manner of being. The manner of being in question is eudaimonia, and its specific way of being is to be teleiotaton and autarkes. The sixth chapter seeks to determine of which being eudaimonia is a manner of being. Noting that Aristotle here locates the eu (the good) in the ergon, Heidegger again interprets this latter term as meaning “accomplishing something” or, literally, “bringing something to something” and describes chapter 6 as asking if this “ontological determination” can be applied to the being of human beings.

Heidegger notes that Aristotle begins with very concrete ways of being like those of the sculptor and the flute-player. Their way of being is determined by what they are concerned with. What determines their being is being-positioned (Gestelltsein) in relation to a determinate environment of concern (Umkreis des Besorgbaren). The question that Aristotle raises starting at 1097b28 (εἴπερ ἔστι τι ἔργον αὐτοῦ) is, according to Heidegger, the following: what care (Sorgen) can be attributed to a human being as a human being? Human being is not to be determined from the perspective of a determinate concern, but in terms of being-positioned as such (WNE, 21).

Different parts of us position us in the world in different ways. The ergon of the eye is to see; seeing is its object of concern. In seeing I position myself in the world in a determinate way. Through my other senses, through my hands and my feet, in short, through all the different parts of me, I am positioned differently in the world. “But with all these different ways of being positioned, is there something that goes through all of them? (παρὰ πᾶντα [1097b32])” (WNE, 21). As Heidegger notes, the eu that characterizes eudaimonia as a way of being cannot be simply cobbled together out of the different erga of the different parts of us.

With the introduction of the notion of life (ζῆν) at 1097b33, Heidegger sees a new beginning to the inquiry: a human being is now situated among plants and animals, that is, among beings that live (WNE, 22). What is sought now is what is peculiar to a human being among living things (1097b34; ἴδιον). Being in the sense of self-nourishing and self-increase is excluded as not peculiar to human beings (1097b34–1098a1). Once the life of perception is excluded as also being common with other animals, what remains (1098a3; λείπεται), if we keep human being in view, is “a kind of practical life of that which possesses logos” (1098a3–4; πρακτική τις τοῦ λόγου ἔχοντος). Heidegger interprets “possessing logos” as “that which has expression [Aussprechen] and address [Ansprechen]. Furthermore: that which has what is addressed itself [das Angesprochene selbst]” (WNE, 22). The being that characterizes this practical life of what possesses logos is indeed being understood as “being-positioned in the world” (Gestelltsein in die Welt). Such being-positioned, of course, already characterizes the life of perception. Therefore, what Heidegger appears to emphasize is the being of living things in general within which is to be located what is peculiar (ἴδιον) to the human being. “A being is positioned in the world. Thrown into a world so that it has a world (the shoe does not come upon the world) and must preserve itself therein” (WNE, 22).

Following Susemihl 1880 in bracketing for exclusion the next line (1098a4–5) that refers, rather without point in the context, to the two parts of the rational part of the soul,¹⁴ Heidegger sees an important new step starting at line 5 with the claim that “practical life” can be understood in two senses: as dunamis and as energeia. Heidegger observes that “the genuine being, however, lies not in the δύναμις, but in the ἐνέργεια” (WNE, 23). Aristotle wishes to give priority here to the active sense of “practical life”: our highest good and our eudaimonia cannot consist simply in the ability to live the practical life of what possesses logos, but rather in actively doing so. But Heidegger notes that in the lines that follow, energeia itself is interpreted in two ways: the activity of the lyre-player and the activity of the virtuoso lyre-player (σπουδαῖος) are generically the same, but “well” or “excellence” are attributes only of the latter. Aristotle, in a line quoted by Heidegger himself, speaks in the latter case of adding to the ergon an excess according to virtue (1098a10–11; προστιθεμένης τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν ὑπεροχῆς πρὸς τὸ ἔργον). Yet Heidegger’s reading appears to ignore the suggestion of an “addition” here, describing instead the energeia of the virtuoso as most fully energeia: “Violin-playing is genuine violin playing when the full possibility it possesses is exhausted (σπουδαῖος)” (WNE, 23).¹⁵ It seems that on this reading it is not that the virtuoso plays the violin better than the amateur, but rather that only she genuinely and fully plays the violin. We can see why Heidegger would give such a reading: what he is aiming at is an identification of the highest good with what completes and fulfills our being, with our genuine being.

This may also explain an odd move at this point in the class. Heidegger suddenly cites the following definition of dunamis from Metaphysics Δ.12: “Dunamis means the principle of movement or change either in another or qua other; for example, the art of building is a dunamis that cannot be found in that which is built; in contrast, the art of healing is a dunamis that can be found in the person healed, but not insofar as he is healed” (1019a15–18). Heidegger’s brief commentary makes it clear that what interests him here is the contrast between the art of building and the art of healing: the former can in no way be found in what is being built since nothing can build itself; the latter, however, can be found in the person being healed since a doctor can heal himself (though it is not in the same respect that he is healing and being healed). As Heidegger explains, in the case of building, the archê and the telos cannot be in the same thing: the archê is in the builder and the telos is in the thing built. In the case of healing, in contrast, the archê and telos can be in the same thing. This is because—and this is the point Heidegger wishes to make—the thing is here a human being. “Such a thing [that is, the ἀρχή and the τέλος being in the same thing] is found only in the being of human beings” (WNE, 23). With this claim Heidegger oddly appears to forget the broader context to which he himself drew our attention: that of living beings. Cannot the archê and telos of a movement also be found together in a living thing, and indeed in a natural thing, given that Aristotle in the Physics defines as natural that which has its principle of motion and rest in itself? How, then, can Heidegger say that this is found only in human being? We cannot know; perhaps some of the context of the claim is missing from the transcript. What seems clear is why Heidegger is making the claim here: to suggest that the telos of human beings is human being, that their teleiotaton agathon is their own being as fully possessed. We should also recall here Heidegger’s earlier claim that the archê and the telos are the same in praxis as narrowly defined. The example of healing in the cited passage is clearly not such a praxis; even if in its case the archê and the telos can be in the same thing, they cannot be in it qua the same since the healing and the end of being healed are clearly not the same. This is what makes healing a technê and not a praxis. But whether Heidegger sees this or not, what he clearly wishes to suggest with his interpretation of the passage from the Metaphysics is that human being as praxis is its own end.

The transcript of the class comes to an abrupt end at this point. The obvious omission is discussion of the conclusion that the whole argument being discussed here reaches at 1098a16–17: “the human good is activity of the soul in accordance with excellence” (ἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθὸν ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια γίνεται κατ᾽ἀρετήν). The parallel discussion in SS1924 reaches this conclusion (see GA18, 100), but does not go any further than it. So it seems that what we are missing are at most the last few minutes of the seminar. Since the other seminar of this summer ended July 5, it is reasonable to assume that July 7 was indeed the last class of the present seminar.

Whether or not he already did so in SS1923 without the notes recording it, in SS1924 Heidegger provides the interpretation of the conclusion at 1098a16–17 that already the discussion in SS1923 would lead us to expect: “The ψυχή is determined as constituting the being of what is alive. This being-in-the-world as ἐνέργεια is a determinate possibility of concern [Besorgen], of πρᾶξις, as being set to work, and this being-set-to-work [Ins-Werk-Setzen] as εὖ, earnestly (σπουδαίου) seized, so that the final possibility of being is grasped at its end” (GA18, 100–101). Here we have all the key elements that the analysis of SS1923 has prepared us for: the identification of praxis with being-concerned with things in the world; the eu of eupraxia identified with seriousness or earnestness (one is tempted to say “authenticity”); praxis interpreted as a way of being; the human good identified with bringing this possibility of being to its proper end, and the grasping of this possibility of being taken to be its own end. Put negatively, one can say that what disappears here is any distinction between action and work, between action and being, and between genuine action and good action. This is no oversight; it is the explicit aim of an ontological reading that takes its direction from a conception of being as being-produced.

This interpretation might also appear to collapse, or at least to leave unclear, the distinction between human being and living being as such. Are not all living beings in the world in the manner of concern? But Heidegger would presumably reply that the praxis in question here is a praxis meta logou: a concern that expresses itself and addresses the objects of its concern. It is therefore also a concern that can grasp itself as such and thus bring itself to an end, grasp itself as its own end. This is presumably what is peculiar to human beings and denied to other living things. What Heidegger has sought and found in Aristotle’s Ethics is an account of the genuine being of human beings as living in the world with others: an account that identifies this being as care capable of grasping itself as its own end, care becoming complete. In the context of such an account of our being, the “good” can be little more than an empty word and any talk of goals or aims becomes utterly trivial.

Since the seminars examined in the next three chapters will turn to the Physics, a turn we have seen already anticipated as a necessary one, it will be useful to remind ourselves of the trajectory of the group of seminars considered so far. We began in the SS1921 seminar with the interpretation of the being of life in De Anima as a peculiar type of movement, namely, one that preserves, that brings to itself, what is moved. This movement was then further analyzed as the unity of orexis and nous through a reading of De Anima III.9 in the 1922/23 seminar: an analysis that shifted the focus to human life. This seminar then turned to Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics for an account of the different ways of being in and manifesting the world (ἀληθεύειν) that are the dianoetic virtues in order to determine which was the best hexis, that is, the way of being that most fulfilled being-in-the-world by rendering it most transparent. Though both phronêsis and sophia appeared to fulfill this requirement through their possession of nous, in the continuation of the seminar in SS1923 Heidegger focused on phronêsis as a distinctively human way of being in the world. At the same time, in the SS1923 seminar considered in this chapter, Heidegger sought in Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics a general analysis of human being (as in the world with others) in terms of the movement of concern reaching completeness. At issue in all of the above, from the account of the being of life to the account human existence in the polis, is the phenomenon of movement. Therefore, neither what we have found in De Anima nor even what we have found in the Nicomachean Ethics can be fully understood without turning to the analysis of the being of movement itself in the Physics.