Heidegger

Michael Eldred wrote:

> ME: For Aristotle, the philosopher sees _to theion_, which is the _aei on_, the “forever
> being”, which can be the celestial bodies forever circling in their unchanging orbits,
> but also _to ti aen einai_ or “the what-it-was-ness”, standardly translated into English
> as “essence” or, in other words, the _eidos_, the ’sight’ by virtue of which a being
> shows itself _as_ a being. The philosopher is able to see what a being always was, apart
> from the accidents of its existence as _tode ti_, i.e. as “this some-what”.

I agree that for Aristotle, the philosopher sees both the eternal beings
and the eidos, but I can’t find any text in which he characterizes
(explicitly or implicitly) the *latter* as divine, whereas there are
numerous texts in which he describes the former as a divine and godlike
sight.

> Similarly for
> Plato, the philosopher is the rare one able to stand steadfastly looking at the sight of
> the _ideai_ which are present also in everyday things. The traditional demarcation line
> between Plato and Aristotle as ‘idealist’ and ‘realist’ is one of the most stupid
> prejudices in philosophy. This traditional view depends on taking Plato’s mythical
> parables to explain things at face value, i.e. as the ‘real thing’. For both Plato and
> Aristotle, even the lowly potato only shows itself as a being by virtue of the divine
> _eidos_ of what it always already was, its _to ti aen einai_.

Again, for Aristotle, eidos yes, but I can’t find any reference to that
as divine at all (as opposed to the philosopher’s “sight” of eternal
beings, specifically). As for Plato, his own student Aristotle certainly
didn’t take his separation of the Ideas from sensible things as merely a
mythical parable, but rather as a distinct metaphysical thesis, which he
opposes quite strongly in Metaphysics Zeta.

> ME: For Aristotelean metaphysics to be of any (theological) use to Christianity, it must
> exploit the ambiguity in Aristotle between _to theion_ and _ho theos_. Once this
> ambiguity is clarified — which is fundamentally the same ambiguity in Plato and
> Aristotle between _to on_ and _einai_, between beings and being — the ontological
> difference can be seen more clearly.

Well, I still can’t find any text in which Aristotle refers to either
the eidos of everyday beings, or the sight of simply these, as to
theion. Nor am I saying that he limits the divine to the unmoved mover -
as you point out, for example, the celestial beings are also described
as divine beings. But he repeatedly calls them this in virtue of their
physical *incorruptibility*.

Posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
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