Abstract

Purpose. This dissertation aims to open up an avenue for understanding the relation between the thinking of Aristotle and that of Martin Heidegger. This entails a radical re-thinking of Aristotle's thought as the fulfillment of the Greek experience of Being. My thesis wishes to show that Heidegger's "commentary" on Aristotle's Physics, B, 1 reaches beyond this passage and is grounded in a discovery of the fundamental project that governs all of Aristotle's thought--the recovery of the meaning of physis. The thesis maintains that the method of this recovery lies in a proper understanding of logos. ;Sources. The dissertation follows the path of Heidegger's interpretation of Aristotle in "Vom Wesen und Begriff der Physis: Aristoteles' Physik B, 1." This short section of Aristotle's Physics on which Heidegger's discussion is based is actually a condensed formulation of the central thought and terminology of Aristotle's philosophy. Heidegger's other writings are considered when they are helpful in understanding the issues raised. The dissertation also examines Aristotle's writings to see to what extent Heidegger's interpretation is justified from a broader consideration of Aristotelian texts. ;Thesis. Aristotle's thinking accomplishes the fulfillment of the Greek understanding of Being. Being was understood in Greek thought as enduring presencing. Because natural beings are characterized by movement, their Being must therefore be an illusion and deception . Aristotle's accomplisment was to not deny the non-being which belonged to such beings and to think this non-being as a characteristic of Being itself. Aristotle was able to win his understanding of physis by paying attention to the logos, the address in which beings are revealed. The failure to see the Being of natural beings resulted from the dominance of the kind of logos employed in the realm of techne which brings forth beings under its direction and for its own use. But this kind of logos is inadequate for an understanding of natural beings because such beings have their genesis in themselves. Aristotle achieves his insight into the Being of natural beings by establishing the difference between physis and techne. In doing so, he reopens the ontological difference, the difference between Being and beings. It is on the basis of a proper understanding of this difference that Aristotle is able to show the sameness of beings in their Being