hexis

[…] For its part, hexis is related to this echein, taken as a mode of being-there (Chapter 20): [citação grego Mt 4 20, 1022 b 4 sq.] hexis is the energeia, “the genuine there, the being-present of the having and of what is had.” The there is related to having, having as the having of what is having and of what is had. Within this being-context, hexis means the genuine being-present of having as such.

[citação em grego Mt 4 20, 1022 b 5 sq.] “When the one does something, the other is done; thus the doing as such is the metaxu, the between. There is also a between in the case of having clothes on, having-on on the one side, the clothes that are put on on the other side.” The having-on as such is the hexis. This having is something ultimate, as nothing more can be had on its part. The having of this having is not a new being-determination, but rather simply the there, the being-present. In having on the clothing that is put on, it is genuinely there as put on. It is the same with the being-there of clothes. An article of clothing is not there when it is hanging in the closet, but when it is put on; it is in its telos. In being put on, the clothes are what constitutes the genuine there of the clothes, both put on and worn: the hexis.

Aristotle further characterizes this hexis as [citação em grego Mt 4 20, 1022 b 10 sq.] In relation to the being-contexts that we are treating, diakeisthai is related to metabollein, which happens through the pathe. diakeisthai in Chapter 19: having is a taxis, allotment of parts in various respects, an allotment that has the character of thesis. Thus it is a posited allotment, not a merely accidental being-thrown-together, but a being-posited. The hexis as diathesis, as taxis, springs from proairesis: the proper finding-oneself in the being-allotted of the moment.

hexis is the determination of the genuineness of being-there in a moment of being-composed as to something: the various hexeis as the various modes of being able to be composed. hexis is, in an entirely fundamental way, the being-determination of genuine being, here in relation to human praxis. praxis is characterized through arete, and arete is characterized as hexis proairetike. praxis, as the how of being-in-the-world, appears here as the being-context that we can also designate in another sense as existence. Being-composed is not something optional and indeterminate, for in hexis lies the primary orientation toward the kairos: “I am there, come what may!” This being-there, being-on-the-alert in one’s situation, in relation to its matter, characterizes hexis. hexis is, therefore, a being-possibility that is related in itself to another possibility, to the possibility of my being, that within my being something comes over me, which brings me out of composure. [GA18:174-176; GA18MT:118-119]