Arche and Nous in Heidegger’s and Aristotle’s Understanding of Phronesis

Abstract I offer a novel interpretation concerning Heidegger’s appropriation of Aristotelian phronesis in terms of the shifting roles that arche plays in structuring the disclosive movements proper to Aristotelian and Heideggerian phronesis . Specifically, I show that an intriguing ambiguity present in how Aristotle understands arche , in the sense of its being both an originative source of and what grasps first principles, can be leveraged to explain changes in the mediating relation between nous and logos relevant to Heidegger’s appropriations of phronesis , which I then employ to explain two additional features thereof: how it differs from Aristotelian phronesis and how it changes subtly from its more explicit manifestations in the Sophist to its more implicit presence in Being and Time . One significant ramification of this arche -reading of Heideggerian phronesis I also explore is how an understanding of phronetic disclosure in terms of arche can inform an understanding of the temporality of the disclosure of Dasein’s Being in Being and Time .