I ran across this quote from Aristotle, Metaphysics I.1 in Hannah Arendt's unfinished masterpiece [matches her lover's *Seyn und Zeit*] *Human Mind*. Hannah claimed the 'oregontai' literally meant "to have seen, i.e., to know". Her ancient greek is not as sharp as her thinking: I found that 'oregontai' is the middle voice of 'oregein' [oregw] and means to reach out for or metaphorically, to desire. 'eidenai' is the infinitive of 'oida' and means to see.
I'm still a little puzzled by the 'tou'; apparently the singular masculine or neuter genitive form of the definite article, it is the only genitive in the sentence.
http://www.minervaclassics.com/index.htm
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Revision #1: Read *life of the mind* for "Human Mind'.
tou eidenai is apparently an infinitive clause acting as object of oregontai: "All men are from nature reaching out for the seeing." That is, knowledge from seeing or appearance.
Revision #2
Of course Frau Doktor Arendt was right and I wrong. I was reading eidenai as if it were idein (to see). Eidenai is the infinitive of the perfect tense of EIDW (I see), so it means "to have seen" which is customarily englished as "to know" [the appearance of]. This fits right well with the epistemology of *The Life of the Mind*.
Remember also that such confusion can also come from the fact that, if you read Heidegger and Arendt in translation, and not their original German, their understandings of ancient Greek may not at first seem obvious? i.e. we talk about a triple translation process here: ancient Greek/German/English! lol
Interesting!
So I have problems with Arendts opposition phusei-nomoo, which in my opinion should be phusei-nomoi.
Am I correct?
HAS
You forget that in ancient greek grammar oida which is, indeed, to see, also means to know. This is because in ancient greek psicology when you see something you know something.
i.e: Socrates famous quote: en oida oti ouden oida
Therefore, the infinive form eidenai alongside with the middle voice of oregontai (desire) can be transalted as: "desires to know"
Yes, Julio, you are right. Also the 'tou' indicates the infinitive noun phrase has been used like a Latin gerund in the genitive: "All humans by nature reach out to know". This translation seems to be confirmed by the LSJ Lexicon under 'oregw M/P cum genetivo'.
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