vida como possibilidade e auto-abertura (Sheehan, 2015, 139-140)

For Heidegger as for Aristotle, life, whether it be the ζωή of plants and animals or the βίος of human beings, is necessarily bound up with possibilities of itself. Life in general is an Entheben in das Mögliche: a being lifted up and away into the possible. Life’s actuality is to be caught up in possibility.¹

In the last analysis, potentiality and possibility belong precisely to the essence of the (living thing) in its actuality, in a quite specific sense.²

In its most basic form, life is a natural drive to be underway to more of itself, an ongoing unfolding of itself (Sich-zeitigung) so as to appear in a new εἶδος, which in turn generates ever more possibilities, including its ever-present possibility of death.³ Insofar as life consists in constantly bringing forth something new of itself, it is a natural process of disclosure.⁴ The reason? Life is a kind of ϕύσις (Sich-zeitigung: self-unfolding), and ϕύσις is a kind of κίνησις (a being-moved), and κίνησις is a kind of μεταβολή (change whereby something hidden comes to light), and μεταβολή is a kind of ἀλήϑεια.⁵ Φύσις/κίνησις = μεταβολή/ἀλήϑεια, the single process of a natural thing’s bringing-forth from itself what was heretofore hidden.

But the living thing is not thrown or appropriated into just any possibilities. Most basically it is a Selbst-ermöglichung, an enabling of itself, in the sense that it is the very possibility of becoming its own future-possible self. A living thing naturally sets forth its own what-for (Wozu) and sets itself forth into it, while always remaining with itself as the source of this drive.⁶ Unlike a tool, which gets its capacity to serve a purpose from its maker, living things pro-duce their own ability to achieve their what-for. They are self-enabling acts of becoming.⁷