Thus even in the sphere of practical behaviour, actuality precedes potentiality

in Aristotle. Rational potencies are dependent on rational hxeis, and these are d
ependent for their fulfillment on a more primordial irrational dunmis: that of th
e progression of all things from potentiality to actuality. Human beings, like a
ll sensible beings, progress towards their telos, which is reason. (2) Reason is
inspired by and directed towards the eternal, pure actuality. Pure actuality is
thus the final explanation of any human potentiality; and explanation precedes
explanandum.
For Aristotle, the eternal and fully actual is primary in establishing the meani
ng of "being", and the way that human being understands his or her own being. Et
ernity is the basis of Aristotle's ontology and his ethics: being is eternal.
In Heidegger, on the other hand, any notion of the temporal infinite, if such a
notion is coherent, is gathered from Dasein's prior understanding of itself as t
emporally finite. Since Dasein is finite, and since Dasein is disclosiveness of
being, time and being are primordially finite. Whereas knsis in Aristotle applies
to beings coming into actuality, and human being achieving its rational telos, i
n Heidegger, Dasein's understanding of beings, and thus of being, is kinetic. Ki
netic understanding is grounded in the kinesis that is Dasein itself in its tran
scendence. Finite movement, as opposed to infinite presence, defines Heidegger's
ontology. Human being as living into finite possibility, and as aware of its ow
n possibility, precedes actuality in the order of understanding. Between Aristot
le and Heidegger, there is then a shift from the priority of the eternal to the
priority of the finite.