This article is a continuation of Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics – Part One, where I explored Heidegger’s metaphysical discourse on Being, examining how it intersects with the reformed concept of place I am discussing at RSaP-Rethinking Space and Place.
So far in the first three chapters of Introduction to Metaphysics (the 2000-edition translated by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt),[1] Heidegger has outlined the preparatory groundwork for the final investigation of the structure of Being, which is discussed in Chapter Four and is the subject of this article. ‘How does it stand with Being?’ — in other words: What is the status of Being? What about Being? Going forward, just as in the previous article, the summary of Heidegger’s arguments will be introduced by bold and italic headlines indicating the specific chapter and section of the book, while my commentaries will be introduced by bold headlines on a light-grey background.
Chapter Four: The Restriction of Being
The article’s title in the final part, ‘The Limitation of Being’, differs from the translation by Fried and Polt, ‘The Restriction of Being’—‘Die Beschränkung des Seins’.[2] Since my primary interest lies in exploring the connection between the concept of Being and the processual notion of place, I prefer the term ‘limitation’, used by Ralph Manheim in the first English translation of An Introduction to Metaphysics, over ‘restriction’. This choice is due to the fact that the concept of place is built on the concept of limit, and I will use images and schemes to demonstrate how the domain of Being can be understood as a placial domain defined by concrete or abstract limits.
To provide an overview of the argumentation in the Chapter Four, I will summarize the key points from the introduction of my previous article: this final chapter explores how the concept of Being relates to other fundamental notions that delimit its essence and meaning, as outlined in the chapter title, ‘The Restriction of Being’. The introductory Section A, ‘Seven points of orientation for the investigation of the restriction of Being’, sets the direction for Heidegger’s arguments, which are then developed in subsequent sections, where Being is examined in relation to becoming (Section B. Being and becoming), seeming (Section C. Being and seeming), thinking (Section D. Being and thinking — this section having special relevance since ‘thinking’ is the decisive limitation, or restriction, that gives a final orientation to the modern interpretation of Being), and the ought (Section E. Being and the ought). The final section (Section F. Conclusion) provides a concise review of the discussed arguments. Heidegger’s strategy for his final approach to Being is presented in Section A of Chapter Four.
Heidegger’s strategy to give the final assault on Being is presented in Section A of Chapter Four.
Chapter Four – Section A. Seven points of orientation for the investigation of the restriction of Being
The question now is to confront Being with what is distinct from it. Heidegger announces: ‘We will now pursue the distinctions between Being and its Other’.[3] The distinctions mentioned — Being and becoming; Being and seeming; Being and thinking; Being and the ought — indirectly affirm the domain Being belongs to; they need to be elucidated, considering some important points, which will guide all the remaining investigations on Being. Let’s hear directly from Heidegger what these ‘points of orientation’ consist of: ‘1. Being is delimited against an Other and thus already has a determinateness in this setting of a limit. 2. The delimitation happens in four interrelated respects [Being and becoming; Being and seeming; Being and thinking; Being and the ought]… 3. These distinctions are by no means accidental. What is held apart by them belongs together originally and tends to come together. Hence, the divisions have their own necessity. 4. Therefore, the oppositions… arose in close connection with the stamping of Being whose openness became definitive for the history of the West. They had their inception with the inception of philosophical questioning. 5. The distinctions have not remained dominant only within Western philosophy. They pervade all knowing, acting, and speaking, even when they are not expressed explicitly or in these words. 6. The sequence in which we listed the terms already gives an indication of the order of their essential connection and of the historical sequence in which they were stamped. The two distinctions we named first (Being and becoming, Being and seeming) get formed at the very inception of Greek philosophy… The third distinction (Being and thinking), which was foreshadowed in the inception no less than the first two, unfolds definitively in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, but first takes on its real form at the beginning of modernity… The fourth distinction (Being and the ought) belongs thoroughly to modernity… 7. Asking the question of Being in an originary way, in a way that grasps the task of unfolding the truth of the essence of Being, means facing the decision <Entscheidung> regarding the concealed powers in these distinctions <Unterscheidungen>, and it means bringing them back to their own truth.’[4]
The first distinction worked out by Heidegger is the distinction between Being and Becoming:
Chapter Four — Section B. Being and becoming
‘This division and opposition stands at the inception of the questioning of Being’: this is Heidegger’s introductory statement concerning the division between Being and becoming.[5] The division is further explained as follows: ‘That which “is” has left all becoming behind it, if indeed it ever became or could become. What “is” in the authentic sense also stands up against every onslaught from becoming.’[6]
Image 01: What we have called the ‘wavering between Being and not-Being’, in Image 05 of Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics – Part One, here can be considered again to understand the division between Being and becoming: it is a question for Being to ‘stand up’ against the possibility of not-Being, or becoming something else (a falling column, a broken column, etc.). Being in contrast to (the forces of) becoming: here, the question between Being and polemos — the Greek term for ‘war’, ‘struggle’, ‘confrontation’ between Being and ‘its other’ — resurfaces (see Chapter Two — Section B.2.b.ii).
Heidegger develops this question about the division between Being and becoming along two lines of reasoning, rooted in the Greek originary way of thinking; specifically, he references a fragment of Parmenides in the following two sections and contrasts it with Heraclitus’s thinking.
Chapter Four — Section B.1. Parmenides on Being as constancy
According to Heidegger, Parmenides, who lived at the turn of the fifth century B.C., ‘set forth the Being of what is in contrast to becoming.’[7] Heidegger quotes a fragment of Parmenides (fragment 8, lines 1-6) to highlight the main characteristics of Being, which can be summarized as follows: Being is ‘without genesis and without decay’; it is ‘complete’ and ‘standing fully there alone’; it is ‘present’, and ‘all-at-once’, ‘unique unifying united’; ‘gathering itself in itself from itself’, that is ‘holding itself together’ in full presentness.[8] Heidegger immediately draws some important conclusions on the character of Being: ‘We conclude from all this that Being indicates itself to this saying as the proper self-collected perdurance of the constant, undisturbed by restlessness and change.’[9]
Being is ‘without genesis and without decay’; it is ‘complete’ and ‘standing fully there alone’; it is ‘present’, and ‘all-at-once’, ‘unique unifying united’; ‘gathering itself in itself from itself’, that is ‘holding itself together’ in full presentness
Parmenides’ statement appears to starkly contrast with Heraclitus’s thinking, who is traditionally seen as the father of ‘change and becoming’. However, Heidegger surprises us with a completely different interpretation:
Chapter Four — Section B.2. The agreement between Parmenides and Heraclitus
‘Even today, in accounts of the inception of Western philosophy, it is customary to oppose Parmenides’ teaching to that of Heraclitus. An oft-cited saying is supposed to derive from Heraclitus: “panta rhei,” all is in flux. Hence, there is no Being. All “is” becoming… Heraclitus, to whom one ascribes the doctrine of becoming, in stark contrast to Parmenides, in truth says the same as Parmenides. He would not be one of the greatest of the great Greeks if he said anything else. One simply must not interpret his doctrine of becoming according to the notions of a nineteenth-century Darwinist.’[10] We are faced with the coincidence of opposites, which I interpret as follows: Parmenides and Heraclitus investigated the same subject, namely phusis. In the original Greek sense, phusis, or nature, encompasses both Being and becoming, representing two distinct ways to interpret the same event, differing from modern conceptions, such as Darwinist interpretations, as Heidegger noted. As Heidegger initially formulated, there is a conceptual identity and continuity between phusis, Being, and beings: ‘Phusis is Being itself, by virtue of which beings first become and remain observable’, Heidegger said.[11] This highlights the natural connection between Being and beings, as well as between Being (as permanence) and becoming—‘Becoming means: coming to Being’:[12] both are aspects of the event-phusis, which is ‘the event of standing forth, arising from the concealed and thus enabling the concealed to take its stand for the first time.’[13] Phusis is a complex event, and any great thinker tends to focus on specific characteristics of it; as Heidegger notes: ‘What use, then, is the multifaceted and complex history of Western philosophy, if they all say the same thing anyway?’.[14] This is why Heidegger says that they are saying the same, ultimately. There isn’t an absolute distinction between Being and becoming, as traditionally assumed; instead, their opposition is the necessary complementarity that unifies nature. The opposites only acquire their complete and true meaning when considered part of the same structure, known as phusis, or the unity of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum), which encompasses becoming as a way to define and delimit Being, in the original Greek sense.
So, now, Heidegger continues with the elucidation of the other parts of the complex structure of Being: the delimitation of Being against seeming, is the next step, Section C.
The place of Being and the place of becoming; Place (instead of Being) as a Parmenidean presence. The coincidence of opposites.
Before continuing with the exploration of Heidegger’s distinction between Being and ‘Other’, I will examine the question of Being and becoming from the perspective of place, demonstrating how this viewpoint aligns with Heidegger’s concept of Being in opposition to and continuity with becoming. In the placial framework I am outlining, place serves as both the region where processes exist or are present (the place for processes ‘to be’ — I mean to be present, in the sense of Being here, or there. This is the place of Being), and the region where they develop, take on specific forms, emerge, and preserve their existence (the place for processes ‘to become’, that is, to come into the specific forms of beings, or to emerge, to appear as beings where Being preserve its presence. This is the place of becoming). Here, ‘becoming’ is understood as ‘coming into being’. Place as such and as a whole (similarly to Being) is eternally present, without genesis and without decay. This character of continuity is what guarantees the constant presence of nature, phusis, as the place where Being and becoming converge, as Heidegger noted in relation to the seemingly opposing philosophical views of Parmenides and Heraclitus. From this placial-and-processual perspective, opposites coincide in place (nature, in its original sense of phusis, is the place of processes, or the place of Being and beings, as well as the place of Being and becoming). Without place there can be no physicochemical, biological, social and/or symbolic stand for beings and, therefore, if this is the case, before their realization (before their coming into Being as particular beings), there would be no possibility — no stand — for (their) Being at all. Without place, there would be no nature (no phusis). Without Place, the abyss of No-thing, the absyss of not-Being. Place, being eternally present as the place of processes, allows its eternal presence (Being-as-place) to manifest in beings (offering a foundation for Being to become — i.e., becoming — a specific being, following the actualization of processes), making it a unique, unifying structure. This structure is the place of Being and becoming, or, as I often illustrate, the place of Being( )becoming – the two halves, representing Being and becoming, form a single, unified domain: a Place. Then, there are not three different structures here (Being, becoming, and place). Place is not separate from Being and becoming; rather, it is the One, unified structure that encompasses both, holding itself together, in full presentness. In this One, we recognize Parmenides’ thinking, and since becoming is an integral part of it, we also acknowledge Heraclitus’ thinking, which is not contradictory but complementary, as Heidegger astutely observed, contrary to traditional assumptions. Being and becoming: this is the realm (the place) of nature—phusis. The One, due to its internal constitution, contains parts, and it is the (processual) dynamics of these parts that properly constitute its unity. Being and becoming. Being( )becoming, that is, the place of Being and becoming. Place, the place of processes, is the ground.
Image 02: The division/opposition between Being and becoming as elaborated by Heidegger in Introduction to Metaphysics (IM), first line, and as I conceive it, at RSaP – www.rethinkingspaceandplace.com, from the perspective of place. The conception of phusis described by Heidegger (quotations on the left)I have described pictorially, with the symbol ( ) — composed of two opposing brackets forming a set, or a whole, that is, the place of/as phusis — which means ‘belonging together’, opposition and unity; Phusis as the place of opposition and unity of Being and beings, is, in turn, a structure on which the opposition and unity of Being( )becoming, constant presence and change is grounded. Then, this unitary structure formed by the reciprocal action of the opposites is a place — the place of processes: in this way, the conception of Nature understood as the place of processes recovers the originary sense of phusis of the early Greeks.
Unlike traditional views of place as a static concept, which have led to outdated geographical and/or sociocultural narratives of place and space, the notion of place I’m discussing encompasses both the Being of beings (Being) and their potential to become something else (the coming of Being into beings— i.e., becoming) in the overarching, unitary compass that includes physicochemical, biological, ecological, social, cultural, and intellectual beings (entities). This means that place is not just a static, unchanging structure, but also a dynamic one, open to transformation (becoming), and thus open to possibilities beyond its original and founding limits. This vast structure holds together both the limited and the unlimited, forming an all-encompassing foundation that spans from the physical to the metaphysical, from the particular to the universal, from the concrete to the abstract, and from individual beings to universal beings or being as such and as a whole. One can also approach the question of Being and becoming by distinguishing between what is actual and what is not actual, or potential. This difference reveals the horizon of another opposition that characterizes the structure of Being, as Heidegger describes it, and also resonates with my understanding of the concept of place: the opposition between Being and seeming, which distinguishes between what is and what merely appears to be, but is not (or is no longer), a topic we will explore in the next section.
Chapter Four — Section C. Being and seeming
The opposition between Being and seeming is as originary as the opposition between Being and becoming. At first glance, the distinction appears clear: as Heidegger puts it ‘Being as opposed to seeming means what is actual as distinguished from and opposed to what is not actual’.[15] The same question can also be considered from the perspective of Being as that which is constant, as opposed to what seems or ‘what at times surfaces, and just as fleetingly and unsteadily disappears again.’[16] However, as clear as this distinction may appear, Heidegger suggests that we should consider it ‘in a Greek way…[and] go back, here too into the inception’.[17]
Chapter Four — Section C.1. The connection between “phusis” and “aletheia”
With a couple of examples in the current German language, Heidegger shows that we can still find some traces of the originary distinction between Being and seeming. The term ‘schein’ establishes this connection, possessing three related meanings: to shine (‘schein’ as luster and glow); to appear (‘schein’, and the verb ‘scheinen’, as appearing — the manifestation of something); and to seem (‘schein’ as mere seeming — the mere semblance presented by something). Those senses are intimately related between themselves (‘appearing’ as self-showing is appropriate both as a modality of ‘shining’ and as ‘semblance’) ‘not as an accidental characteristic — Heidegger says — but as the ground of their possibility. The essence of seeming lies in appearing.’[18] The connection with Being is almost immediate: as the moon shows itself, it appears, shining and seemingly large: ‘it stands in the heavens, it is present, it is.’[19] Analogously, when we say that the stars shine, ‘in glowing they are coming to presence. “Seeming” means exactly the same as “Being” here.’[20] However, to fully grasp the connection between Being and seeming, we must refer to the original Greek sense of Being. As Heidegger explains: ‘We know that Being opens itself up to the Greeks as “phusis”. The emerging-abiding sway is in itself at the same time the appearing that seems. The roots “phu-” and “pha-” name the same thing. “Phuein”, the emerging that reposes in itself, is “phainesthai”, lighting-up, self-showing, appearing.’[21] Heidegger continues: ‘for the Greeks, standing-in-itself means nothing other than standing there, standing-in-the-light. Being means appearing. Appearing does not mean something derivative, which from time to time meets up with Being. Being essentially unfolds “as” appearing… The emerging sway is an appearing. As such, it makes manifest. This already implies that Being, appearing, is a letting-step-forth from concealment. Insofar as a being as such “is”, it places itself into and stands in “unconcealment, aletheia”.’ [22]
The emerging-abiding sway [phusis, that is Being] is in itself at the same time the appearing that seems… standing-in-itself means nothing other than standing there, standing-in-the-light… as such [Being] stands in ‘unconcealment, aletheia’
Image 03: Appearing, standing in the light: this is what Being means according to the originary Greek sense. What appears, what is, gives itself an aspect — in Greek dokei. The term doxa, from the verb ‘dokei’, has different meanings: aspect or respect as glory; aspect as the sheer view offered; aspect as mere looking, that is, seeming as mere semblance; a view that someone constructs, an opinion. This explains the intimate connection between Being and seeming .
These passages on the sense of seeming in relation to Being are crucial in dispelling two presuppositions that hinder genuine understanding of nature’s character (or phusis, in the original Greek sense): firstly, the connection between Being and seeming, as they belong together in the original sense, reveals the meaninglessness of terms like ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’, or ‘realistic’ and ‘idealistic’. Secondly, it’s important to note that ‘aletheia’ cannot be simply translated as ‘truth’; rather, it means truth in the sense of allowing things to appear as they are, or to seem in the aforementioned sense of Being. Truth is not something that can be classified as true or false; rather, it is the only possibility for beings to be (Being) the beings they are; as the only possibility for beings to be, ‘truth belongs to the essence of Being’[23] — this is what ‘aletheia’ as the un-concealment of Being means. Before moving on to section C.2, which explores the connection between Being and truth in terms of appearance and seeming, let me offer a few additional thoughts on what we’ve discussed so far and how it relates to the concept of place I’m exploring at RSaP.
Seeming: Place as originary appearance (‘peras’: limit and place). Place as ‘un-concealment’ (‘aletheia’).
‘The essence of seeming lies in appearance’, Heidegger stated;[24] and according to him, this ‘essence’ is inextricably linked with Being, as he explains in Section C of Chapter Four. The intrinsic connection between Being and seeming, which is grounded on ‘appearance’, is preserved in the structure of place I am describing in this website. I believe their connection becomes even clearer when we consider them as intrinsic characters of place, in the sense that the notion of place is linguistically, philosophically, and physically built on the concept of ‘limit’, as Aristotle defined it — ‘place is the first unchangeable limit of that which surrounds’, is the definition given by the Stagirite (see Place and Space: A Philosophical History). We know that the Greek word for ‘limit’ is ‘peras’, and, as I mentioned earlier, there is a linguistic connection between ‘peras’ and ‘appearance’, whose similar sound is not a mere coincidence, as I observed building on The Origin of Language, by the American linguist Merritt Ruhlen (paragraph 1, in the article Limit Place Appearance). A thing must have a limit in order to appear as a distinct individual entity, standing out from the multitude of entities that form the background of its appearance. That which appears I understand as place. It is evident that ‘limit-as-peras’ and ‘appearance’, given their shared linguistic origin in the Greek root ‘peras’, are reciprocally explicative of their respective function. The limit (peras) is the essential condition that enables an event or set of processes to be contained within a defined region, allowing that region to emerge as a primordial form of existence, such as ‘Being’ according to Heidegger, which can unfold into various processes like ‘appearing’, ‘standing forth’, ‘abiding’… This ‘Being’ can be described as a ‘place of processes’. Alternatively, the limit can give rise to definite forms of existence (beings), resulting from the actualization of specific processes, such as rocks, trees, animals, families, nation-states, sculptures, buildings, mathematical formulas, or poems, which are the actualization of physicochemical, biological, social, symbolic, or intellectual processes. According to Heidegger, what emerges within a limit is the ‘unconcealment’ of Being (aletheia). I find it helpful to imagine a place where processes unfold, representing both Being, as generic processes, and beings, as actualized processes, to understand the concept of ‘aletheia’ as the revelation-unconcealment of these processes. Through this placial metaphor, processes are brought to light, revealing both Being and beings. If a place exists, it implies that a process or series of processes are revealed – what Heidegger terms ‘unconcealment’ or ‘aletheia’. Again, the narration of Being, as presented by Heidegger, closely parallels the narrative of place that I am developing here.
Here, I have briefly touched upon the connection between appearance and place, as well as unconcealment (or aletheia) and place, which are fundamental characteristics of the relation between Being and seeming; for a more detailed explanation, please refer to the article Limit Place Appearance.
Chapter Four — Section C.2. The connection between appearing and semblance
If to be a being means ‘to be made manifest, to step forth in appearing, to set itself forth, to pro-duce something’, in contrast, not-Being means ‘to step away from appearance, from presence. The essence of appearance involves this stepping-forth and stepping-away… Being is thus dispersed into the manifold beings. These display themselves here, there…’.[25] What appears, what is, gives itself an aspect, in Greek dokei. From the verb dokei the noun doxa derives, which has different meanings, one of them is ‘aspect — namely, the respect in which one stands. If the aspect, corresponding to what emerges in it, is an eminent one — Heidegger continues — then “doxa” means brilliance and glory… To glorify, to bestow and demonstrate regard, is, in Greek, to place into the light and thereby to provide constancy, Being. Glory, for the Greeks, is not something additional that someone may or may not receive; it is the highest manner of Being.’[26]
Doxa also has additional meanings (see the description of Image 03, above); if the aspect of what emerges, its stepping forth into the light, is merely experienced in passive terms of vision, that is as a point of view, then ‘Doxa, as what is assumed to be thus or thus, is opinion.’ [27] We are coming to the important conclusion of this section: ‘Because Being, “phusis”, consists in appearing, in the offering of a look and of views, it stands essentially, and thus necessarily and constantly, in the possibility of a look that precisely covers over and conceals what beings are in truth—that is, in unconcealment. This aspect in which beings now come to stand is “seeming” in the sense of semblance. Wherever there is unconcealment of beings, there is the possibility of seeming, and conversely: wherever beings stand in seeming, and take a prolonged and secure stand there, seeming can break apart and fall away.’[28] Here, Heidegger immediately warns us against considering seeming or semblance a derivative, reduced, or negative form of Being: ‘we must guard ourselves against cavalierly taking seeming as something just “imaginary,” “subjective,” and thereby falsifying it. Instead, just as appearing belongs to beings themselves, so does seeming.’[29] Seeming, just like becoming, is ‘an essential domain of our world’, concludes Heidegger.
Seeming, just like becoming, is ‘an essential domain of our world’
Chapter Four — Section C.3. The struggle between Being and seeming: Oedipus Rex
By working out the complicated relation between Being and seeming, the Greeks successfully distinguished Being from beings, bringing beings ‘into constancy and unconcealment.’[30]
Now, Heidegger introduces a crucial passage that will shape the future of Western thought: this passage marks the origin of misconceived dualisms, which involve a shift in the meaning of Being and beings, from constancy and presence to appearance in the sense of mere seeming. Let’s examine this question in more detail.
Up until now, we have examined becoming and seeming as aspects of Being; however, a shift in meaning is taking place: ‘with the sophists and Plato… seeming [was] explained as, and thus reduced to, mere seeming. At the same time, Being as “idea” was elevated to a supersensory realm. The chasm, “khorismos”, was torn open between the merely apparent beings here below and the real Being somewhere up there.’[31]
with the sophists and Plato seeming [was] explained as, and thus reduced to, mere seeming. At the same time, Being as ‘idea’ was elevated to a supersensory realm. The chasm, ‘khorismos’, was torn open between the merely apparent beings here below and the real Being somewhere up there.
The distinction between the constant, unchanging presence of Being (in the realm of universal ideas) and the fleeting, ever-changing appearance of individual beings (in the physical world) led to a separation between Being and becoming, as well as between Being and seeming. This shift in meaning will also have a significant impact on the concept of Being in a material sense, which we will explore further in another section. This development ultimately gave rise to our modern understanding of phusis as nature, in a reduced, physical sense, opposed to the ideal and spiritual – a dualism that still influences us today.
Heidegger further developed the important question concerning the struggle, unity, and antagonism between Being and seeming through poetic thinking, analyzing Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, which Heidegger calls ‘the tragedy of seeming’.[32] Additionally, Heidegger explores the question of Being and seeming in parallel with the question of language, which we introduced in Chapter Two (Section B.2.b. ‘Enklisis’ and ‘ptosis’ as based on the Greek understanding of Being as constancy): in fact, Heidegger notes that we can consider ‘seeming’ a variant of Being, similar to how we considered ‘enklisis’ and ‘ptosis’ as variants of the basic positions of verbs and nouns: ‘Now we see that seeming, as a variant of Being itself, is the same as falling over. It is a variant of Being in the sense of standing-there-straight-in-itself. Both deviations from Being [the linguistic one and the one concerning ‘seeming’] are determined by Being as the constancy of standing-in-the-light, that is, of appearing.’[33]
By recognizing ‘seeming’ as an inherent part of the structure of Being, we must acknowledge that we are constantly vulnerable to deception and error, as this possibility is an integral aspect of Being itself. The real issue is not that ‘seeming’ is part of the structure of Being, but rather that we, as humans, often mistake ‘seeming’ for Being itself, taking appearance for reality, which can lead to delusion. ‘Seeming’ dissimulates itself presenting as Being, and, when this occurs, we say we are deceived by the appearances. Delusion and deception arise from the ways in which ‘seeming’ is interpreted in relation to ‘Being’. In the distance between Being, unconcealment, and seeming, there lies a space for interpretation, which can lead to either a correct understanding of their relation, or deception/self-deception: that ‘space’ Heidegger calls ‘errancy’ (Chapter Four — Section C.4.).
Chapter Four — Section C.5. Parmenides and Heraclitus on thinking as laying out three paths: Being, seeming, and not-Being
Both truth, understood as unconcealment, and seeming, as a mode of appearance, are fundamental aspects of Being; their close connection, their ‘belonging-together’, can lead to confusion and mistakes. This is the reason why the Greeks tried to elaborate and elucidate these differences at the inception of philosophy. As Heidegger notes: ‘the chief effort of thinking at the inception of philosophy — that is, in the first opening-up of the Being of beings— had to consist in controlling the urgency of Being in seeming, in distinguishing Being from seeming.’[34] How did they proceed, how did they control that urgency and make the opportune distinctions? Three paths were necessary, Heidegger explains: ‘Because matters stand in this way with Being, seeming, and not-Being, three paths are necessary for the humans… [they] must bring Being to a stand, they must endure it in seeming and against seeming, they must tear away both seeming and Being from the abyss of not-Being.’[35] This threefold strategy was attempted at first by Parmenides; therefore, Heidegger analyzes some of fragments of Parmenides: these show that the first path — that of Being, the path into unconcealment — is ‘unavoidable’. Of course, the path to not-Being is ‘unviable’, ‘inaccessible’, it cannot be travelled, because it takes to Nothing; while the third path — the path to ‘seeming’ — which ‘looks like the first, but it does not lead to Being… is constantly traveled, so that human beings completely lose themselves upon it.’[36] Heidegger suggests that this path to seeming is accessible, yet avoidable; true understanding comes from knowing and experiencing all three ways.
Heidegger concludes his elucidation of the opposition and unity of Being and seeming (noting that opposition ‘also means the unity’)[37] with a quote from Heraclitus: phusis kruptesthai philei. Usually translated as ‘Nature loves to hide’ Heidegger interpreted it as ‘Being [emerging appearance] intrinsically inclines toward self-concealment’;[38] this clearly means that concealment is an intrinsic part of Being, and therefore, Being inherently ‘wavers’ toward seeming: the two are intertwined—they belong together. ‘Being means: to appear in emerging, to step forth out of concealment — and for this very reason, concealment and the provenance from concealment essentially belong to Being. The immediate proximity of “phusis” and “kruptesthai” reveals the intimacy of Being and seeming as the strife between them.’[39] Simultaneously, ‘emerging-appearance and concealment’, that is, using the pictorial expression I often rely on these occasions: ‘appearance( )concealment’, this is phusis, or ‘Being itself, by virtue of which beings first become and remain observable.’
Image 04: Systasis position at the start of the pale, the ancient Greek wrestling, which was the first event added to the Olympic program after the footraces, in 708 B.C. ‘The starting stance was called the systasis, or “standing together,” and is frequently portrayed in vase painting and sculpture. The wrestlers lean into each other with their foreheads touching, a stance likened by Homer to the way the rafters meet in a house (Iliad 23.30; A 1 ).’[40]
Misconceiving the concepts of place and space. Place as a system of processes: opposition and unity rendered as ( ). The Greek wrestlers and Heraclitus’ fragment.
Traditional and outdated narratives of place and space, including social, geographical, architectural, political, physical, and philosophical perspectives, often view place as a static structure. This misconception leads to the idea that place is a reliable, stable, and cozy territory that provides psychological relief and serves as a bounded area to defend against the outside world’s fluidity, fleeting nature, insecurity, and chaos. In contrast, a corresponding misconception of space has developed, portraying it as a fluid, boundary-less territory surrounding place or places. This vision is based on two flawed assumptions: first, that place is a bounded, closed, and static structure, which misinterprets Aristotle’s dynamic and relational concept of place; and second, that space is a physical structure, whether static or dynamic, which misinterprets Newton’s absolute space and Einstein’s relative spacetime. Despite appearances, there is an essential continuity between the two interpretations of space, because what fundamentally matters—their ‘Being’—is not the absolute-relative difference, but the more profound, fundamental ontological difference between the ideal and the physical. Ultimately, the spaces conceived by these two great physicists were both seen or interpreted as physical entities. If we acknowledge the historical importance of place as a physical structure, which is a notion supported by Aristotle and common sense, then space cannot be physical unless it supersedes place—and this is precisely what occurred: initially, these two concepts had distinct meanings and domains, but over time, their meanings and domains became superimposed. The substitution of place with space is a process that lasted many centuries and is still ongoing, generating confusion between the two concepts and their domains. It is because of this historical confusion (in the sense that it is rooted in the history of Western thinking) that two great minds, such as Kant and Einstein, completely overturned their interpretations of space during their lifetime.
Space and place are fundamental concepts necessary for understanding and explaining the structure of reality, namely nature (phusis). The long-standing misconceptions about place and space are difficult to dispel because they are rooted in millennia of questionable interpretations of our understanding of nature (which we could deem ‘wrong interpretations’ if we align with Heidegger’s perspective), as well as of the fundamental concepts necessary to think about or investigate nature, such as matter, time, motion, and, of course, place and space. Regarding the concepts of place and space I’m discussing at RSaP, I’ve already attempted to illustrate their differences and continuities, assuming that place can be both physical (originally belonging to the physical domain) and ideal/mental (an acquired domain), whereas space is best considered an ideal or abstract concept – a crucial step in reclaiming their original meanings (regarding this specific question, I redirect readers to the article The Place of Space). Traditionally, the understanding of space and place has been reversed: space is often seen as a physical entity (as demonstrated by the interpreters of Newton and Einstein), but it can also be viewed as an ideal entity, whereas place is typically considered a physical entity. For the moment, I leave behind their metaphorical interpretation, to avoid further confusion on a subject already confused. This widespread confusion is also due to the fact that there was a reversal of the meaning of nature (phusis), as Heidegger is showing in Introduction to Metaphysics. In a passage above, we have hinted at the dualism, generated after the sophists and Plato, between Being and beings, which generated a sort of confusion between the supersensory realm of Being and the physical realm of beings. The situation was exacerbated when the concept of ‘substance’ shifted from defining the essence of ‘Being’ to defining the essence of ‘beings’, effectively transforming its aspect from a metaphysical concept to ‘matter’, the precursor to modern ‘elements’ and ‘particles’ (for a more in-depth exploration of this topic, see the forthcoming article Concepts of Place, Space, Matter, and the Nature of Physical Existence). These fundamental changes in the meaning of nature led to a parallel shift in the concepts necessary to explain it: not only did substance/matter transition from the metaphysical to the physical realm, but place and space also exchanged their meanings and functions, regardless of whether they belonged to the physical or ideal realm. Throughout these shifts in meaning, one constant is the elimination of the original circular relationships between concepts, such as Being and beings, Being and becoming, Being and seeming, the actual and the potential, which were present in the original view of nature as phusis, ( ).
The concept of place I am discussing, along with its opposing concept of space, offers a way to reconcile the dualisms inherent in our modern understanding of nature. Place and space stand in opposition and unity like in a sort of yin-yang relationship. This implies that nature also has a placial and spatial structure.
Regarding the concept of place, saying that place is always the place of processes (Being) and actualized processes (beings) – Being( )beings = Place – implies that place is where oppositions are resolved into a unified whole (complementarity of opposites). Place, the place of processes, encompasses both the structure of Being, beings, becoming, and seeming, as well as the actual and the potential, the universal and the particular. These characters are all strictly interconnected, as Heidegger is showing, and their connections occur through place, as I am trying to show. Place is where Being and beings, Being and becoming, Being and seeming, the actual and the potential, the universal and the particular, the abstract and the concrete stay together in opposition. As opponents, they belong together, united by the embracing structure of place. Out of this fundamental structure, there is No-thing. I convey this opposition and unity, a fundamental aspect of nature’s behavior (as Heidegger illustrates in relation to Being, becoming, and seeming), through pictorial expression ( ) — see Images 02, 04, above or Images 05, 07, 09, 13, below. I also have adopted the Greek conception of intimacy and strife, which views nature as a unity (place) that resolves contrasts between opposing parts, to uncover the fundamental character of reality: reality is a place. The fundamental message of the gallery On the Structure of Reality is that ‘reality’ is essentially synonymous with ‘nature’, comprising various domains born from different processes. These domains — including inorganic systems, biological systems, social systems, and cultural/symbolic systems — are characterized by their respective processes, which are in opposition yet ultimately give rise to a greater unity: nature as a whole, understood as the realm/place of these processes (see Image 15 and 16). Opposition( )unity.
I have envisioned this character of nature/phusis by means of Image 04 above, which is at the same time the metaphor for strong cohesion (the arms of the wrestlers forming a powerful embrace, almost a unity between two bodies), and opposition. By analogy, for instance, we can consider the concreteness and abstractness of place (e.g., the place of inorganic processes, or the place of symbolic processes) as two opposing aspects of the same reality, namely, the reality of place. Place as opposition and unity, that is : opposition( )unity = place. What is more distant from a diamond’s physical presence than its reduction to an abstract symbol represented by the letter ‘C’ for carbon? There is an opposition between the two perspectives, the material and the symbolic; however, this opposition is resolved into unity if we consider them as the place of processes: place is the unifying structure that brings together, develops, unfolds, persists, dissolves, and so on, ultimately evolving into either physicochemical states (the concrete, the diamond) or symbolic states (the abstract, the representation of the diamond as a chimical formula). The ‘being-diamond’ and the ‘being-C’ behind which we find the same essence (Being) — the idea of the diamond itself — as a constant presence, are part of the same reality, which is One. The reality of the diamond is shaped by both physicochemical processes, which define its concrete, physical existence (physical being), and symbolic processes, which determine its abstract reality, whether as a specific idea (ideal being) or a universal concept (Being); these two realms, the physical and the symbolic or ideal, are intertwined and inseparable, each informing the other as they coexist.
Chapter Four — Section C.6. The relation between the division of Being and seeming and the division of Being and becoming
In the light of the Greek understanding of phusis/Being as opposition and unity, ‘we can understand not only how Being differs from and is delimited against seeming but also how Being and seeming intrinsically belong to the division “Being and becoming”.’[41]
Image 05: The structure of Being with respect to becoming and seeming, as shown schematically by Heidegger in Introduction to Metaphysics (IM); below, an alternative interpretation of Being as a function of place (Being as place of processes), which emerges from the opposition and unity of becoming and seeming, at RSaP.
If we remind the fragments of Parmenides concerning the three paths for understanding Being and its other, then becoming and seeming are an alternative and viable way to confront Being with not-Being: ‘What maintains itself in becoming is, on the one hand, no longer Nothing, but on the other hand it is not yet what it is destined to be. In accordance with this “no longer and not yet,” becoming remains shot through with not-Being. However, it is not a pure Nothing, but no longer this and not yet that, and as such, it is constantly something else. So now it looks like this, now it looks like that. It offers an intrinsically inconstant view. Seen in this way, becoming is a seeming of Being.’[42]
Initially, the Greeks faced decisions about ‘the powers of Being and becoming, Being and seeming. This confrontation had to develop the relation between thinking and Being into a definite form. This implies that the formation of the third division is already being prepared among the Greeks.’[43] This introduces to the next Section where Heidegger discusses the decisive division between Being and thinking, which has shaped our current understanding of Being.
Chapter Four — Section D. Being and thinking
The section on ‘Being and thinking’ in the Introduction to Metaphysics takes up nearly half of the book, and the reason for this extensive treatment is that, according to Heidegger, thinking determines the sense of Being and its ultimate meaning, which in turn shapes the ‘fundamental orientation of the spirit of the West’, the primary target of Heidegger’s critique.[44] The title of this section, with its reference to thinking, immediately implies that the question of Being is closely tied to human beings as historical Dasein. The goal is to explore how human beings condition and enter into Being. We will particularly examine (1) the connection between thinking and logos, and their relation with Being/phusis, as distinct from the transformation of thinking/logos ‘as the revealing gathering… in the sense of phusis’ into thinking/language, as discourse— a human faculty.[45] This transformation of sense led to (2) Being equated with ‘ousia’, initially understood as ‘idea’ in the sense of constant presence (as opposed to the constantly changing forces of becoming), and eventually as ‘substantia’ — substance —, which is how we currently understand the Being of beings in a material sense. The historical references considered by Heidegger to elucidate these passages are, at first, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Sophocles, and then, for the second transition of meanings, Plato and Aristotle.
Chapter Four — Section D.1. Thinking as the ground of Being in the Western tradition
Recalling how Heidegger characterized becoming and seeming in relation to Being — they stay on the same level (see Image 05) — we find that the division between Being and thinking is now of a different degree, with thinking serving as the foundation upon which the structure of Being is constituted: ‘in the division between “Being and thinking,” not only is what is now distinguished from Being — that is, thinking — different in content from becoming and seeming, but the direction of the opposition is also essentially different. Thinking sets itself against Being in such a way that Being is re-presented to thinking, and consequently stands against thinking like an ob-ject <Gegen-stand, that which stands against>… Consequently, thinking is no longer just the opposing member in some new distinction but becomes the basis on which one decides about what stands against it, so much so that Being in general gets interpreted on the basis of thinking.’[46]
Image 06: The structure of Being with respect to becoming, seeming and thinking, as shown schematically by Heidegger using arrows (scheme above), in Introduction to Metaphysics (IM). Below, is an alternative interpretation of Being as a function of place, determined by the contraposition and unity of becoming, seeming and thinking (Being as ‘place of processes’, that is, the place of becoming, seeming and thinking). By replacing arrows with parentheses denoting opposition and unity (see also Images 04 and 05), something is gained: 1] from the perspective of the fundamental unity of nature/phusis (that is, Being) — understood as ‘place of processes’ (what are ‘Being’, ‘becoming’, ‘seeming’, and ‘thinking’ if not terms behind which we find processes that unfold? Where does this unfolding happen?); 2] from the recurrent Heideggerian and early Greek perspective of the originary belonging of what is divided; finally, 3] from the perspective of ‘gathering’ (again, a name for a process: ‘gathering’ as which offers a ground — i.e., a place; no gathering is possible without a place, see also Image 07, below), which, we are going to see, is a decisive factor for understanding the structure of that which exists, whether we understand it as Being or beings.
Apart from the new hierarchy established between becoming, seeming, thinking, and Being, the key aspect of this initial description is that the relation between Being and thinking is developed on a representational basis; to elucidate the nature of thinking, which is Heidegger’s next step, we must focus on that. But, why does ‘thinking’ have this privileged role? In a certain sense, Heidegger briefly addressed this question in Chapter Three, Sections A.1 and A.2, where he explored the relationship between beings and Being, proposing that we can climb up to the meaning of Being by analyzing particular beings; but — as we have seen — that was not the case: ‘How are we supposed to discover the much-invoked particular, the individual trees as such […] unless the representation of what a tree is in general is already lighting our way in advance?’, Heidegger said.[47] Similarly, now, passing from the example of the tree to that of the clock (about which we must already know about time, its reckoning, and measuring), Heidegger says: ‘Our viewpoint’s line of sight must already be laid out in advance. We call this prior line of sight “perspective.” Thus it will become clear not only that Being is not understood in an indeterminate way but that the determinate understanding of Being itself moves within a prior line of sight that has already been determined.’[48] Heidegger speaks of ‘line of sight’ given that the question of thinking revolves around the issue of ‘representation’. The next section, D.2, explains the representational function of thinking in more detail. The prior question, ‘What does it mean to think?’,[49] introduces this concept.
Chapter Four — Section D.2. Superficial interpretations of thinking
From a list of examples, we see that ‘thinking’ may have different meanings: to devise, to plan, to set one’s sight on something, to intend, to picture or imagine something, to have an opinion… But these are just common meanings that we all know and understand. We must see what lies behind this linguistic usage. What is characteristic of ‘thinking’ — Heidegger says — is that it ‘relates to what is future as well as to what is past, but also to what is present. Thinking brings something before us, represents it’, according to three modalities: (1) Re-presenting as an intrinsic mode of human behaviour, according to which ‘we think upon and think through what is represented’, with the scope to analyze, lay out and reassemble it so that (2) re-presenting is also a mode of analytical connection with what is represented; these modes allow us to get behind the thing (represented), ‘to experience how it stands with the thing in general’ so that we can also consider (3) re-presenting as a mode to comprehend the universal.[50] This section elaborates on the first two modalities of ‘thinking’, while the complex development of ‘thinking’ as a means to comprehend the universal and its consequences are discussed in Section D.3. (The originary connection between “phusis” and “logos”), Section D.4. (The originary disjunction between “phusis” and “logos”), and Section D.5. (The interpretation of Being as “ousia”). The last three sections especially needed an extensive and articulated elaboration by Heidegger.
Regarding the representational interpretation of thinking mentioned earlier, Heidegger argues that it is an inadequate conception of thinking; so, we are still in search of an adequate comprehension of ‘thinking’: ‘where can we get such a concept?’ Heidegger asks; and he immediately notes: ‘When we ask this, we are acting as if there had not already been a “logic” for centuries. It is the science of thinking, the doctrine of the rules of thinking and the forms of what is thought.’[51] Using logic to understand ‘thinking’ appears to be a convenient way to avoid ‘the trouble of asking elaborate questions about the essence of thinking.’[52]
Now, Heidegger’s task is to clarify the nature of logic: ‘What does “logic” mean? The term is an abbreviation for “episteme logike”, the science of logos. And logos here means assertion. But logic is supposed to be the doctrine of thinking. Why is logic the science of assertion? ’[53] Heidegger reminds us that our ultimate goal is to understand the essence of thinking, ‘aletheia’, and ‘phusis’, that is Being as unconcealment, but ‘this is precisely what was lost due to “logic”, so it seems a desperate attempt to explain something (the nature of Being/phusis) with the very reason that obscured it (logic as discourse).[54] The beginning of logic coincides with the end of Greek philosophy and its systematization within academies and schools, that is, when philosophy became a matter of organization and technique taught in academies and schools, such as the Platonic and Aristotelian schools, ‘when “eon”, the Being of beings, appears as “idea”, and as “idea” becomes the “ob-ject” of “episteme” <scientific knowledge>’.[55] According to Heidegger, logic developed as a formal elaboration of the structures and rules of thinking ‘after the division between Being and thinking had already been carried out’.[56] Still, this does not contribute to the clarification and grounding of logic; here, investigating the connection between logic and the Platonic school, and the relation between thinking and logos-as-assertion may help us to determine the ground for the power of logic, a position of power that constantly expanded until Hegel defined the logical as ‘the absolute form of truth’.[57] To disentangle those connections and trace back the original and genuine meaning of thinking, including the impact of logic on it and its relation to Being, requires a return to the question of Being as such.
Chapter Four — Section D.3. The originary connection between “phusis” and “logos”
Again, the question of the meaning of Being is approached from a different angle, through more specific questions: ‘1. How does the originary unity of Being and thinking essentially unfold as the unity of “phusis” and “logos”? 2. How does the originary disjunction of “logos” and “phusis” come to pass? 3. How does “logos” arise and gain preeminence? 4. How does “logos” (the “logical”) become the essence of thinking? 5. How does this “logos”, as reason and understanding, come to rule over Being in the inception of Greek philosophy?’[58]
These questions constitute the new ground for the elucidation of the connection between phusis, Being, logos, and thinking.
Chapter Four — Section D.3.a. “Logos” as gathering
‘Thinking’ in Latin is ‘intelligere’ — the business of the ‘intellectus’, Heidegger says. The connection between the Latin ‘lego–ere’ and the Greek ‘logos’ via the verb ‘legein’ is quite evident from its etymological meaning; this connection comes before their meaning as ‘thinking’ and is oriented towards Being. Let’s examine Heidegger’s thoughts on this matter.
what do “logos” and “legein” mean?
…[there’s] no immediate relation to language…
‘“Logos” means the word, discourse, and “legein” means to discourse, to talk… But logos does not originally mean discourse, saying. What the word means has no immediate relation to language. “Lego”, “legein”, Latin “legere”, is the same word as our “lesen” <to collect>: gleaning, collecting wood, harvesting grapes, making a selection… This means laying one thing next to another, bringing them together as one — in short, gathering; but at the same time, the one is contrasted with the other. This is how Greek mathematicians used the word logos. A coin collection that one has gathered is not just a heap that has somehow been thrown together.’ [59] Heidegger does not elaborate further on the reasons that determined the passage from the originary meaning of ‘logos’ and ‘legein’ in the sense of ‘gathering’ and ‘relation of one thing to another’ to that of word and discourse: it is significant that the original meaning persisted long after this change occurred.
Image 07: “Gathering” — the place of opposition and unity
Logos the Locus/Luogo (place) of inter-relations; Logos/Place as gathering
Here, I pause briefly to consider the important question of how ‘logos’ relates to the concept of place. From the very beginning of my investigation into the concept of place, I tried to verify the possibility to link etymologically the Greek ‘topos’ and the Latin ‘locus’, which both mean ‘place’. I found very scant traces on the internet: just a possibility from an unverified author in the form of an anonymous draft paper, which I omit for obvious reasons. Besides my failed attempt to etymologically link locus and topos through a common PIE root, I was also troubled by another unresolved ‘placial/spatial’ etymological issue: finding an etymological connection, and especially a connection in meaning, between the Latin ‘locus’ (place) and the Greek ‘logos’ (traditionally translated as ‘word’, ‘discourse’, or ‘reason’, as Heidegger also observed). I was struck by the phonetic similarity between the two terms, but it was puzzling that no clear linguistic connection could be found; I initially thought this was due to their differing meanings, but once I realized that their potential connection could be explored through philosophical arguments rather than etymology, my ideas about the close relationship between ‘logos’ and ‘place’ (via the Latin ‘locus’, whence the Italian ‘luogo’, and the Spanish ‘lugar’ descend) began to take shape: specifically, through the Aristotelian concept of ‘topos’ based on the notion of limit (peras), and Heidegger’s interpretation of Being as logos, or ‘gathering’, I was able to form a more concrete link between place-as-topos, locus, and logos, as a primordial gathering of concrete and abstract aspects of reality—concrete in terms of the ‘locus’ of beings, i.e., the place where processes actualize, and abstract in terms of ‘logos’ as the place of Being (logos, the place of ‘reason’ and ‘thinking’).
We have made some progress in understanding the connection between logos and thinking, but we still need to see how ‘logos’ and Being are exactly related: ‘to what extent are Being and logos originally and unitarily the same for the Greeks?’ Heidegger asks.[60] So, to make further progress, we must return to the Greeks’ original understanding: ‘The indication of the fundamental meaning of logos can give us a clue only if we already understand what “Being” means for the Greeks: phusis… Being as “phusis” is the emerging sway. In opposition to becoming, it shows itself as constancy, constant presence. This presence announces itself in opposition to seeming as appearing, as revealed presence.’ [61]
Being as “phusis” is the emerging sway. In opposition to becoming, it shows itself as constancy, constant presence. This presence announces itself in opposition to seeming as appearing, as revealed presence
Keeping all this firmly in view, at first Heidegger directs his attention to the interpretation of Heraclitus to find the correspondence between ‘phusis’ and ‘logos’ in the inception of Western philosophy.
Chapter Four — Section D.3.b. Heraclitus on “phusis” and “logos”
After a brief consideration concerning the frequent misunderstandings that occurred to the many interpretations of Heraclitus’s philosophy — ‘it is Heraclitus who was subjected to the most fundamentally un-Greek misinterpretation in the course of Western history’ —,[62] Heidegger observes that it was Christianity that first misinterpreted Heraclitus’s logos, turning it into ‘word’ as ‘revealed truth’— the son of God: ‘The logos is Christ’.[63]
Let’s follow Heidegger’s interpretation and examine what Heraclitus himself says about ‘logos’. According to Heidegger’s analysis of Heraclitus’ fragments 1 and 2, ‘logos’ can be understood in three main senses: 1) logos as ‘constancy’, that is, as that which endures; 2) logos as ‘gathering’, that is, as that which ‘unfolds as the Together in beings, the Together of the being, that which gathers’.[64] 3) logos as ‘standing’, that is: ‘everything that happens, that is, that comes into Being, stands there in accordance with this constant Together; this is what holds sway.’[65]
[according to Heraclitus] it is said of logos:
1) constancy…; 2)… that which gathers [and] 3)… stands there
This is how Heidegger resumes the meaning of logos contained in those two fragments: ‘“Logos” here does not mean sense, or word, or doctrine… but instead, the originally gathering gatheredness that constantly holds sway in itself.’[66]
Logos [is] the originally gathering gatheredness that
constantly holds sway in itself
In certain passages of Heraclitus’ fragments, such as Fragment 50 and 73, ‘logos’ is interpreted as ‘word’ or ‘discourse’, but in Fragments 1 and 2, the context suggests that ‘logos’ should be understood as ‘constant gathering’, according to Heidegger. Heidegger interprets other fragments, such as 34 and 50, to demonstrate that ‘logos’ has to do with ‘word’, or ‘hearing’ in the sense of ‘to grasp’ or ‘understand’: so, very often, he says, people hear ‘words’ but they do not really understand their meaning, they do not grasp their sense, they do not take hold of ‘logos’ — this is the sense of Fragment 34: ‘those who do not bring together the constant Together are hearers who resemble the deaf.’[67] Accordingly, when this happens, human beings find themselves ‘in the midst of things, and yet, they are away… The “logos” is what human beings are continually amid and what they are away from all the same, absently present; they are… those who do not grasp.’[68] This characterization of ‘logos’ helps clarify the relationship between logos as gathering and logos as word or discourse, but let’s return to the original sense of logos as ‘gathering’.
The concept of ‘logos’ as ‘the originally gathering gatheredness that constantly holds sway in itself’ or, alternatively, as ‘the gatheredness of beings that stands in itself’ is equivalent to Being.[69] This also implies that: ‘“Phusis” and “logos” are the same. “Logos” characterizes Being in a new and yet old respect: that which is in being, which stands straight and prominently in itself, is gathered in itself and from itself, and holds itself in such gathering.’[70]
according to Heidegger’s interpretation, Heraclitus says that ‘Phusis’ and ‘logos’ are the same.
This identification between ‘logos’ and Being, or phusis, grounded in the concept of ‘gathering’, can also be traced back to Fragment 103: ‘gathered in itself, the same is the beginning and the end in the circumference of the circle ’ and to Fragment 8: ‘What stands in opposition carries itself over here and over there, the one to the other, it gathers itself from itself’.[71] Heidegger continues: ‘That which contends is gathering gatheredness, “logos”.’ [72]
The analysis of the last fragments yields two key observations: first, it sheds light on the original Greek meaning of ‘that which contends’ as a concept that embodies both opposition and unity in relation to the concept of ‘beauty’, a topic we previously explored in our discussion of ‘polemos’; second, it provides further insight into Heraclitus’s famous saying ‘panta rhei’ — everything flows — in the context of the new meanings derived from the analyzed fragments.
What stands in opposition carries itself over here and over there, the one to the other, it gathers itself from itself’
Heraclitus, Fragment 8
Regarding the first issue, we enter the realm of the concept of beauty and the meaning of the work of art. The Greeks believed that ‘the Being of all beings is what is most seemly <das Scheinendste> — that is, what is most beautiful, what is most constant in itself’;[73] as we have just seen Being and ‘logos’, in its most originary and genuine interpretation, are essentially the same, so the characteristic element of ‘logos’ we have just identified — the gathering gatheredness that constantly holds sway in itself — pertains to Being; the meaning of ‘gathering gatheredness’ is fully realized against the backdrop of confrontation, or what we have also called ‘opposition-and-unity’, which the Greeks valued highly since Being emerges as a unified, constant presence only through confrontation and opposition. The Greeks held the concept of ‘polemos’, or confrontation and opposition, in high esteem, as it is necessary for the emergence and presence of Being (see Image 04). In their view, ‘polemos’ is the foundation of ‘what is most beautiful’, which differs greatly from our modern understanding of beauty, where it is associated with relaxation and enjoyment: ‘The gathering together of the highest contending is “polemos”, struggle in the sense of the confrontation, the setting-apart-from each-other… In contrast, for us today, the beautiful is the relaxing, what is restful and thus intended for enjoyment. [Therefore] — concludes Heidegger — ‘We must provide a new content for the word “art” and for what it intends to name, on the basis of a fundamental orientation to Being that has been won back in an originary way.’[74]
The other question concerns the interpretation of Heraclitus’ famous saying, ‘panta rhei’, or ‘everything flows.’ Fragment 8 can help clarify Heraclitus’ thinking on this: the constant change he refers to is change within unity, where Being is the constant gatheredness of conflicting parts, a concept that complements Parmenides’ views rather than opposing them. As Heidegger puts it: ‘If this saying stems from Heraclitus at all, then it does not mean that everything is mere change that runs on and runs astray, pure inconstancy, but instead it means: the whole of beings in its Being is always thrown from one opposite to the other, thrown over here and over there— Being is the gatheredness of this conflicting unrest.’[75]
Heraclitus and Parmenides have complementary views, not opposing views: the One* Being – the Being of beings – is their common ground
*One, O, ( ) = unity as ‘belonging-together’ of the opposites, their dynamics
Concerning the important characteristic of logos as gathering Heidegger concludes: ‘If we comprehend the fundamental meaning of “logos” as gathering and gatheredness, we must firmly establish and firmly hold to the following: Gathering is never just driving together and piling up. It maintains in a belonging-together that which contends and strives in confrontation. It does not allow it to decay into mere dispersion and what is simply cast down. As maintaining, “logos” has the character of pervasive sway, of “phusis”. It does not dissolve what it pervades into an empty lack of opposites; instead, by unifying what contends, the gathering maintains it in the highest acuteness of its tension.’[76]
After briefly revisiting the misinterpretation of logos by the Christian fathers (here, ‘logos’ does not mean Being in the sense of ‘the gatheredness of that which contends’, but ‘logos’ is one particular being, namely the son of God, see Chapter Four — Section D.3.c. The Christian concept of “logos”), Heidegger briefly recaps the relationship between phusis (Being) and logos, stating our goal: ‘We were attempting to display the essential belonging of “logos” to “phusis”, with the intention of comprehending, thanks to this unity, the inner necessity and possibility of their division.’[77] To grasp the disjunction between Being and thinking – that is, between phusis and logos – and why Being’s original meaning changed, we must first understand their ‘unity and belonging-together’. Heidegger turns to Parmenides to shed light on this question. By focusing on Parmenides, Heidegger introduces the characterization of Being as Being-human, and of thinking as apprehending.
Chapter Four — Section D.3.d. Parmenides on thinking as “noein”
To introduce this complex argument, which goes against the established tradition, once again, Heidegger returns to the continuity between the philosophical positions of Heraclitus and Parmenides, who share the same view on ‘the Being of beings’, as the ultimate ground. Regarding the relationship we are examining, specifically the connection between Being and thinking (which originally unfolded as phusis and logos),[78] if one — Heraclitus — defined Being/phusis in opposition and unity with logos through the notion of ‘gathering’ (which is the common determination for phusis and logos, because of which, we have seen, ‘Phusis and logos are the same’ — fragment 1),[79] the other — Parmenides — defined Being/phusis in opposition and unity with noein, a term which means thinking as ‘apprehension’ (‘noein’, is a notion intimately related with legein/logos: the ‘gathering’ of logos/legein corresponds here to the ‘bringing-to-a-stand’ which is behind the verb ‘noein’),[80] because of which, in perfect accordance with Heraclitus’s fragment 1, Parmenides says that ‘… thinking and Being are the same’ (fragment 5).[81] Let’s explore this further, following Heidegger’s interpretation.
Heidegger’s first move is to offer Parmenides’ characterization of Being as (1) ‘that which holds itself together in itself’, (2) ‘uniquely unifying’ and (3) ‘constantly complete, constantly self-showing sway, through which there also constantly shines the seeming of the one-sided and many-sided’: this is Heidegger interpretation of fragment 8.[82]
Heidegger then examines another fragment to identify where Parmenides discusses Being and logos, and to determine if this statement can also be seen as the condition for their later division, namely the division between Being and thinking, which is the ultimate scope of this section. The fragment analyzed is fragment 5: ‘“to gar auto noein estin te kai einai.” Translated roughly and in the way that has long been customary, this says: “but thinking and Being are the same”.’ [83]
‘to gar auto noein estin te kai einai’… this says: ‘but thinking and Being are the same’
Parmenides, Fragment 5
Heidegger immediately cautions against misinterpreting the ancient saying: if noein is thinking, and if all thinking is subjective (as an activity of the subject), then Being is also subjective, determined by the subject’s thinking, and consequently, ‘there are no beings in themselves’.[84] This is the way of philosophy down to Kant and German idealism, Heidegger explains. Heidegger unravels the statement of Parmenides — ‘to gar auto noein estin te kai einai’ — by analyzing each individual Greek term in the fragment to avoid the well-worn reading and uncover the original truth.
What do we get from that analysis? Regarding ‘einai’, Heidegger directs the reader’s attention to the previous discussions on ‘phusis’; as the translators note,[85] ‘Being’ is the traditional translation for ‘einai’, so to uncover the original sense of ‘einai’, we must revisit what has been said about phusis–Being, understood in its original Greek sense.
Regarding ‘noein’, which translators traditionally translate as‘thinking’, Heidegger argues that it actually means ‘to apprehend’, while the corresponding Greek term ‘nous’, related to the verb ‘noein’, means ‘apprehension’ (the translators note that ‘nous’ is traditionally translated as ‘mind’ or ‘intellect’). According to Heidegger ‘to apprehend’ or ‘apprehension’ have two senses that belong together: ‘On the one hand, to apprehend… means to take in… to let something come to oneself—namely, what shows itself, what appears. On the other hand, to apprehend… to comprehend the state of affairs, to determine and set fast how things are going and how things stand. Apprehension in this double sense denotes a process of letting things come to oneself in which one does not simply take things in, but rather takes up a position to receive what shows itself .’[86] So, ‘noein’ appears to have a more active connotation than the verb ‘thinking’ generally implies: in thinking, we must take a precise position to allow things to appear as they are, which is what ‘noein’ suggests. In this apprehending/apprehension, there coexist two distinct moments, which represent the mechanism of ‘opposition and unity’ we previously considered: 1) allowing things to emerge, and 2) determining how things stand (an active position that becomes an opposition, rather than mere passive reception of what is ‘taken in’): ‘“Noein” involves this receptive bringing-to-a-stand of that which appears’.[87] So, by modifying a bit the initial translation of that fragment ‘Parmenides’ statement says of apprehending that it is the same as Being.’[88]
We find the same schema of ‘opposition and unity’ as the generator of meaning in the analyses of other Greek terms, in the mentioned fragment, ‘to auto’ and ‘te kai’ (which, the translators say, are conventionally translated as ‘the same’ and ‘both… and’, respectively — see the note above). Concerning ‘to auto’ Heidegger says that, here, ‘oneness’ — that is, ‘the same’, expressed through the Greek terms ‘to auto’ — is ‘the belonging-together of that which contends. This is what is originally unified’ by means of the words ‘to auto/the same’.[89]
Concerning the expression ‘te kai’, Heidegger notes that Parmenides used that expression because ‘Being and thinking, in the sense of contending against each other, are unified, that is, are the same in their belonging-together.’[90] In the context of our argumentation, recalling what we’ve said about Being so far, this implies that where Being occurs as ‘standing in the light, appearing, stepping into unconcealment… apprehension holds sway too and happens too, as belonging to Being. Apprehension is the receptive bringing-to-a-stand of the constant that shows itself in itself.’[91] This belonging-together says that ‘Apprehension belongs to “phusis”; the sway of “phusis” shares its sway with apprehension.’[92]
The revealed connection between ‘Being’ and ‘noein’ as apprehension leads us to the next step: examining the relationship between Being and Being-human. Since ‘thinking’, understood in the original Parmenidean sense of ‘apprehension’ as ‘noein’, is a fundamental characteristic of human essence, how does the relationship between Being and Being-human develop? The answer is straightforward: ‘if human beings have a part in the happening of this appearance [Being] and apprehension [‘thinking’ as ‘noein’], then they must themselves be, they must belong to Being — and, this is the conclusion — … then the essence and the manner of Being-human can be determined only on the basis of the essence of Being.’ [93] Heidegger continues: ‘the Being of the human first determines itself on the basis of the happening of the essential belonging together of Being and apprehension.’[94] The misinterpretation of Parmenides’ saying about the relationship between Being and thinking (as ‘noein’, apprehension) led to the rise of idealism, whereas a proper understanding of this saying reveals ‘a determination of the human essence on the basis of the essence of Being itself.’[95] We have to pass through the gates of Being (phusis) to understand the meaning of Being-human and its relation with thinking.
What Parmenides’ saying expresses is a determination of the human essence on the basis of the essence of Being itself
Those passages are important because, through them, Heidegger defines what it means to be human (Being-human) in relation to the overarching structure of phusis/Being: ‘Apprehension and what Parmenides’ statement says about it is not a faculty of the human being… instead, apprehension is a happening… in which humanity itself happens, and in which humanity itself thus first enters history… as a being, first appears — that is, [in the literal sense] itself comes to Being.’[96]
We need to further clarify the question of Being-human, which is connected to thinking/noein. The questions ‘What is humanity? Who is humanity?’ now emerge and require an answer. This inquiry involves difficult and decisive passages that necessitate further examination, considering the significant efforts made at the inception of Western thought, including the determination of Being/phusis accomplished so far, and the challenges of approaching the determination of Being-human as elaborated by Parmenidean thinking. Heidegger turns to poetic thinking to explore how the Greeks, particularly in Sophocles’ Antigone, have elaborated on the determination of Being-human.
Chapter Four — Section D.3.e. “Antigone” on the human being as the uncanniest
Lines 332-375 of Sophocles’ Antigone are under close inspection here. In brief, as an introductory note, Antigone is a fifth-century BC Greek tragedy that tells the story of Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta. This play belongs to a series of tragedies based on the dramatic events of Oedipus, King of Thebe, and his descendants. Sophocles’ other two tragedies in the series, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, occur before the events told in Antigone (we have already analyzed the tragedy, Oedipus Rex, in a previous section, regarding Being and seeming — Chapter Four, Section C.3. The struggle between Being and seeming: Oedipus Rex — where Heidegger defined Oedipus Rex as ‘the tragedy of seeming’). In Antigone, the plot revolves around Antigone’s decision to bury her brother, Polynices, despite the new King of Thebes, the tyrant Creon, forbidding it, as Polynices was considered a traitor to the city. Because of her decision, she was sentenced to death, but she committed suicide.
The choral ode in lines 332-375 celebrates how human beings have invented their way to survival through various achievements, including hunting, navigation, the use of animals, agriculture, the establishment of city-states, and the development of language itself.
The theme of violence underlying those lines portrays the human being as ‘the uncanniest’ — ‘deinotaton’ from the Greek term ‘deinon’, the uncanny — which encompasses the senses of ‘the terrible’ as ‘the overwhelming sway, which induces panicked fear, true anxiety’, and ‘the violent’ as ‘one who needs to use violence—and does not just have violence at his disposal but is violence-doing, insofar as using violence is the basic trait not just of his doing but of his Dasein.’[97] Heidegger’s highly criticized interpretation[98] likens the violence of Being — the necessary dominance to overcome not-Being — to the inherent violence accompanying human existence and its struggles. According to Heidegger’s argument, there is a parallel between the violence of Being (the almighty sway necessary to suppress the forces of not-Being) and the violence of being human (initially necessary for survival, and later, to exist as oneself), which seems unavoidable since Being is the foundation of all beings, including human beings. According to Heidegger, humanity’s characteristic violence, which ranges from hunting and city-building to poetic expression and future planning, ‘is not an application of faculties that the human being has, but is a disciplining and disposing of the violent forces by virtue of which beings disclose themselves as such, insofar as the human being enters into them. This disclosedness of beings is the violence that humanity has to surmount in order to be itself first of all’:[99] This explains ‘the inner contour of the essence of the [human being as the] uncanniest’, which is one of the issues shown by the ode through Heidegger’s analysis.[100] The analysis also reveals ‘the domains and extent of its sway’, where violence and terror operate, disrupting nature from the seas to the lands, using snares and nets to capture and subjugate animals, ploughing the earth, and founding cities and communities; ultimately, it shows human destiny, where humans establish cities, the pinnacle of human achievement, only to be rejected by them, becoming homeless, ‘because they as creators must first ground all this in each case.’[101] Heidegger’s interpretation in the following paragraph sheds more light on the nature of human beings, making the latter passage clearer and more understandable.
Heidegger’s interpretation also operates on a more abstract level, shedding light on human nature in relation to Sophocles’ poetic saying in Antigone, particularly through the Greek term ‘deinon’, in the twofold sense we anticipated — the terrible’ or overwhelming, and ‘the violent’ or those who commit violence — and their reciprocal relation: 1) here, the sense of violence of the human beings is interpreted with respect to ‘the whole circuit’ of their actions: in this context, Heidegger literally speaks of ‘the whole circuit of the “machination” that is delivered over to him [the violence-doer]’;[102] by the term ‘machination’, which fundamentally expresses the modalities of the human actions/achievements already shown in the preceding analysis, Heidegger wants to introduce the Greek term ‘techne’, which originally means ‘knowing’, in the genuine sense of ‘initially and constantly looking out beyond what, in each case, is directly present at hand’.[103]
There is also another level of interpretation for Heidegger, a more abstract level, which contributes to elucidate the character of the human being with respect to the poetic saying of Sophocles’ Antigone; again, this interpretation is elaborated on the Greek term ‘deinon’, in the twofold senses we already anticipated (the sense of ‘the terrible’ — the over-whelming — and the sense of ‘the violent’ — the violence-doers — attached to the human being) and their reciprocal relation: 1) here, the sense of violence of the human beings is interpreted with respect to ‘the whole circuit’ of their actions: in this context, Heidegger literally speaks of ‘the whole circuit of the “machination” that is delivered over to him [the violence-doer]’;[102] by the term ‘machination’, which fundamentally expresses the modalities of the human actions/achievements already shown in the preceding analysis, Heidegger wants to introduce the Greek term ‘techne’, which originally means ‘knowing’, in the genuine sense of ‘initially and constantly looking out beyond what, in each case, is directly present at hand’.[103]
‘Techne’ means neither art nor skill, and it means nothing like technology in the modern sense. We translate ‘techne’ as ‘knowing’…Knowing, in the genuine sense of ‘techne’, means initially and constantly looking out beyond what, in each case, is directly present at hand.
This ‘initially and constantly looking beyond what is directly present at hand’, which is so typical of ‘techne’ as a characteristic trait of human beings, is the reason for their ‘destiny’, as we have seen just in the paragraph above: to be homeless, without city and state, apolis — this is the destiny of human beings who constantly look beyond what they have achieved. Heidegger argues that ‘knowing as techne’ enables Being to reach its fullest expression and proper standing, allowing the Being of human beings to unfold according to its true nature and overcome the opposing forces that would lead to disintegration; or, to revisit the original characterization of human beings, ‘techne’ is the aspect that enables human existence to be itself, which is ‘the uncanniest’. In the typical vein of circular argumentations (opposition and unity) that characterize the interpretation of Being, Heidegger argues that ‘techne’ is the representative trait of violence (of human beings) necessary to overcome ‘the over-whelming’, which is the other character of human beings included in the Greek word ‘deinon’: this other character is explained after a brief parenthesis on the traditional understanding of ‘techne’ as ‘art’.
When we consider the concept of ‘techne’ in relation to Being, an important implication emerges regarding our understanding of ‘techne’ as ‘artwork’ or ‘art’ (a meaning we are familiar with, in addition to its looser meanings as ‘technical skill’ or ‘technology’ which are very loose meanings, if not wrong meanings according to Heidegger): the authentic work of art, or ‘techne’, brings Being to a stands, making visible what is usually invisible, thereby reverting to the original sense of Being as appearance, manifestation, and standing in the light (see Image 03, above). Art, Heidegger says, is ‘opening-up [of what was concealed, therefore, it is ‘unconcealment’] and keeping [it] open’; thanks to the work of art Being is brought to a stand, it is brought into being — the work of art. From these considerations, it becomes clear the fundamental and original meaning of ‘art’ as ‘techne’: ‘This opening-up and keeping open, which surpasses and puts to work, is knowing. The passion of knowing is questioning. Art is knowing and hence is “techne”. Art is not “techne” merely because it involves “technical” skills, tools, and materials with which to work.’[104]
2) In addition to interpreting ‘deinon’ as the ‘violence-doing’ and relating it to ‘techne’, Heidegger views ‘deinon’, or ‘the overwhelming’, as a concept rooted in another fundamental Greek term: ‘dike’, translated here as ‘fittingness first in the sense of joint and structure; then as arrangement, as the direction that the overwhelming gives to its sway; finally, as the enjoining structure, which compels fitting-in and compliance.’[105] Being-human happens only insofar as ‘techne’, knowing, ‘breaks out against “dike”, which for its part, as fittingness, has all “techne” at its disposal.’[106] Again, opposition and unity are determinative of Being: ‘the reciprocal over-against, is.’ [107] In this case, 3) the reciprocal relation (opposition and unity) of ‘techne’ and ‘dike’— or, as I say, ‘techne( )dike’ — brings to its fullest realization the meaning of deinotaton, ‘the uncanniest’, as the characterization of the human being.
Heidegger’s interpretation of human beings as ‘the uncanniest’ is rooted in the reciprocity of opposing elements, namely, the overwhelming (dike) and the violence-doing (techne). This interpretation is crucial in connecting Sophocles’ poetic sayings with the philosophical ideas of Parmenides and Heraclitus. Furthermore, it marks the next step in Heidegger’s discourse on the relationship between Being (the universal character of what is) and thinking (the particular character of what is human, which, in turn, determines the meaning of what is), which is characterized by both unity and disjunction, or unity and opposition.
Chapter Four — Section D.3.f. The affinity between Sophocles and Parmenides
By interpreting the nature of the human being as ‘the uncanniest’ (through the analysis of Sophocles) Heidegger has identified a symmetry between the specific reciprocal belonging-together of ‘dike’ and ‘techne’, as determinants of the human being, on the one hand, and the more general reciprocal belonging-together of Being and apprehension/noein/logos (which we have examined through the analysis of Heraclitus’ and Parmenides’ sayings), on the other hand. This is to show that the general structure of Being, which is based on the opposition and unity of determinants (such as Being and becoming, Being and seeming, and Being and thinking), is the same structure that grounds the human being, which in turn is founded on the belonging-together of determinants (including ‘dike’, the overwhelming sway as Being, and ‘techne’, the violence-doing as active gatheredness, traceable back to the sequence apprehension/noein/logos). Moreover, by introducing the Being of human beings (Dasein) as a historical ‘incident’ in the determination of Being (through thinking, as logos/noein/apprehension), such Being, at a certain point in history, becomes subject to human determination, which is the final aspect of the relationship between Being and thinking that Heidegger must elaborate.
To revisit the analogy between Being-logos/noein (as elaborated by Heraclitus and Parmenides) and dike–techne (as elaborated by Sophocles), while it is quite direct and evident the possibility to link ‘dike’ to Being (in this regard Heidegger says that, at first Anaximander, then Heraclitus and Parmenides speak of ‘Being in its essential connection to “dike”… So it becomes clear that both the poetic and the thoughtful saying of Being name Being —that is, establish and delimit it— with the same word, “dike”),[108] the relation between ‘techne’ — which, as ‘machination’, refers back to ‘the violence-doing’ of the human beings — and apprehension (as noein, related to logos, which we have seen) is more elaborated. Heidegger must demonstrate that apprehension is a form of violence, arguing that ‘apprehension… is such that it uses violence, and as doing violence is an urgency, and as an urgency is undergone only in the necessity of a struggle.’[109] This is made in three steps:
1) The first move for Heidegger is to say that apprehension is a ‘de-cision’.[110] As an introductory etymological note, I observe that Heidegger’s hyphenation already implies a form of violence, specifically a double form of violence: derived from the Latin ‘de-caedere’, where ‘caedere’ means ‘to cut’, and the prefix ‘de’, meaning ‘away’, emphasizes the violent act of ‘cutting’ as a form of removal or separation from something. Coming back to Heidegger: what do we have to de-cide? According to Heidegger, we must take a stance on Being, seeming, and not-Being through a way of thinking as apprehension (noein) — we have to confront them. Fundamentally, apprehension as a domain of thinking decides in favor of Being over Nothing, and subsequently confronts it with seeming, such as distinguishing ‘this is the cathedral of Strasbourg’ from ‘this seems to be the cathedral of Strasbourg’. In essence, the decision — whether seen as ‘standing against’ (a choice regarding Being versus Nothing) or as ‘confrontation’ (Being versus seeming) — is already a struggle, and thus, it is immediately de-cisive; it is necessary (an urgent matter) to establish the path to the Being of beings in opposition to non-Being.
2) Heidegger’s second move is to demonstrate that ‘Apprehension stands in an inner essential community with logos’. As Heidegger puts it: ‘Logos is an urgency’.[111] This second step is elaborated upon by fragment 6, by Parmenides, where noein is paired with legein — apprehension with logos: ‘Needful is apprehension and logos’ the fragment says.[112] ‘Here, logos — Heidegger says —must mean, together with apprehension, that (human) act of violence by virtue of which Being is gathered in its gatheredness. Needful is gathering, the gathering that belongs to apprehension. Both must happen “for the sake of Being”.’[113] Here, we have a twofold characterization of ‘gathering’ (as legein, whence logos derives, and noein, as apprehension), which not only determines Being but also determines apprehension, thereby revealing their intimate relation and opening up Being to humanity; thus, the essence of both Being and Being-human is determined. Then, ‘this gathering — Heidegger says — has the basic character of opening up, revealing [de-concealing]… “logos” has the character of “deloun”, of revealing… bringing-to-self-showing’.[114] This gathering brings-to-self-showing Being as Being-human: their reciprocity is revealed; however, it also marks the beginning of ‘the decline of the determination of logos’ (with Plato and Aristotle) and their reciprocity is covered up in intelligibility: ‘Since then, for two millennia, these relations among “logos”, “aletheia”, “phusis”, “noein”, and “idea” have been hidden away and covered up in unintelligibility.’[115] To summarize these important passages according to which human beings, through the power of logos (and its decadence into what we now understand as thinking, language and word/sign), now determine Being, Heidegger states: ‘In originary saying, the Being of beings is opened up in the structure of its gatheredness. This opening-up is gathered in the second sense, according to which the word preserves what is originally gathered, and thus the word governs what holds sway, “phusis”. Human beings, as those who stand and act in logos, in gathering, are the gatherers. They take over and fulfill the governance of the sway of the overwhelming.’[116] This is how Being became a determination of Being-human.
In originary saying, the Being of beings is opened up in the structure of its gatheredness. This opening-up is gathered in the second sense, according to which the word preserves what is originally gathered, and thus the word governs what holds sway, ‘phusis’
3) Finally, Heidegger returns to logos as a struggle, which ‘grounds the essence of language’ and determines both Being-human and Being;[117] this ‘struggle’ arises from the twofold determination of ‘gathering’ mentioned earlier and the principle of opposition and unity that Heidegger has used to elaborate the structure of Being since the beginning, where logos (as legein) stands in a reciprocal relation with phusis (Being), yet also opposes it. Heidegger explains how this happens: ‘Because the essence of language is found in the gathering of the gatheredness of Being, language as everyday discourse comes to its truth only when saying and hearing are related to logos as gatheredness, in the sense of Being… therefore “legein” [to discourse, to talk] must turn away from mere recitation, from glibness and the ready tongue’;[118] then ‘the man who knows must constantly tear himself away from this way into the “legein” and “noein” of the Being of the being’.[119]
Chapter Four — Section D.4. The originary disjunction between “phusis” and “logos”
According to Heidegger, the constant effort of ‘the man who knows’ to withdraw from a superficial way to Being involves a decision, which is a ‘selective gleaning’ that grounds and sustains the pursuit of Being and the rejection of seeming, as seen in the analysis of fragment 7. We are on the verge of a significant transformation, where the original logos, inherently directed to Being, becomes a human faculty that determines the nature of Being.
We are on the verge of a significant transformation, where the original logos, inherently directed to Being, becomes a human faculty that determines the nature of Being.
What we are currently seeing will lead to an ‘externalization’ of Being, where logos, as a human faculty of thinking, will take precedence over Being and define its nature. This is foreshadowed in the analysis of fragment 7, where Heidegger explains the intimate connection between logos and krinen, which, according to Heidegger, means ‘to select, to bring into relief, to set the measure that determines rank’:[120] logos, as a human faculty, establishes the measure of Being, which is also the origin of Aristotle’s categories, as we will soon see.
In summary, Logos and phusis diverge, and Logos emerges as ‘the court of justice that presides over Being and that takes over and regulates the determination of the Being of beings. This happens only when logos gives up its inceptive essence — that is, when Being as phusis is covered up and reinterpreted. Human Dasein then changes accordingly. The slow ending of this history, in whose midst we have long been standing, is the dominance of thinking as “ratio” (as both understanding and reason) over the Being of beings. Here begins the interplay of “rationalism and irrationalism”…’ [121]
Heidegger poses two key questions to further explore the dominance of thinking over Being (the Being of beings): ‘how does logos secede from and take precedence over Being? How does the decisive development of the division between Being and thinking come about?’[122] Two more specific questions can help answer those questions by narrowing the focus: ‘1. How does the relation between phusis and logos look at the end of Greek philosophy, in Plato and Aristotle? 2. How did this end come about? What is the real basis of the change?’[123] This is the subject of the next two sections.
Chapter Four — Section D.4.c. The Platonic and Aristotelian interpretation of phusis as “idea”
Regarding the first question, Heidegger is straightforward: ‘At the end, the word idea, eidos, “idea,” comes to the fore as the definitive and prevailing word for Being (phusis). Since then, the interpretation of Being as idea rules over all Western thinking’, from Plato down to ‘the system of Hegel’.[124] We are focusing on the origin of the passage from Being understood as phusis to Being understood as idea.
We are focusing on the origin of the passage from Being understood as phusis to Being understood as idea
Heidegger now elucidates the original Greek meaning of the word ‘idea’: ‘The word “idea” means what is seen in the visible, the view that something offers. What is offered is the current look or “eidos” of whatever we encounter… the look is that within which and as which the thing comes-to-presence — that is, in the Greek sense, “is”. This standing is the constancy of what has come forth of itself, the constancy of “phusis”. Thus, Heidegger has revealed the connection between the original sense of ‘phusis’, which involves coming to presence, constancy, standing forth, standing in the light, or appearance, and ‘idea’ or eidos, which literally refers to the look offered by that which comes to presence, stands forth, and appears. This understanding of phusis as an idea – the way something appears – provides even more insight: ‘In the look, that which comes to presence, that which is, stands there in its whatness and its howness. It is apprehended and taken, it is in the possession of a taking-in, it is the holdings of a taking-in, it is the available coming to presence of what comes to presence: “ousia”.’[125] In these passages we are revealing the origin of a double change in the meaning of Being, as interpreted by Heidegger, which involves the original ‘emerging-abiding sway’ and its associated concepts, such as gathering, gatheredness, constancy, persistence, and presence: initially, the concept declines as ‘idea’, and then as ‘substance’ (Plato and Aristotle provided decisive interpretations that changed the sense of Being with their ‘theory of ideas’ and ‘categories’, respectively).
we are revealing the origin of a double change in the meaning of Being, which, at first, declines as ‘idea’, and then as ‘substance’
In a note concerning the meaning of the Greek term ‘ousia’, the editors and translators of Introduction to Metaphysics explain that the term etymologically means ‘beingness’; it originally referred to ‘property’ or ‘holding’, and later came to mean ‘substance’ or ‘essence’ in philosophical language, which remains its common meaning today.
According to Heidegger, ‘ousia’ can have two meanings: ‘the coming to presence of something that comes to presence and that which comes to presence in the whatness of its look.’[126] The first meaning is hidden behind the word ‘idea’, as ‘existentia’, that is the existent, or existence; the second meaning will later develop its own status as ‘essentia’, substance, independently of its prior connection with ‘idea’.
Ousia… can mean both the coming to presence of something that comes to presence [the look as ‘idea’] and that which comes to presence in the whatness of its look [substance]
Let’s see what Heidegger states in this regard: ‘Here is the concealed origin of the later distinction between “existentia” and “essentia”… if we understand the “idea” (the look) as “coming to presence”, then coming to presence shows itself as constancy in a double sense. On the one hand, the look entails the standing-forth-from-unconcealment, the simple “estin” <is>. On the other hand, what shows itself in the look is that which looks that way, “what” stands there, the <ti estin> the what-it-is.’[127] It is this latter meaning that will eventually evolve into substance, ‘ousia’ (see Image 08, below).
Image 08: Genesis of the different senses of Being, starting from its interpretation as ‘idea’, in the early Greek sense of the constancy of ‘that which comes to presence, that which is, [and] stands there in its whatness and its howness… [that is] ousia’. Hereinafter, the distinction between existentia’ and ‘essentia’ emerged, and, finally, ‘essentia/substance’ was exclusively interpreted as ‘ousia’, in the material sense.
So, the term ‘idea’ now ‘constitutes the Being of beings’,[128] but we must note that this meaning differs from our modern understanding of ‘idea’: for Heidegger, ‘here, “idea” and “eidos” are used in an extended sense, meaning not only what we can see with our physical eyes, but everything that can be apprehended. “What” any given being is consists in its look, and the look, in turn, presents the being’s whatness’, which will later be recognized as substance (see Section D.5).[129]
To understand the development of our conception of Being and its impact on our understanding of nature, including the dualisms that came with it, let me repeat the passage: when Being was expressed by the term ‘idea’ — eidos — it represented both what we can see with our eyes (that which is actual, in the sense of concrete and physical — the thing present at hand, as this particular thing) and everything that can be apprehended (that which is abstract, the thing present in my mind as the universal thing, the idea of ‘chair’ — the ‘chairness’ — that offers ground to any particular chair that can be present at hand, or, in an extended sense, everything that can be represented in my mind, as a modality of ‘thinking’). According to this meaning, the original sense of Being as an idea comprehends both the visible and the apprehensible, or, reminding us what we have said so far concerning the unity of the opposites expressed in a more pictorial form, the visible( )the apprehensible. Only later did the two diverge, and a new dualism arise.
Place as ‘idea’: the physical and the… ‘ideal’.
The argument Heidegger is currently discussing provides an opportunity for me to explain that the concept of place I envision, which is rooted in the conception of Being/phusis, inherently accepts the interpretation of Being as an idea in the original Greek sense of the term. This concept of place encompasses everything that exists, from the physical realm visible to our eyes to the mental realm that can be imagined or grasped through thought, and thus offers a constant foundation for both the physical and other dimensions. The visible( )the apprehensible, or the concrete( )the abstract: this is the overarching domain of place I am describing, where the two brackets, facing each other, represent a placial (place-based) domain of opposition and unity. The physical dimension of place originates from the actualization of physicochemical processes, which eventually unfold into biological and social dimensions (actualization of biological and social processes), whereas the abstract dimension represents the final stage of place development (actualization of symbolic processes, which are exclusively human): an intellectual or symbolic state, offering a stable ground for all other dimensions (so, in this sense, the platonic interpretation of ‘idea’ as the immutable ‘substrate’ of all that exist is also accepted: by analogy, place — the Being of beings —, as a universal dimension, offers a stable ground, a substrate or sub-stance as that which stands below, hupokeimenon, to any other particular/concrete/visible dimension — physical, chemical, biological, ecological…). Through thought — the abstract, and universal — we return to the physical — the concrete and particular —, thereby squaring the circle of reality. There is almost an identification between the platonic sense of Being that Heidegger is currently explaining and the sense of place I am describing, where the concrete and abstract, physical and ideal, particular and universal, actual and potential, and persistence and change co-participate in the creation and dynamics of place according to the schema of ‘opposition and unity’. The overarching dimension of reality, encompassing the Being of beings as phusis or idea in the early Greek sense, extends from the visible to the apprehensible and finds its opportune expression in the reformed conception of place — place as system of processes — that I am discussing at RSaP.
Returning to Heidegger’s interpretation, the Platonic concept of Being as an idea, which underlies Greek philosophy, is the culmination of the inception of Greek philosophy. As Heidegger notes, ‘it cannot be denied that the interpretation of Being as “idea” results from the fundamental experience of Being as “phusis”. It is, as we say, a necessary consequence of the essence of Being as “emergent shining”.’[130] With Plato there is not a decline of Being, or a distance from it, as a founding principle. In Plato’s ‘theory of ideas’, the original sense of Being from the Greeks remains intact, and — I add — is also reflected in his concept of chōra, the spatial/placial notion that grounds his metaphysical system in the Timaeus. This spatial or placial sense of Being is integral to the reformed notion of place I am presenting at RSaP, which shares a close connection with Plato’s chōra. The decline of the sense of Being as idea, a real overturning of its meaning with respect to the inception, happens when ‘that which is an essential “consequence” [that is the understanding of idea as a necessary consequence of the essence of Being as “emergent shining”] is raised to the level of essence itself, and thus takes the place of the essence’.
The decline of the sense of Being as idea, a real overturning of meaning with respect to the inception, happens when ‘that which is an essential “consequence” [that is Being understood as “emergent shining”] is raised to the level of essence itself, and thus takes the place of the essence’.
What is decisive, Heidegger says, ‘is not the fact in itself that phusis was characterized as “idea” [as in Plato’s system], but that the “idea” rises up as the sole and definitive interpretation of Being’ — [131] and this is what happened by misinterpreting the philosophy of Plato or, anyway, after him, by misinterpreting the originary sense of Being. Here, we have to consider that phusis, the ‘emerging sway’, is determined by ‘appearance’ in a twofold sense: ‘First, appearing denotes the self-gathering event of bringing-itself-to-stand and thus standing in gatheredness. But then, appearing also means: as something that is already standing there, to proffer a foreground, a surface, a look as an offering to be looked at.’[132]
Image 09: Being or phusis — the emerging sway — as ‘appearing’
To better elucidate this difference, Heidegger presents an interesting argument, which is one of the core arguments of this website. How do the two meanings of ‘appearing’ differ from a spatial point of view? This is Heidegger’s position: ‘appearing in the first and authentic sense, as the gathered bringing-itself-to-stand, takes space in; it first conquers space; as standing there, it creates space for itself; it brings about everything that belongs to it, while it itself is not imitated. Appearing in the second sense merely steps forth from an already prepared space, and it is viewed by a looking-at within the already fixed dimensions of this space. The visage offered by the thing, and no longer the thing itself, now becomes what is decisive. Appearing in the first sense first rips space open. Appearing in the second sense simply gives space an “outline” and measures the space that has been opened up.’[133]
Raum/room, place, and space
On this occasion, I must make some distinctions regarding Heidegger’s position on space and Being. Rather than to space, I attribute to place every possible spatial interpretation that can provide a ground (a region…) for all that exists, from the universal presence of the Being of beings to its concretization into particular beings. In my view, the first sense of ‘appearing’ that Heidegger discusses, can be better understood as the concretization of processes that, as they unfold, have the creative power to determine the place of their coming into Being — the place of their appearance, or the place of their existence. In this context, I interpret Heidegger’s original ‘raum’ as the place that provides the room for the concretization of an event, which differs from simple ‘space’ (the question arises whether Heidegger’s original ‘raum’ is exactly equivalent to the ‘space’ usually rendered by English translators and interpreters. The distinction I have hinted at is clear in ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, where Heidegger distinguishes between ‘stadion/spatium’, ‘extensio’, and ‘space’ — the Greek and Latin terms being certainly closer to the neutral abstractness intrinsic to the ordinary conception of ‘space’ rather than the physical or quasi-physical sense of active spatiality evoked by the English term ‘room’, which is etymologically close to the German ‘raum’, and which I associate with the active presence/appearance of place. What is the reason behind the distinction made by Heidegger if ‘raum’ is already ‘space’? This is a question more for interpreters and translators than for Heidegger, as I see a difference between Heidegger’s nuanced conception of spatiality as elaborated, for example, in ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ and the simplified ‘space’ proposed by interpreters and English translators, which flattens the articulated discourse on spatiality with its various gradients). With reference to the abovementioned passage, for me, it is not a question of ‘conquering’ or ‘taking in’ something external (space), as it might seem when reading Heidegger; this interpretation would imply a pre-existing space that precedes the events we are describing, which would mean Heidegger is proposing an absolute space that exists before Being — a concept that would undermine the argumentations presented so far about the priority of Being. Here, his references to the creation of space or the ambiguous statement about space being ripped open are not supported or explained by the previous mentions of space being taken in and conquered, which, in my view, imply a preexisting space independent of Being (i.e., an absolute space). I interpret this situation as the simultaneous emergence of processes and place, including the space room afforded by place. Processes come into being as an occurrence, and in this sense, place does not preexist the processes that unfold, but rather, they happen together. Place and processes are coequal partners, and this is not just about the concretization of processes into particular beings with specific places. Any (particular) being, as already stated by Aristotle, Newton or Leibniz, has its place. In a more general sense, whenever we hypothesize the presence of something, that ‘something’ requires a domain to manifest its presence. I argue that this domain is a placial domain — a place, to begin with, not a space. For example, consider a perfect platonic solid, like a cube: as soon as I think of it, the cube appears in my mind along with its place, which is the natural domain of all that exists, whether physical or ideal. Place is the natural domain of all that exists, either physical or ideal (mental). We have essentially created the concept of ‘space’ as a three-dimensional entity, building upon its original abstract meanings of distance, measure, interval, and extension, from the old Greek ‘spadion/stadion’ and Latin ‘spatium’ and ‘extensio’. Furthermore, we have also invented other realms of existence, including digital and virtual ones, but they always emerge from and require a place to exist. Place, which is contextually tied to the processes within it (place is ‘gathered’ and disclosed together with its processes and the space room it rips open, as illustrated Image 09), serves as the fundamental ground for everything that exists, including other domains. Place understood as the ground for an entity/event to take place (i.e., a foreground) is also, at the same time, a background for other entities.
In the second sense (‘Appearing in the second sense simply gives space an outline and measures the space that has been opened up’), I believe we find the origin of the shift in role and meaning between space and place. In contrast to Heidegger’s physicalist use of ‘space’, when he says that ‘Appearing in the second sense merely steps forth from an already prepared space’, I argue that the ‘second phase’ he describes emerges from a prepared ‘place’, not ‘space’. This ‘place’ is where beings reside and offer their appearances. It seems to me that the passive understanding of beings as merely ‘visible’ and ‘external’, as described by Heidegger, paved the way for ‘place’ (an active agent) to be replaced with ‘space’ (a passive or neutral agent) as a means to measure, quantify, or crystallize beings as static entities, as well as to measure space itself. As we know, this is the original sense of space: a unit of measurement — see the article Back to the Origins of Space and Place. So, there is a parallel between the shift from place to space (that is, from the active power of place, represented by the Platonic chōra or the Aristotelian topos — which I both consider placial notions —, to the passivity of space, ‘spatium’ as pure extension, formalized in Newton’s theory) and the changes in the meaning of Being described by Heidegger: from ‘phusis’ to ‘idea’ as a ‘constant presence’ and, then, to ‘ousia’ as a material substance, which gave a definite direction to Western thinking and not just to it. It’s not surprising, as I’m demonstrating here, that place (and space) are closely tied to the question of Being; in fact, place can even assume the function of Being itself, including in the early Greek perspective and explaining the modern one, as Heidegger is doing. Consequently, when the concept of Being changes, the concepts of place, space, motion, substance, and time — all interconnected — also change.
Turning back to this important Section D.4.c., with Plato, the sense of Being-as-idea shifts from ‘existentia’ to ‘essentia’; a change in meaning that will be formalized after Aristotle, although it is not directly attributed to these two great thinkers, but rather to the frequent misinterpretation of their thoughts. It is certain that the Platonic ‘theory of ideas’ and the Aristotelian ‘categories’ will play a significant role in the process that will bring Being under the exclusive dominance of thinking. At the end of this process, ‘we will no longer wish to deny that the interpretation of Being as idea stands at a distance from the originary inception.’[134] Later on, Heidegger explains that ‘The transformation of Being from phusis to idea itself brings about one of the essential forms of movement within the history of the West’.[135]
Let’s examine these crucial passages in detail, as described by Heidegger: ‘Being as “idea” is now promoted to the status of what really is, and beings themselves, which previously held sway, sink to the level of what Plato calls “me on” — that which really should not be and really “is” not either — because beings always deform the idea, the pure look, by actualizing it, insofar as they incorporate it into matter.’[136] Heidegger further develops this explication of Being, which is modeled on the Platonic theory of ideas:
… explication of Being modeled on the Platonic theory of ideas:
‘the “idea” becomes the “paradeigma”, the model. At the same time, the idea necessarily becomes the ideal. What is produced by imitation really “is” not, but only participates in Being, “methexis” participation. The “chorismos” has been ripped open, the cleft between the idea as what really is, the prototype and archetype, and what really is not, the imitation and likeness.’[137] If ‘appearing’, the emerging abiding sway, originally defined Being as phusis, now, its sense as ‘appearing’ may degenerate into mere ‘seeming’ in relation to the surface of what appears, raising a question of ‘likeness’ that inherently carries a negative connotation: ‘Now appearing takes on still another sense on the basis of the idea. That which appears, appearance, is no longer “phusis”, the emerging sway, nor the self-showing of the look, but instead it is the surfacing of the likeness. Inasmuch as the likeness never reaches its prototype, what appears is “mere” appearance, really a seeming, which now means a defect.’[138] Heidegger continues: ‘Now “on” and “phainomenon” <what is and what appears> are disjoined. This involves still another essential consequence. Because the idea is what really is, and the “idea” is the prototype, all opening up of beings must be directed toward equaling the prototype, resembling the archetype, directing itself according to the idea. The truth of “phusis — aletheia” as the unconcealment that essentially unfolds in the emerging sway — now becomes “homoiosis” and “mimesis”: resemblance, directedness, the correctness of seeing, the correctness of apprehending as representing.’[139] Here, the relationship between Being and thinking is revealed with full clarity: if Being’s meaning shifts to ‘idea’ and beings must conform to this prototype, then thinking itself becomes the ultimate authority for determining whether a being conforms to the idea or not; consequently, the relationship between Being/phusis, thinking, and logos comes to the forefront once again; in fact, Heidegger argues, we must now ‘trace what becomes of logos, in accordance with the reinterpretation of phusis [as idea].’[140] Heidegger continues: ‘The opening up of beings happens in logos as gathering. Gathering is originally accomplished in language. Thus logos becomes the definitive and essential determination of discourse. Language, as what is spoken out and said, and as what can be said again, preserves in each case the being that has been opened up. What has been said can be said again and passed on. The truth that is preserved in this saying spreads in such a way that the being that was originally opened up in gathering is not itself properly experienced in each particular case. In what is passed on, truth loosens itself, as it were, from beings… This implies that the decision about what is true now takes place as a confrontation between correct saying and mere hearsay. Logos, in the sense of saying and asserting, now becomes the domain and place where decisions are made about truth… logos as assertion becomes the locus of truth in the sense of correctness.’[141]
Logos, in the sense of saying and asserting, now becomes the domain and place where decisions are made about truth… logos as assertion becomes the locus of truth in the sense of correctness
We have reached another pivotal moment in the development of Western thought and the concept of Being: Aristotle’s introduction of ‘categories’ as a means of determining what lies at the basis of Being. This is a crucial passage to examine, as it will reveal whether our assertion (an assertion is a ‘category’, in Greek) about Being is true or false. Let’s see what Heidegger has to say on this matter: ‘We arrive at Aristotle’s proposition according to which logos as assertion is what can be true or false. Truth, which was originally, as unconcealment, a happening of the beings themselves that held sway… now becomes a property of logos. In becoming a property of assertion, truth… changes its essence…Truth becomes the correctness of logos. Thus logos steps out of its originary inclusion in the happening of unconcealment in such a way that decisions about truth, and so about beings, are made on the basis of logos and with reference back to it — and not only decisions about beings, but even, and in advance, about Being. Logos is now “legein ti kata tinos”, saying something about something. That about which something is said is in each case what lies at the basis of the assertion, what lies in front of it, “hupokeimenon (subjectum)”. From the point of view of the logos that has become independent as assertion, Being displays itself as “this” lying-there… That which lies at the basis can be exhibited in asserting in various ways: as what is in such and such a state, as what is so and so large, as what is related in this and that way. Being-in-a-state, Being-large, Being-related are determinations of Being.’[142] Here, Heidegger introduces a brief list of Aristotelian ‘categories’.[143] He then goes on to explain the literal meaning of the term ‘categories’ and their implication for ontology: ‘Because, as ways of Being-said, they have been created out of logos — and because to assert is “kategorein” — the determinations of the Being of beings are called “kategoriai”, categories. On this basis, the theory of Being and of the determinations of beings as such becomes a theory that investigates the categories and their order. The goal of all ontology is the theory of categories.’[144]
… the theory of Being and of the determinations of beings as such becomes a theory that investigates the categories and their order. The goal of all ontology is the theory of categories.
Let’s now summarize, following Heidegger, the relationship between phusis and logos at the end of Greek philosophy, specifically in Plato and Aristotle:
Phusis becomes the ideal model — the ‘paradeigma’ — that beings must conform to; ‘truth’, previously connected to ‘aletheia’ or the unconcealment of Being, becomes a matter of ‘correctness’, ensuring beings correspond to the ideal model, while logos becomes the ‘assertion’, that is ‘the locus of truth as correctness, the origin of the categories, the basic principle that determines the possibilities of Being.’[145] So — Heidegger concludes —, it happens that, from now on, ‘idea’ and ‘category’ will determine the entire course of ‘Western thought, action, and appraisal, under which stands all of Western Dasein.’[146]
Phusis becomes the idea, that is the ‘paradeigma’, the model beings must conform to; ‘truth’, which we have seen before, is connected with ‘aletheia’ — the unconcealment of Being — becomes (a question of) ‘correctness’, the determination of the correspondence between beings and the ‘idea’ as the model, while logos becomes the ‘assertion’, that is ‘the locus of truth as correctness, the origin of the categories, the basic principle that determines the possibilities of Being.’[145] So — Heidegger concludes —, it happens that, from now on, ‘idea’ and ‘category’ will determine the entire course of ‘Western thought, action, and appraisal, under which stands all of Western Dasein.’[146]
The next step for Heidegger is to explore how this transformation of phusis and logos occurred, which is the subject of the following section:
Chapter Four — Section D.4.d. The basis of the Platonic turn: the collapse of unconcealment into correctness
What is the basis of the Platonic turn, which ultimately led to Being/phusis being understood as eidos, idea, as ousia, constant presence, and logos as assertion? The question is inherent to the relation between phusis, logos, truth as unconcealment, and truth as correctness. We have seen that phusis is what appears, and what appears shines and shows a look (Image 03, 08, 09); in this way, what is said (legein/logos) of the look of beings, ‘falls immediately into the domain of assertion as chatter.’[147] A consequence of the transformation of sense we have just analyzed (phusis as idea; logos as assertion — that is ‘the locus of truth as correctness, the origin of the categories’ we have seen right above) is that ‘from the point of view both of the idea and of assertion, the original essence of truth, “aletheia” (unconcealment), has changed into correctness.’[148] To provide a more direct and complete answer to the question that opens this paragraph, ‘The transformation of “phusis” and “logos” into idea and assertion has its inner ground in a transformation of the essence of truth as unconcealment into truth as correctness’, Heidegger explains.[149] The essence of truth/aletheia as a way to interpret the Being of beings (phusis) collapsed; therefore, after Being collapsed, the only possibility to put its pieces back together — the only possibility to bring Being back — was to represent Being in thinking, or ‘in a thoughtful re-trieval’, as Heidegger says. Let’s see Heidegger’s explanation, in this regard: ‘This essence of truth could not be held fast and preserved in its inceptive originality. Unconcealment, the space founded for the appearing of beings, collapsed. “Idea” and “assertion,” “ousia” and “kategoria”, were rescued as remnants of this collapse. Once neither beings nor gathering could be preserved and understood on the basis of unconcealment, only “one” possibility remained: that which had fallen apart and lay there as something present at hand could be brought back together only in a relation that itself had the character of something present at hand. A present-at-hand logos must resemble something else present at hand — beings as the objects of the logos — and be directed by these… Therefore we can address the inception and the collapse of truth solely in a thoughtful re-trieval.’[150]
Image 10: Being as representation.
“Aletheia”, the place of Being unfolding into beings.
I’ve already touched on this question in a commentary above (after Chapter Two — Section B. The grammar of the Word ‘Being’, in Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics – Part One, see my commentary on ‘Aletheia’ and ‘standing’ as processuality of Place). Heidegger’s use of the term ‘space’ in connection with ‘aletheia’, or ‘unconcealment’ — interpreted as ‘the space founded for the appearing of beings’ — highlights both the similarities and differences between my conception and his: we share the view that this moment is a primal event imbued with a certain sense of dimensionality or, better, extensivity, but I see it as a ‘placial’ event, an event of place, whereas Heidegger views it as an event of space. In this regard, I also diverge from those who use the attribute ‘spatial’ interchangeably to describe questions of place or space, as this approach can reduce place to a secondary function or blur the distinction between space and place. To avoid this, I often prefer the attribute ‘placial’ to ‘spatial’ in situations where the latter might be misleading, or where behind ‘the spatial’ I see a place. The ‘spatial’, as commonly used, does not necessarily include place; on the contrary, place — and the use of the attribute ‘placial’ — includes space. In my view, place is inextricably linked with the processes that occur in it (gathering, standing forth, emerging, abiding). These processes cannot be separated from the place to create a distinct dimension, whether abstract or concrete. This inherent connection between place and process is still reflected in the common phrase ‘to take place’, which metaphorically means ‘to occur’.
Returning to Heidegger, in his argumentation about the modes of recovering the originary truth of Being, he makes an observation that he will revisit in his later writings: it is only through the work — ‘the work of the word as poetry, the work of stone in temple and statue, the work of the word as thinking, the work of the polis as the site of history that grounds and preserves all this’ —[151] that unconcealment occurs. In the work, unconcealment and the struggle against concealment are intertwined, with one implying the other: ‘The striving for the unconcealment of beings and thus of Being in the work, this striving for the unconcealment of beings, which in itself already happens only as constant antagonism, is always at the same time the strife against concealment, covering-up, against seeming.’[152] Heidegger now revisits to the relationship between Being and seeming, demonstrating how this relation unfolds in the light of the transformation of logos into assertion — the place of correctness — that is, fundamentally, in the light of the new relation between Being and thinking, the ground of Dasein: ‘Seeming, “doxa”, is not something external to Being and unconcealment but instead belongs to unconcealment. But “doxa” is also ambiguous in itself. On the one hand, it means the view in which something proffers itself, and on the other hand it means the view that human beings have. Dasein settles into such views. They are asserted and passed on. Thus “doxa” is a type of logos. The dominant views now obstruct our own view of beings. Beings are deprived of the possibility of turning themselves “toward” apprehension, appearing on their own right. The view granted by beings, which usually turns itself toward us, is distorted into a view upon beings. The dominance of views thus distorts beings and twists them. “To twist a thing” is called “pseudesthai” by the Greeks. The struggle “for” the unconcealment of beings, “aletheia”, thus becomes the struggle “against” the “pseudos”, against twisting and distortion.’[153] This is the logical conclusion of this long passage that summarizes the transformation of Being in contraposition to thinking: ‘The way to truth as correctness lies open.’[154] And this takes us to the next important section, concerning the interpretation of Being as ‘ousia’ — constant presence.
‘Archi-textures’: a way to the unconcealment of architecture.
Before proceeding, I’d like to revisit the relationship between ‘the work of…’ and ‘unconcealment’, specifically in the context of architecture, which is my profession. This topic will be explored in a dedicated article (Archi-textures), but for now, I’ll provide an outline in connection with our recent discussion of Heidegger. Going back in time to my years at the University before my graduation, as soon as I understood that architecture was a question of space — this is the traditional interpretation of architecture according to some of the most important critics and architects since the end of the XIX century (at this regard, see the Appendix: Architecture as the Art-and-Science of Space in the article On the Ambiguous Language of Space) — I sought to uncover what lies beneath space, both theoretically and practically. After a long journey of research, combining theory and practice, I finally pieced together my findings and used the term ‘archi-textures’, inspired by Henry Lefebvre’s The Production of Space, to reveal certain processes that occur in real places, which architects can then transpose into abstract spaces, generating a new reality that is both placial and spatial — a choral reality where place and space converge, along with abstract and concrete domains. In a naïve and intuitive way — by taking processes into the light in the form of 3D and 2D wires, surfaces, and volumes as the reification of basic relations between the perceiving subject embedded within a given physical environment-as-place and the objects in that place — I found one way to give expression to some of the basic processes that are often concealed in architecture. Now, I intend that processual/placial territory that I began to explore years ago, in-between place and space, the founding territory ‘where’ Being and beings present themselves, stepping-forth from concealment: Being, as the place of processes; beings, as the place of actualized processes that, in this specific case, unfold and present in the form of a model of architecture, and, eventually, in the form of a built architecture.
Image 11: Archi-textures, the primordial ground of architectural processes taken into the light (Project for a Library in Legnano, ITA, Alessandro Calvi Rollino Architetto)
Chapter Four — Section D.5. The interpretation of Being as “ousia”
The interpretation of Being against (its) distortion was secured in the word ‘ousia’, which means ‘Being in the sense of constant presence, presence at hand.’[155] That constant presence is ‘what really is… what always is’, that is, the idea serving as the constant model of reference. Heidegger says: ‘What is continuously coming to presence is what we must go back to, in advance, in all comprehending and producing of anything: the model, the “idea”. What is continuously coming to presence is what we must go back to in all “logos”, asserting, as what always already lies at hand, the “hupokeimenon, subjectum.” What always already lies at hand before us is… the earlier, the a priori… The “hupokeimenon” is the forerunner of the later interpretation of the being as object.’ [156] According to Heidegger, the interpretation of being as ‘ousia’, constant presence, ‘could not maintain itself’ and ‘immediately began to be reinterpreted as “substantia”’ — that is substance, the material —, which is how we still understand ‘Being’ today; this understanding, inherited from the Middle Ages and continued into modernity, involves retroactively applying the concept of substance to Greek philosophy, thereby falsifying the history of philosophy from its foundations, Heidegger concludes.
The main term for the Being of beings… is ‘ousia’ [constant presence, the ‘idea’ as model of reference]… this fundamental meaning of ‘ousia’ could not maintain itself. ‘Ousia’ immediately began to be reinterpreted as ‘substantia.’
Finally, we have reached the end of this lengthy discussion about the relationship between Being and thinking: ‘It remains to be seen how, starting with “ousia” as the term that is now definitive for Being, the divisions we have discussed before between “Being and becoming”, “Being and seeming” are also conceived’. [157] At this point, Heidegger draws the schema with arrows, which we have already anticipated in Image 06 above, and I reinterpret it here:
Image 12: The interpretation of Being after Plato and Aristotle and before the modern epoch, according to Heidegger.
This is Heidegger’s explanation that accompanies the schema of the divisions of Being: ‘What stands over against becoming as its opposite is continuous endurance [Being as “ousia”]. What stands over against seeming as mere semblance is what is really viewed, the “idea”. As the “ontos on” <what really is>, the “idea” is furthermore what endures continuously, as opposed to mutable seeming. But becoming and seeming are not determined only by [Being as] “ousia”; for “ousia”, in turn, is still definitively determined by its relation to logos, judgment as assertion… Accordingly, becoming and seeming are also determined by the perspective of thinking.’[158] Heidegger goes on to elucidate how ‘becoming’ and ‘seeming’ appear from the point of view of thinking — ‘the thinking that makes judgments, which always starts from something that endures’:[159] 1) ‘becoming appears as not-enduring. Not-enduring shows itself at first, within what is present at hand, as not staying in the same place. Becoming appears as change of place, “phora”, local motion. Change of place becomes the definitive phenomenon of motion, in the light of which all becoming is then to be comprehended. When the dominance of thinking comes to the fore, in the sense of modern mathematical rationalism, no other form of becoming whatsoever is recognized other than motion in the sense of change of place. Wherever other phenomena of motion show themselves, one attempts to grasp them on the basis of change of place… Descartes — Heidegger continues —, the philosophical founder of this way of thinking, ridicules every other concept of motion in his Regulae, number XII.’ [160]
Becoming appears as change of place… the definitive phenomenon of motion, in the light of which all becoming is then to be comprehended.
Place as a geometrical/mathematical object.
Before moving on to the second point of Heidegger’s explanation, allow me a brief comment. What we have just read concerning ‘phora’ — local motion or locomotion — had far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the concept of place and of nature (P.S.: this important issue was deepened in the article devoted to introducing the work of American philosopher Ivor Leclerc: Concepts of Place, Space, Matter, and the Nature of Physical Existence). That interpretation significantly altered the concept of place, shifting it from a philosophical concept with physical and metaphysical roots, as seen in Aristotle, to a mathematical concept where physical and metaphysical meaning was diminished or entirely subsumed by the concept of space. This is the current situation of the concept of place since the beginning of the modern era. In greater detail, the mathematical concept of place eventually gained recognition as a site, or ‘situs’, and was further reduced to its extremes, ultimately resembling a ‘point’. This led to the notion of place being understood as a mere ‘location’ and, subsequently, a ‘simple location’, which is one of the greatest errors in modern thought. This development marks the final stage of a long process that severed the fruitful connection between place and matter that originally existed. Edward Casey’s essay ‘The Fate of Place’, successfully elucidates these passages, as discussed in the article Place and Space: A Philosophical History There is a structural parallelism between the changing interpretations of the concepts of Being and the changing interpretation of the concept of place, as I aim to demonstrate here and in other articles. A core argument of this website and my research is that we must rethink the concept of place, which leads to a reevaluation of the fundamental relationship between place, matter, space, and time, and ultimately, a revised understanding of nature-as-phusis, the place of processes where oppositions and contrasts (dualisms) recombine into unity.
Regarding the second point, 2) let’s examine what Heidegger says about the effect of thinking on ‘seeming’: ‘Just as becoming, in accordance with ‘ousia’, is determined by thinking (calculating), so is the other opposite to Being, seeming. It is the incorrect. The basis of seeming is the distortion of thought. Seeming becomes mere logical incorrectness, falsehood.’[161] The foundation for the next division (limitation) of Being is established, as thinking not only dominates Being and its opposites (becoming and seeming), but also what is opposed to Being. This final passage explores the full range of divisions of Being: after Being and becoming, Being and seeming, Being and thinking, the focus is now on Being and the ought, which is the other division in preparation, a consequence of the dominance of thinking on Being (and its opposites). The new section is anticipated by the final schema, below.
Image 13: Heidegger’s final schema concerning the limitations of Being.
Chapter Four — Section E. Being and the ought
The position of ‘thinking’ with respect to ‘Being’ in the schema (‘thinking’ stands below ‘Being’) ‘indicates that thinking becomes the ground that sustains and determines Being.’[162] Conversely, the position of ‘the ought’, standing above ‘Being’, ‘suggests that whereas Being is grounded in thinking, it is surmounted by the ought.’[163] What does that mean? This means that ‘Being is no longer what is definitive, what provides the measure’ because the idea, as a being, ‘demands in turn the determination of its Being.’[164] Now, what is that determines the Being of the idea as the highest rank? The highest idea — the idea of ideas — is the idea of the good, intended as ‘the valiant [that] which achieves and can achieve what is proper to it’, Heidegger says, taking as a reference Plato’s thinking.[165] We are now entering the question of ‘value’ as the determinant factor for the modern interpretation of Being (we have to remind that while the first two divisions of Being — ‘Being and becoming’, and ‘Being and seeming’ — were elaborated in the Greek period, the division concerning ‘Being and thinking’, although it began with Plato and Aristotle, reached its final concretization at the beginning of the modern period, while this final delimitation of Being — Being and the ought — ‘belongs thoroughly to modernity’, see point 5 of Chapter Four — Section A. Seven points of orientation for the investigation of the restriction of Being). Before exploring the concept of value further, Heidegger revisits the explanation of the structure of Being, specifically highlighting its opposition to ‘the ought’: ‘insofar as the ideas constitute Being as “ousia”… the highest idea, stands… beyond Being. Thus Being itself, not in general but as “idea”, comes into opposition to something else to which it itself, Being, remains assigned… Being itself, in its particular interpretation as idea, brings with it the relation to the prototypical and to what ought to be… this can occur only by setting something “above” Being that Being never yet is, but always “ought” to be.’[166] That ‘something above’ is represented by ‘values’.
We are entering here the question of ‘value’ as the determinant factor for the modern interpretation of Being (we have to remind that while the first two divisions of Being — ‘Being and becoming’, and ‘Being and seeming’ — were elaborated in the Greek period, the division concerning ‘Being and thinking’, although began with Plato and Aristotle reached its final concretization at the beginning of the modern period, while this final delimitation of Being — Being and the ought — ‘belongs thoroughly to modernity’, see point 5 of Chapter Four — Section A. Seven points of orientation for the investigation of the restriction of Being). Before elaborating further on the concept of value, Heidegger returns to the explanation of the structure of Being, with specific reference to its opposition to ‘the ought’: ‘insofar as the ideas constitute Being as “ousia”… the highest idea, stands… beyond Being. Thus Being itself, not in general but as “idea”, comes into opposition to something else to which it itself, Being, remains assigned… Being itself, in its particular interpretation as idea, brings with it the relation to the prototypical and to what ought to be… this can occur only by setting something “above” Being that Being never yet is, but always “ought” to be.’[166] That ‘something above’ is represented by ‘values’.
Place and the ought.
To further explore the parallel between Being and place, which has been a recurring theme in my analysis of Heidegger’s metaphysical argumentation from the perspective of place, I would like to make the following observation about the role of ‘the ought’ in relation to the concept of place, as opposed to Being, and its implications for actualization. In a concluding remark on Being and the ought, Heidegger states that ‘Being, in contradistinction to the ought, is what lies at hand in each case as what ought to be and has not yet been actualized, or already has been actualized’.[167] Broadly speaking, the question of actualization is a central concern for the concept of place, as I discuss it here. I understand place as the inherent counterpart of processes, which unfold and eventually become actualized into a specific being, such as a rock resulting from physicochemical processes, a tree from biological processes, a beehive from social processes, or a poem from intellectual or symbolic processes. This actualized being, whether a rock, a tree, a behive, or a poem, can be referred to as the place of those processes, and consequently, it is what already exists and is readily available (i.e., what lies at hand and has already been actualized). In the case of a rock, its actualized being is the place of physicochemical processes; now, taking into consideration what Heidegger is saying about Being and the ought, this means that whenever a rock is present (lies at hand) a sequence of certain processes ought to be, resulting in the appearance of the ‘rock’. Actualization can occur in both physical domains, such as the material rock in front of me, and abstract or symbolic domains, like the ideal or imaginary rock in my mind; both are placial domains that involve certain processes. The repetition, in terms of place, of the same dynamics that Heidegger aplied to Being and the ought, is another way to demonstrate that Being can be understood as place, as long as place is not viewed traditionally, but rather as an all-encompassing place of processes, subject to the limitations of becoming, seeming, thinking, and the ought, as explained by Heidegger (see Image 14, below).
Chapter Four — Section E.2. The concept of value
According to Heidegger, values form the ground of the ought; let’s see his brief explanation of this question. Given that ‘the ought’ must stand higher than Being, it ‘must attempt to ground itself in itself. Something like an ought can emanate only from something that raises such a claim on its own, something that in itself has a “value”, and itself is a “value”. Values as such now become the ground of the ought… Values provide the measure for all domains of beings — that is, of what is present at hand. History is nothing but the actualization of values.’[168]
Chapter Four — Section F. Conclusion
In this final section of Chapter Four, Heidegger briefly summarizes the main arguments exposed so far, which I repropose here.
Heidegger questioned the meaning of Being through the four divisions: Being and becoming, Being and seeming, Being and thinking, and Being and the ought. Seven points of orientation, introduced in Chapter Four — Section A. Seven points of orientation for the investigation of the restriction of Being, can be summarized as follows: 1. Being is delimited against an Other; 2. This delimitation occurs simultaneously alongside the four interrelated divisions (becoming, seeming, thinking, and the ought); 3. These divisions are simultaneously in opposition and unity (unity is what they tend to); 4 The oppositions are inherent to language and, as a result, are an intrinsic part of the distinct Western perspective on Being; 5. These divisions go beyond Western philosophy, permeating all aspects of knowing, acting, and speaking; 6. The sequence in which these divisions were presented reveals the character of Being as historical; 7. Asking about Being means uncovering the power behind these divisions in an original way, as they were first elaborated at the inception of philosophy (Heidegger did this by considering the early Greek period, including authors like Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Sophocles, up to Plato and Aristotle).
The book begins by asking a fundamental question — ‘Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?’ This leads Heidegger to a prior question: ‘How does it stand with Being as such?’ that is, ‘What is the status of Being? What about Being?’ Heidegger explores whether linguistic analysis can help determine the elusive meaning of Being, which initially seems evanescent and empty but ultimately ‘proved to be what is most worthy of questioning… the fundamental happening, the only ground upon which historical Dasein is granted’;[169] therefore, it is erroneous to speak of Being as indeterminate or empty, as also the different examples on the common yet ambiguous usage of the ‘is’ showed (Chapter Three — Section C. The inclusion of the various meanings of “is” within the Greek understanding of Being as presence); as Heidegger observed, ‘the “is” determines the meaning and the content of the infinitive “to be” (and not vice versa).’ [170] The ‘is’ serves as conjunction (copula), a connecting word in the assertion (e.g., the chair is red: the ‘is’ serves as the term of relation between ‘the chair’ and ‘red’); given that the assertion — logos as kategoria (Chapter Four — Section D.4.c. The Platonic and Aristotelian interpretation of phusis as “idea”) — has taken the jurisdiction over Being, the assertion (logos) is what determines Being; consequently, Being is not an empty word, but something determinate, and its determinateness has been revealed through the discussion of the four divisions. ‘Endurance’, in contraposition to ‘becoming’; ‘perpetual identity’ in contraposition to ‘seeming’; ‘presence at hand’ in contraposition to ‘thinking’; ‘lying at hand’ as actualization, in contraposition to ‘the ought’: these determinants of Being all convey the idea of constant presence (‘ousia’).[171] By determining Being, the four divisions — becoming, seeming, thinking, the ought — ‘dominate and bewitch beings, their opening up and formation, their closing and deformation.’ [172] Here, the distinction between Being and beings comes to the fore: ‘from the originary questioning of the four divisions there grows the insight that Being, which is encircled by them, must itself be transformed into the encompassing circle and ground of all beings.’[173] (see Image 14, below). The character of Being, thus defined, ‘is “the” power that today still sustains and dominates all our relations to beings as a whole, to becoming, to seeming, to thinking, and to the ought.’[174] As such, this all-encompassing Being also shapes human beings; therefore, to inquire about Being is to simultaneously inquire about human beings, or Dasein, which represents the historical intersection of Being, human beings, language, and self-reflective thinking (Chapter — Three Section A. The priority of Being over beings; Chapter One — Section F. The prior question: How does it stand with Being?).
Image 14: Alternative schema for the structure of Being considered as place: ‘…from the originary questioning of the four divisions there grows the insight that Being, which is encircled by them, must itself be transformed into the encompassing circle and ground of all beings.’ — Martin Heidegger.
Being, or the Place of Being.
To conclude my parallel exploration of Heidegger’s concept of Being and the notion of place I’ve developed at RSaP, I’ll offer some final observations.
By focusing on the seven points of orientation for investigating the restrictions of Being, we may uncover further intriguing parallels between Being and place, suggesting the possibility that Being is inherently grounded in place or even equivalent to a redefined concept of place that transcends its traditional understanding and meaning. Regarding the first point, Heidegger states that 1. ‘Being is delimited against an Other’. I ask: isn’t the concept of ‘delimitation’ a ‘placial concept’, that is, a notion based on the concept of place? After all, where there is a limit, there is a place — as we know from Aristotle’s definition of place in Physics, Book IV, which describes place as ‘the first unchangeable limit (peras) of that which surrounds’. I’ve already addressed this question in previous comments and other articles, such as Limit Place Appearance. In one way or another, any domain or dominion is ultimately a matter of limits; since Being itself assumes the character of a domain, or dominion, it is defined by its boundaries against an Other (domain), and this necessarily implies a connection to a notion of place. Moreover, Heidegger defines Being-as-phusis as ‘the emerging-abiding sway’, which implies a sense of place, with ‘sway’ suggesting dominion and ‘abiding’ implying a stand or ground (there is no ‘abiding’ without a stand, that is, without a place, ultimately).
The fundamental characteristic of Being ‘delimited’ against an Other, which delimitation I understand as a placial domain, fundamentally occurs in the other points of orientation, as when Heidegger says that 2. ‘The delimitation happens in four simultaneously interrelated respects’; if we consider Image 05, 06, 14, or 15, I have tried to represent figuratively the simultaneously interrelated respects of that happening as a happening inherently grounded in place, understood as that which is delimited against an other. This aligns with my relational understanding of the concept of place (see What Is Place? What Is Space?); the very definition and structure of place as ‘a system of processes’ — see Image 16, below — serves as evidence in this sense.
Furthermore, the ‘placial’ ground that underlies the Being of beings can be traced back to the third point of orientation, where it is stated that ‘3. Those divisions are at the same time in opposition and unity (unity is what they tend to): here, this ‘placial’ ground (of Being) reveals its character as a structure (a system composed of parts) that functions as something constructed — an accretion — from the belonging-together of opposites (see Image 05, 06 and 14, above, especially). This is the structure of Being determined by the four divisions, according to Heidegger, or – I argue – the structure of the place of Being, or, more accurately, Being as place, since place cannot be thought of as exclusively external or separate from what it offers as a stand or abiding residence – otherwise, this would imply the existence of an absolute place or place as a simple location, which are hypotheses contrary to the concept of place I am proposing. With specific reference to the structure of the concept of place I am advocating for, its functioning grounded on the unity of opposites is explained in Image 15.
The parallel between Heidegger’s concept of Being and the structure of place presented on this website extends to the fourth point of orientation, where it is stated that 4. ‘the oppositions… enter language [and] arose in the most intimate connection with the definite Western stamping of Being’. According to my model, the pivotal moment in Western history corresponding to the ‘Western stamping of Being’ (or, in this case, the stamping of place) is what I represent as the final stage of place development: its symbolic dimension. This dimension, which is uniquely human and can be referred to as the ‘intellectual’, or ‘cultural’ dimension, emerges from more primordial physicochemical, biological, and social layers. Just as language, self-reflective thinking, and Dasein conditioned and determined the development of the structure of the Being, they also condition the structure of place, in the following sense: the symbolic or intellectual dimension of place is its final determination, as there are no further determinations beyond this (human) state. This final dimension of place, exclusive to humans, is conditioned by language and self-reflective thinking, which are unique modes of human expression—that’s why I refer to this state of place as ‘cultural’. This state of place completes the circle of reality and continually renews it. From the perspective of language, which determines the symbolic state of places, humans interpret mind-independent realities (physicochemical processes actualized into physical places – e.g., rocks, seas, deserts) and make sense of the world that exists prior to their awareness. In this process, language and symbolism not only reflect reality but also actively shape it, influencing our understanding of the physical and chemical processes that underlie our experiences. This chain of appropriation of antecedent states (of place as system of actualized processes), with a view toward subsequent appropriations, has an analogy in Whitehead’s organic philosophy, from which my system is derived in its fundamentals.
Image 15: basic schema concerning the structure of Place presented at www.rethinkingspaceandplace.com. This place coincides with phusis as nature, that is, reality understood as an all-embracing domain, the stage of opposites-yet-unifying forces and dynamics (processes). See also Image 16, below.
Related to the points above, we come to the fifth point of orientation, according to which 5. ‘these distinctions [becoming, seeming, thinking, the ought]… have not remained dominant only within Western philosophy; they pervade all knowing, acting and speaking’. This idea aligns with the concept of Being as Place, which I am presenting: given that the ‘human dimension’ (the human Being), which characterizes the final development of place, has to be understood at a universal, evolutionary level, beyond the specific philosophical level, it means the ‘stamping’ of Place/Being cannot be delimited to Western thinking, but has implications at a more universal level, as also hypothesized by Heidegger with respect to the limitations of Being, when he says that they pervade all knowing, acting and speaking. I have summarized this pervasiveness of Place with the formula ‘Places Everywhere—Everything Is Place’. The structural analogy between Heidegger’s Being, determined by the four distinctions, and the place I am arguing for can be stated as follows: the symbolic, intellectual dimension, exclusive to human Being, determines and is determined by other dimensions, including physicochemical, biological, social, and symbolic ones, according to the specific coupling between these dimensions or states (see Image 16, below).
Image 16: Phusis (nature) understood as a Place of processes — a system of interacting processes.
Regarding 6. — the sixth point of orientation, Heidegger reminds us of the importance of the historical sequence that has shaped our understanding of Being; similarly, the structure of place I’m presenting has a ‘historical’ sequence, determined by four universal states: physicochemical, biological, social, symbolic, and intellectual. Just as Being has been shaped historically from the inception of Western philosophy to modernity, the existence of place has been shaped historically, from its emergence after the Big Bang (physicochemical state of place) to its final determination as a symbolic or intellectual state, marked by the emergence of abstract thinking (human Being). In this respect, the concept of place I’m presenting, initially shaped by Western philosophy, can also be understood through any other abstract system of thinking.
Finally, regarding 7. — the seventh point of orientation suggested by Heidegger, it is properly in virtue of asking the question of place in an originary way, in a way that grasps the task of unfolding the truth of the essence of place (I’ve substituted the term ‘Being’, used by Heidegger, with place) that I’m going as far as proposing the identification between the ground-as-Being and the ground-as-place, thereby rediscovering place as the fundamental principle — archē — ἀρχή — of that which exists (beings) as well as of the nature of (Being) that which exists. Places Everywhere—Everything Is Place is my personal formulation of the old Archytian axiom, which attributes place ontological primacy.[175]
Upon reading this conclusive section, we can focus on another similarity between Heidegger’s concept of Being and the structure of place I’m arguing for, which is highlighted in his assertion that ‘… from the originary questioning of the four divisions there grows the insight that Being, which is encircled by them, must itself be transformed into the encompassing circle and ground of all beings.’[176] This idea is visually represented in Image 14, which builds upon the schemes in Images 02, 05, and 06, and can be compared to the scheme in Image 15, demonstrating that both Heidegger’s explanation of Being and this revised concept of place rely on the same fundamental principle opposition and unity.
To conclude this article on the intrinsic placial character of Heidegger’s discourse on Being, I’d like to make a brief observation on a final remark made by Heidegger, concerning the Being of beings and Dasein: ‘Within the question of Being, the human essence is to be grasped and grounded, according to the concealed directive of the inception, as “the site” that Being necessitates for its opening up. Humanity is the Here that is open in itself. Beings stand within this Here and are set to work in it. We therefore say: the Being of humanity is, in the strict sense of the word, “Being-here” <”Da-sein”> ’, Heidegger says.[177] Putting aside the question concerning the use of the term ‘site’ (which, in my view, could be seen as a synonym for ‘place’), doesn’t the entire proposition regarding Being and Dasein rely on a place-based terminology? Doesn’t the domain of place, whether considered as ‘physical’ or ‘ideal’ (in the sense of mental, abstract — and this sense includes the symbolic, the metaphysical, etc.), provide the ultimate ground to Being, beings, and Dasein as specific being? Isn’t that hyphen, the conjunction between ‘Being’ and ‘here’ (Being-here, ‘Da-sein’), a final acknowledgment of the inalienability of place with respect to Being and beings—including human beings?
Notes
[1] Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
[2] Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), v.
[3] Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, 99.
[4] Ibid., 99-100.
[5] Ibid., 100.
[6] Ibid., 101.
[7] Ibid., 101.
[8] Ibid., 101.
[9] Ibid., 102.
[10] Ibid., 102-103.
[11] Ibid., 15.
[12]Ibid., 69. The same expression is translated by Manheim as follows: ‘To become means “to come to being”.’ InMartin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 65. The description in which we find that expression, at this point of the text, regards the elucidation of the term ‘paremphaino’ which is used to express the fundamental relation of the Greeks to beings (‘essents’ in Manheim’s translation) as what is constant. That explanation is made in connection with Plato’s use of the word in the Timaeus 50e (see Section B.3. of the article ‘Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics – part One), where Plato explains the complicated passage concerning the actualization of beings. That’s why, in a passage after this note, I’ve also used the expression ‘becoming’ understood as ‘to come to being’ with particular reference to the Platonic sense of actualization of Being into specific beings.
[13] Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, 16.
[14] Ibid., 102.
[15] Ibid., 103.
[16] Ibid., 104.
[17] Ibid., 104.
[18] Ibid., 105.
[19] Ibid., 105.
[20] Ibid., 106.
[21] Ibid., 106.
[22] Ibid., 107.
[23] Ibid., 107.
[24] Ibid., 105.
[25] Ibid., 108.
[26] Ibid., 108.
[27] Ibid., 109.
[28] Ibid., 109.
[29] Ibid., 110.
[30] Ibid., 111.
[31] Ibid., 111.
[32] Ibid., 113. Very briefly, Oedipus became the King of Thebes: he killed his father (the previous king) and married his mother, unaware that the person he killed was his father, and the person he married was his mother. When he realized he was responsible for patricide and incest, and after his mother, wife, and Queen discovered the truth and hanged herself, Oedipus gouged his own eyes out in despair.
[33] Ibid., 114.
[34] Ibid., 115.
[35] Ibid., 115-116.
[36] Ibid., 118-119.
[37] Ibid., 120.
[38] Ibid., 121.
[39] Ibid., 121.
[40] in, Stephen G. Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 47.
[41] Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, 121.
[42] Ibid., 121.
[43] Ibid., 122.
[44] Ibid., 123.
[45] Ibid., 182.
[46] Ibid., 123.
[47] Ibid., 84.
[48] Ibid., 124.
[49] Ibid., 124.
[50] Ibid., 125-126.
[51] Ibid., 126.
[52] Ibid., 127.
[53] Ibid., 127.
[54] Ibid., 127.
[55] Ibid., 128.
[56] Ibid., 128.
[57] Ibid., 129.
[58] Ibid., 130.
[59] Ibid., 131.
[60]Ibid., 132.
[61] Ibid., 132.
[62] Ibid., 133.
[63] Ibid., 133.
[64] Ibid., 135.
[65] Ibid., 135.
[66] Ibid., 135.
[67] Ibid., 137.
[68] Ibid., 137-138.
[69] Ibid., 138.
[70] Ibid., 139.
[71] Ibid., 139.
[72] Ibid., 140.
[73] Ibid., 140.
[74] Ibid., 140.
[75] Ibid., 142.
[76] Ibid., 142-143.
[77] Ibid., 143.
[78] Ibid., 130.
[79] Ibid., 138.
[80] Ibid., 147.
[81] Ibid., 145.
[82] Ibid., 145.
[83] Ibid., 145.
[84] Ibid., 145.
[85] Ibid., 146.
[86] Ibid., 146-147.
[87] Ibid., 147.
[88] Ibid., 147.
[89] Ibid., 147.
[90] Ibid., 147.
[91] Ibid., 147.
[92] Ibid., 148.
[93] Ibid., 148.
[94] Ibid., 149.
[95] Ibid., 153.
[96] Ibid., 150.
[97] Ibid., 159-160.
[98] Clare Pearson Geiman, in the work on Heidegger’s Antigones, regarding Heidegger’s interpretation says: ‘His reading has been frequently critiqued not only for doing violence to Sophocles but also, and more important, for the way in which appears to glorify actual violence in its heroic-tragic assessment of the nature of the human knowing and in the consequent role of ‘violent’ creators (priest, poets, thinkers, statesmen) in founding historical communities.’ Clare Pearson Geiman, ‘Heidegger’s Antigones’, in A Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, edited by Richard Polt and Gregory Fried (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 161
[99] Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, 167.
[100] Ibid., 163.
[101] Ibid., 162-163.
[102] Ibid., 169.
[103] Ibid., 169.
[104] Ibid., 170.
[105] Ibid., 171.
[106] Ibid., 171.
[107] Ibid., 171.
[108] Ibid., 178.
[109] Ibid., 178.
[110] Ibid., 179.
[111] Ibid., 179.
[112] Ibid., 180.
[113] Ibid., 180.
[114] Ibid., 181.
[115] Ibid., 183.
[116] Ibid., 183.
[117] Ibid., 179.
[118] Ibid., 184.
[119] Ibid., 185.
[120] Ibid., 185.
[121] Ibid., 190.
[122] Ibid., 191.
[123] Ibid., 191-192.
[124] Ibid., 192.
[125] Ibid., 192-193.
[126] Ibid., 193.
[127] Ibid., 193.
[128] Ibid., 193.
[129] Ibid., 193.
[130] Ibid., 194.
[131] Ibid., 194.
[132] Ibid., 194-195.
[133] Ibid., 195.
[134] Ibid., 197.
[135] Ibid., 198.
[136] Ibid., 196.
[137] Ibid., 196-197.
[138] Ibid., 197.
[139] Ibid., 197.
[140] Ibid., 198.
[141] Ibid., 198-199.
[142] Ibid., 199-200.
[143] Concerning the list of categories let’s see a brief passage from Aristotle’s Categories, translated by J.L. Ackrill: ‘each [thing] signifies either substance [1. Substance] or quantity [2. Quantity] or qualification [3. Quality] or a relative [4. Relation] or where [5. Place] or when [6. Time] or being-in-a-position [7. Position] or having [8. State or Condition] or doing [9. Acting] or being-affected [10. Being Acted]. To give a rough idea, examples of [1]substance are man, horse; of [2] quantity: four-foot, five-foot; of [3] qualification: white, grammatical; of [4] a relative: double, half, larger; of [5] where: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; of [6] when: yesterday, last-year; of [7] being-in-a-position: is-lying, is-sitting; of [8] having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on; of [9] doing: cutting, burning; of [10] being-affected: being-cut, being-burned.’ In: Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle – The Revised Oxford Translation, Volume One and Two, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 27.
[144] Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, 199-200.
[145] Ibid., 201-202.
[146] Ibid., 202.
[147] Ibid., 202.
[148] Ibid., 203.
[149] Ibid., 203.
[150] Ibid., 203-204.
[151] Ibid., 204.
[152] Ibid., 205.
[153] Ibid., 205.
[154] Ibid., 206.
[155] Ibid., 206.
[156] Ibid., 206.
[157] Ibid., 208.
[158] Ibid., 208.
[159] Ibid., 208.
[160] Ibid., 208-209
[161] Ibid., 209.
[162] Ibid., 210.
[163] Ibid., 210.
[164] Ibid., 210.
[165] Ibid., 210.
[166] Ibid., 211.
[167] Ibid., 216.
[168] Ibid., 211-212.
[169] Ibid., 215.
[170] Ibid., 216.
[171] Ibid., 216.
[172] Ibid., 218.
[173] Ibid., 218.
[174] Ibid., 217.
[175] ‘to be (at all) is to be in (some) place’: this is how the Archytian axiom is reported by Edward S. Casey in the book The Fate of Place — Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 4. This formulation is slightly modified with respect to the original statement of Archytas which Casey refers to, as reported by Simplicius — ‘all existing things are in place or not without place’, which we find in Shmuel Sambursky’s The Concept of Place in Late Neoplatonism — Shmuel Sambursky, The Concept of Place in Late Neoplatonism (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanity, 1982), 37.* In this website, I have often used Casey’s slightly modified version since it is closer to my understanding of place as a concept having distinct yet complementary metaphysical and physical connotations: that ‘some’ between brackets suggests a relational and pluralistic sense of place which has a more physical connotation, very close indeed to Aristotle’s intentions when he gave his famous definition of place (topos) — ‘the first unchangeable limit (peras) of that which surrounds’, in Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History, 55. Conversely, if we minimize what appears between brackets reducing the axiom to its essence — ‘to be is to be in place’ — that axiom may acquire an absolute sense which, in my opinion, has a more metaphysical connotation. One sense of the notion does not exclude the other if we think of the two levels — physical and metaphysical – as distinct yet complementary.
*Concerning the definition we find in The Concept of Place in Late Neoplatonism, since there are scant traces and fragments regarding the historical figure of Archytas, Sambursky, on page 14 of his book, refers to that statement as attributed to Archytas ‘but in fact deriving from an unknown Neopythagorean philosopher’ – that’s why he speaks of ‘Pseudo-Archytas’. This is the complete translation of the fragment appearing in Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, 361, 21-24: ‘Since everything that is in motion is moved in some place (topos), it is obvious that one has to grant priority to place, in which that which causes motion or is acted upon will be. Perhaps thus it is the first of all things, since all existing things are either in place or not without place.’
[176] Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, 218.
[177] Ibid., 219.
Works Cited
Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle – The Revised Oxford Translation, Volume One and Two. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984
Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Heidegger, Martin. Introduction to Metaphysics. Translated by Gregory Fried, and Richard Polt. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Heidegger, Martin. An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.
——. “On the being and conception of φyσiσ in Aristotle’s physics B, 1”, trans. Sheehan, Thomas J., in Man and World (9, 3, 1976), 219-270.
Miller, Stephen. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004
Pearson Geiman, Clare. ‘Heidegger’s Antigones’. In A Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, edited by Richard Polt and Gregory Fried, 161-182. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Sambursky, Shmuel. The Concept of Place in Late Neoplatonism. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanity, 1982.
Whitehead, Alfred N. Nature and Life. London: Cambridge University Press, 1934.
Image Credits
Featured Image by Alessandro Calvi Rollino, CC BY-NC-SA: Solaria and Aria Towers, Milano, IT, designed by Arquitectonica.
Image 03 (source) by ChadoNihi, on Pixabay.com
Image 04 (source) by Petros Giannakouris, on Usatoday.com
Image 08 (source) by Vincent Nicolas, on Unsplash.com
All other Images by Alessandro Calvi Rollino, CC BY-NC-SA.
