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Beings, what are they? As what do they present themselves and
present themselves to us? As that which we call being. First of allabove all and in every case beings are being: τὸ ὂν—τὸ εἶναι. Precisely
when we take them as beings, beings are being. This is how we
understand the equation: beings-being. This equation is already the
first decisive answer to the question of what beings are, a response
that required the most strenuous philosophical effort, in whose
shadow all subsequent efforts pale. Thus at the same time we under-
stand: When beings as such are asked about and when beings as such
are made questionable, then being is questioned.
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To what extent does the questioning of being belong to the prevalent ideas? To what has come to power.
No evidence can be gathered on this score. Leaving all authority behind one is seized with the questioning which, nonetheless, seems to stand in the past. For does not everything that stands before one hang,
as it were, in the system of what has already been understood? One comes alongside those who were
here before one, persists in the attempt to gain a foothold, and notices the others who forsake the
course. Where is death? In the earth, in that which stands before one? In the world, in the availability
of what is not yet? Supposedly Nietzsche misunderstands Plato, for he superimposes the Christian
God over the Greek world. The summum bonum is already comprehended in the doctrine of Agathos,
or the Good. The summum pulchrum is already sought in the ‘aesthetic’ world of life, which is the
Nietzschean ‘grand style’ in search of beauty or love. Yet, is this all part of the system of genetic
circling already present in Nietzsche? In the Life Giving Lie?
As we approach the region of Aristotle, let us make a parallel to this movement, from Nietzsche to Plato,
in Berkeley, who reaches back to Aristotle. Berkeley regards ousia as a mistake. He finds in all the
causes of Aristotle a falsity. Yet, he understands all the secondary causes to stand beside the
First Cause as the Christian God who creates ex nihilo and conserves all that is made by rescuing
it from the failing of the light that leads to non-existence. Aristotle, for his part, holds with a profusion
of causes. For each being, a substance loaded, as it were, with a principle of motion.
in Berkeley, who reaches back to Aristotle. Berkeley regards ousia as a mistake. He finds in all the
causes of Aristotle a falsity. Yet, he understands all the secondary causes to stand beside the
First Cause as the Christian God who creates ex nihilo and conserves all that is made by rescuing
it from the failing of the light that leads to non-existence. Aristotle, for his part, holds with a profusion
of causes. For each being, a substance loaded, as it were, with a principle of motion.
At the beginning of one of his notebooks that were not meant for publication (here, to be sure, we are
not bound by considerations of building 'a case' in the style of forensic close readings.
But, rather, everything hangs on the claim to capable investigation, stemming from the essential
grasp of the difficulties of the material. This which lies all the time in the questioning, even when not
visible in the tone of its symbols, it hangs behind the interpretation in the ergon of the Methodos.)
Berkeley says:
“There are men who say there are insensible extensions, there are others who say the wall is not white,
the fire is not hot, &c We Irish men cannot attain to these truths.”
not bound by considerations of building 'a case' in the style of forensic close readings.
But, rather, everything hangs on the claim to capable investigation, stemming from the essential
grasp of the difficulties of the material. This which lies all the time in the questioning, even when not
visible in the tone of its symbols, it hangs behind the interpretation in the ergon of the Methodos.)
Berkeley says:
“There are men who say there are insensible extensions, there are others who say the wall is not white,
the fire is not hot, &c We Irish men cannot attain to these truths.”
Everything in Berkeley hangs on the denial of the special access of a faculty of mind that can reach
into the substance. Now, as we move forward, let us see how this modern thought looks as a mirror,
and how it can be set beside the Megarian mirror. And then let us ask do we have here a phantastics
or a true model?
into the substance. Now, as we move forward, let us see how this modern thought looks as a mirror,
and how it can be set beside the Megarian mirror. And then let us ask do we have here a phantastics
or a true model?
The “insensible extensions”? What are they? Whereas Newton was ready to conceded the possibility
that his calculus, and his gravitational laws, were descriptive, Leibniz maintained a materialism, on
the score of projecting the infinitesimals into the substance. That was, indeed, the subject matter of
his Monadology. In the current period, when one reads Schrödinger’s "What is Life?", deriving the
course that leads to Crick and Watson’s ability to isolate the genetic material in such a way as to
make it available to machination, i.e., to the existential laboratory or workshop (to Macht in its
crudest form), can not withstand the pressure to isolate a manner of commanding consciousness
according to the same course. Thus the talk of mind control which is identical to one’s will. Here, the
Philosophic Material becomes a substance as “one stuff”. A metaphysics that “Irish men can not attain
to” remains in play.
that his calculus, and his gravitational laws, were descriptive, Leibniz maintained a materialism, on
the score of projecting the infinitesimals into the substance. That was, indeed, the subject matter of
his Monadology. In the current period, when one reads Schrödinger’s "What is Life?", deriving the
course that leads to Crick and Watson’s ability to isolate the genetic material in such a way as to
make it available to machination, i.e., to the existential laboratory or workshop (to Macht in its
crudest form), can not withstand the pressure to isolate a manner of commanding consciousness
according to the same course. Thus the talk of mind control which is identical to one’s will. Here, the
Philosophic Material becomes a substance as “one stuff”. A metaphysics that “Irish men can not attain
to” remains in play.
Idea, in Berkeley, refers to the object of the sensorium. To the given. Berkeley says, existence is
sensible. However, in the region of Aristotle in which we must enter, we have ousia. Berkeley denies
the possibility of a thing in itself, of a stuff. Only what is given, the data of sense. In this he seems to
agree with the Megarians who deny dunamis. Yet, in the pre-epistemological era, in every thinker,
including Kant, prior to Kant, there is no such thing as a manifold in the style of sheer phenomenological
moments, this is even true in Descartes. If I see a house, at a distance of a mile, according to Berkeley,
there is nothing there that I see in the symbol, i.e., the actual tiny house that I see, the given thing before
me, other than a reminder of the sense of touch related to the sense data I will find when at the topos to
which the sign, properly interpreted by experience, points me. Everything in Berkeley is a sign, and no
interpretation exists aparat from the weaving together of the signs. Yet, according to Berkeley,
“the horse is in the stable”. What is the horse? Here the conservation of essence refers us back
to the saying: Existence is perception. In a certain way, Berkeley means only, despite what is often said,
that existence is, only so far as it is perceptible. The horse is in the stable is sheer common sense.
But, in another sense, he means God is always perceiving what is there to be perceived, for that is
what perceptibility is.
sensible. However, in the region of Aristotle in which we must enter, we have ousia. Berkeley denies
the possibility of a thing in itself, of a stuff. Only what is given, the data of sense. In this he seems to
agree with the Megarians who deny dunamis. Yet, in the pre-epistemological era, in every thinker,
including Kant, prior to Kant, there is no such thing as a manifold in the style of sheer phenomenological
moments, this is even true in Descartes. If I see a house, at a distance of a mile, according to Berkeley,
there is nothing there that I see in the symbol, i.e., the actual tiny house that I see, the given thing before
me, other than a reminder of the sense of touch related to the sense data I will find when at the topos to
which the sign, properly interpreted by experience, points me. Everything in Berkeley is a sign, and no
interpretation exists aparat from the weaving together of the signs. Yet, according to Berkeley,
“the horse is in the stable”. What is the horse? Here the conservation of essence refers us back
to the saying: Existence is perception. In a certain way, Berkeley means only, despite what is often said,
that existence is, only so far as it is perceptible. The horse is in the stable is sheer common sense.
But, in another sense, he means God is always perceiving what is there to be perceived, for that is
what perceptibility is.
In the opening of the same notebook Berkeley says: velle i:e agere. The commentators misconstrue
this as an unrelated entry. However philosophy is no stranger to analogy. Just as esse est percipi, velle
… agere, i.e., just as there is no region of existing things that are insensible, there is no willing that is
not behaviour. What turns up here is this: Berkeley assumes a ultimate break between the perceptible
things, i.e., all that is, and the non-perceptible things. He does not consider that perhaps a bat has
access to the infinitesimals in a manner not available to man. Or, put another way, insofar as he thinks
perspectivaly, he still says, to perceive in its pan-existential significance is exhausted in the existing
things. For, indeed, an Irish man can not attain to more than that. Why? Because the Irish man
(but to which moment of the history of being does the emergence of such a being belong?
To which regime of concern!?) does not have the special “faculty” of intelligence capable of penetrating the mysteries of substance.
This expulsion from the Aristotelian region of substance must include all the secondary causes.
Inclusive, it must be insisted upon for it is not always understood, not only of the so-called agential or
efficient cause, but even the instrumental cause. The thinking, the region of its world, is utterly alien—
and Christian! And yet, Berkeley assumes, “the horse is in the stable” picks out a specific creature,
the horse. The essence is named in each idea or, what is the same, in whatever is given to the
sensorium.
this as an unrelated entry. However philosophy is no stranger to analogy. Just as esse est percipi, velle
… agere, i.e., just as there is no region of existing things that are insensible, there is no willing that is
not behaviour. What turns up here is this: Berkeley assumes a ultimate break between the perceptible
things, i.e., all that is, and the non-perceptible things. He does not consider that perhaps a bat has
access to the infinitesimals in a manner not available to man. Or, put another way, insofar as he thinks
perspectivaly, he still says, to perceive in its pan-existential significance is exhausted in the existing
things. For, indeed, an Irish man can not attain to more than that. Why? Because the Irish man
(but to which moment of the history of being does the emergence of such a being belong?
To which regime of concern!?) does not have the special “faculty” of intelligence capable of penetrating the mysteries of substance.
This expulsion from the Aristotelian region of substance must include all the secondary causes.
Inclusive, it must be insisted upon for it is not always understood, not only of the so-called agential or
efficient cause, but even the instrumental cause. The thinking, the region of its world, is utterly alien—
and Christian! And yet, Berkeley assumes, “the horse is in the stable” picks out a specific creature,
the horse. The essence is named in each idea or, what is the same, in whatever is given to the
sensorium.
How much different is the situation with the Megarians who rest no weight on datum of sense.
Rather, for them, “the horse is in the stable” implies no apparatus of sense. Because the problem
of a perception that refers to a manifold does not occur to them. Each idea is but the look of the horse.
The horse does not refer at all to experience, except that it is the simple intuition of what is as the
pre-datum for the stringing together of happenings. It is the noun that is not yet speech, for it is
connected to no verb. The Megarians, as we approach them, must not be prethought as
perspectivalists, as those who from outside the world create the world. Rather, their position is
prior to the Christian age, and recedes into a primary region that casts away all loyalty to ourselves.
Yet, only in approaching this matter by the ergon present in the text we are now reading, do we seek
in a way that it is not prefigured either by our own measure, or by what is already confronted in
Genetic Circle that superimposes according to its own Methodos, but something in the path leaves
itself as a mood that does not will. The mood, then, is not the summa of logic or of beauty.
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