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2. The Mound of Visions*: Plato Averts His Gaze
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49 The Metabolism of the Immutable lists of the metamorphoses and migrations of metaphysics , those brief inventories which summarize in a mere few lines twenty centuries’ worth of the history of philosophy.34 In reading these, did you ever recall Proust’s characterization of Flaubert’s style as a “moving sidewalk”?35 Have you never realized that Heidegger likewise scrolls through historical change? I will limit myself to just one example of this, which is the exposition, in Contributions, of the way different philosophers “interpret” essence as “beingness” but without thereby changing its sense: Oriented by this mindfulness, we can initially discuss the historical consequence of the concepts of essence, as they appear within the history of the guiding question, as guiding threads for the questions of beingness: 1. kp ’mf́_ as f ’b¡´_ 2. kp ’mf́_ in the Aristotelian discussion in Metaphysics MNO 3. the essentia of the Middle Ages 4. possibilitas in Leibniz (Leibniz seminars) 5. the “condition of possibility” in Kant, the transcendental concept of essence 6. the dialectical-absolute idealistic concept of essence in Hegel.”36 Such “guiding threads,” through following closely a certain understanding of essence, enable the essential to be unwound by displaying, on the same sidewalk, the continuous movement of a metamorphosis and migration of thought. 50 The Heidegger Change THE OTHER QUESTION The other vision opened up by Heidegger nonetheless and at the same time allows these transformations of the same to be considered otherwise than as simple additions to it. Aristotle, for instance, does not complete Parmenides’ thought in bringing out * `He actually changes the question. As Heidegger asks, “does Aristotle deny * `@ @ expressed by Parmenides? No. He does not renounce *>@ this truth in becoming a truly philosophical truth, that is, an actual question. . . . Those who believe that Aristotle merely added other meanings onto a meaning of being are clinging to appearances. It is a matter not just of embellishment but of a transformation of the entire question [eine Verwandlung der ganzen Frage]: the question about o ‘’i as ¡ ‘’i *> @ `* ` > das Nicht-seiende]. . . . Plato attained the insight that nonbeing [Unseinde], the false, the evil, the transitory —hence unbeing—also is. But the sense of being thereby had to shift [so mußte sich der Sinn des Seins wandeln].”37 And apropos Descartes and the change of meaning (Bedeutungswandel) the concepts of subject and object are forced to undergo with him, Heidegger states that “this reversal of the meanings [Umkehrung der Bedeutungen] of the words subjectum and objectum is no mere affair of usage; it is a radical change of Dasein [Grundstürrzender Wandel des Daseins], i.e. the illumination [Lichtung] of the being of what is on the basis of the mathematical. It is a stretch of the way of history [Geschichte] necessarily hidden from the naked eye, a history which always concerns the openness [Offenbarkeit] of being—or nothing at all.”38 [35.175.172.94] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:51 GMT) 51 The Metabolism of the Immutable Each epoch of metaphysics cannot, therefore, consent to be apprehended only as a reformation or reformulation of one same form or a reversal of course that stays the (same) course, since it is also a rupture and radical overturning of this logic of reorganization itself. Each epoch is at once the maintenance of a roadblock and a way through opened by its being run. In each one, essence essentializes —immobilizes some more—its immutability; but in so doing, it is paradoxically deployed as what, in truth, it is: changing. This double vision shows that it is only possible to account for the structure of metaphysics, as I asserted at the outset, when it is surpassed. Heidegger , moreover, says so overtly: “Why and to what extent the selfhood of man, the concept of being, the essence of truth, and the manner of standard giving determine in advance a fundamental metaphysical position, sustain metaphysics as such, and make it the articulation of beings themselves, are questions that cannot be asked by and through metaphysics.”39 Metaphysics truly has exhausted these forms and trails. It “is completed [vollendet]. Which means: @ ` @ @ sibilities [das will sagen: sie hat den Umkreis der vorgezeichneten Möglichkeiten absgeschritten].”40 So that its form, like its route, becomes visible. This brings us, though, back to the same dif- * ` $ ``* `> > @ * power,’ ”41 and would seem for that reason to be meaningful only from within the limits of metaphysics . So would it, in that case, even be possible to envisage...