giaxplex: Heidegger, Martin, La fine della filosofia

La metafisica come storia dell'essere I due bozzetti per una storia dell'essere come metafisica
Heidegger, Martin, 1889 -1.976. La fine della filosofia
tradotto da Giovanna Stambaugh. p. cm.
Originariamente pubblicato: New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Include
riferimenti bibliografici. ISBN 0-226-32383-8 (carta: alcalino. Carta) 1.
Metafisica. 2. Ontologia. I. titolo
INTRODUZIONE di Joan Stambaugh
Questo piccolo volume contiene altamente condensato tentativo più esplicito
di Heidegger per mostrare la storia dell'essere come metafisica. Il quarto
capitolo, "Il superamento di Metafisica", è tratto dal volume
tedesco, Vortrage und Aufsatze
Altri tre capitoli, "La metafisica come storia dell'essere", "Studi per una storia
dell'essere come metafisica," e di "raccoglimento in Metafisica," sono prese dalla fine del Volume I1 di Nietzsche. I l resto
Nietzsche sarà pubblicato in due volumi, un volume contenente il materiale sul
nichilismo e un volume finale contenente il materiale su Nietzsche corretto.
Questo libro contiene poco presenti su Nietzsche in quanto tale, ma, piuttosto,
rappresenta il frutto di due volumi dal titolo tedesco Nietzsche.

E 'pubblicato per primo, perch�
contiene un trattamento pi� completo di
Heidegger della storia dell'essere come metafisica, a cominciare da Platone e
Aristotele e continuando attraverso Schelling e Kierkegaard. All'inizio di
Essere e tempo, Heidegger afferma che intende realizzare due cose: (1)
l'interpretazione del Dasein in termini di temporalit�
e la spiegazione del tempo come orizzonte trascendentale per la questione
dell'essere, e (2) un fenomenologica distruzione della storia dell'ontologia.
Si potrebbe dire che il presente volume si avvicina il pi�
nulla Heidegger ha pubblicato a svolgere tale "distruzione". Ma, a
parte il fatto che la un po 'fuorviante e ambiguo termine
"distruzione" � stata oggetto di
critiche inadeguate, e pertanto deve essere chiarito, l'intenzione in questo
libro per nulla coincide semplicemente con quello espresso in Essere e tempo.

INTRODUZIONE

Introduzione

I l piano originale per Essere e
tempo 'composto di due parti. Da una parte aveva tre divisioni, due delle quali
sono stati pubblicati nel volume che: (1) l'analisi preparatoria fondamentale
del Dasein, (2) Dasein e temporalit�,
e, infine, (3) Tempo e Essere, che Heidegger poi effettuati nel forma della
parte alect ~ re due, che. ~ portato a compimento la distruzione fenomenologica
della storia dell'ontologia con la problematica della temporalit�
come una guida, allo stesso modo aveva tre divisioni: (dottrina 1) kantiana
dello schematismo e del tempo, (2) il fondamento ontologico del cogito
Descartes somma ', e (saggio 3) di Aristotele in tempo. Dei tre pensatori di
nome, � solo a Kant che Heidegger ha
dedicato diverse pubblicazioni. Aristotele �
discusso in alcuni saggi e conferenze; Cartesio �
una figura centrale in tutto, ma non l'oggetto di una pubblicazione separata.
In altre parole, il previsto inizialmente sei divisioni di Essere e tempo, due
sono contenuti in quel volume, due sono pi�
o meno effettuato in pubblicazioni successive separate, e le ultime due sono in
gran parte assorbito attraverso scritti di Heidegger. Cos�
si potrebbe dire che nei suoi lavori pubblicati Heidegger ha eseguito la prima
parte della sua impresa filosofica, l'interpretazione del Dasein in termini di
temporalit� e la spiegazione del
tempo come orizzonte trascendentale per la questione dell'essere, nella forma
che aveva originariamente previsto per il esso. L a seconda parte, la
"distruzione", � effettuata da una
fondazione filosofica molto diversa da quella inizialmente prevista. Cercher�
di spiegare come la seconda fondazione si differenzia dal primo, e quindi
provare a chiarire il significato di tale nuova base per le relazioni di: (1)
Essere esseri (la differenza ontologica) e (2) essenza-esistenza ( la
"differenza" o distinzione della metafisica). Si tratta di una
interpretazione in cui io sono parzialmente aiutati e guidati da Heidegger
risposte ai quesiti su

1. Cf. Essere e tempo, trad.
Macquarrie da John e Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp.
63-64. 2. Cf. On Time e l'essere, trad. Stambaugh da Joan (N e w York: Harper
& Row,

1972).

il soggetto. E 'anche una
interpretazione che deve necessariamente rimanere un tentativo incompleto. L
'previsto in origine "distruzione" doveva essere fenomenologico in
termini di ermeneutica trascendentale. Queste elementsphenomenology, l'ermeneutica,
e philosophyHeidegger trascendentale legati indissolubilmente insieme in Essere
e tempo, ed � proprio su tutti e
tre i cui intende rinunciare al suo pensiero successivo. Cos�
la distruzione da effettuare non pu�
pi� avere il carattere di questi tre
elementi, perch� essi stessi fanno la
storia di ontologia e sono quindi in alcun modo in grado di
"distruggere" o disfare quella storia. La distruzione della storia
dell'ontologia deve essere intrapresa in termini di storia della Being3 e deve
essere pensato dallo stanziamento. Si deve mettere a nudo il rapporto delle
trasformazioni epocali dell'essere allo stanziamento. Qui, come in Essere e
tempo, il termine "distruzione" si intende il unbuilding (de-struere)
degli strati di coprire la natura originale di essere, gli strati che il
pensiero metafisico ha con-figure. Nel suo tentativo di abbandonare l'enfasi
che ha posto il pensiero metafisico sul nesso di causalit�
(l'essere pensato esclusivamente come il fondamento dell'essere), Heidegger, in
particolare nel suo pensiero pi� tardi, viene sempre
pi� al centro il rapporto tra identit�
e differenza. In questo rapporto �
di fondamentale diference che riceve l'accento primario, dal momento che
l'identit� non �
pensato tradizionalmente come statica, equazione di astratto, ma come
appartenente-insieme, il che ha senso solo in termini di ci�
che difers. Per Heidegger, a differire �
letteralmente a dif-fer, a per-dura, trasportare, detenere, e confermano la
relazione tra ci� che appartiene
insieme. prima formulazione di Heidegger di questo rapporto in Essere e tempo �
la differenza ontologica, la differenza tra essere ed ente. Questa differenza
ontologica, di nome ma non effettuati in Essere e tempo, non �
mai stato pensato dalla metafisica e dovrebbe essere

3. Cf. p. 1

INTRODUZIONE

Introduzione

vissuto in un modo nuovo di fuori
della metafisica. Cos� la differenza
ontologica rimane qualcosa di inaccessibile per Heidegger in linea di principio
alla metafisica, qualcosa da vivere e trasformata in termini di appropriazione.
Che cosa fa la metafisica, che Heidegger definisce come la separazione di
essenza ed esistenza, iniziata con Platone, hanno a che fare con la differenza
ontologica dell'essere e degli esseri? Si potrebbe dire che la tradizione, in
particolare per la tradizione medievale, sarebbe equiparare queste due
distinzioni. Essere (esse) � l'essenza degli
esseri, di ci� che esiste
(existentia), l'essenza, nel senso di quella universale che unifica tutto. Per
Heidegger, l'essenza distinzione-esistenza in realt�
appartiene alla tradizione dalla parte dell'essere, ma il diference tra
l'Essere e gli esseri, anche se costantemente presupposta da ogni metafisica,
non � mai stato pensato. Solo quando la
metafisica raggiunge il suo compimento non sorgere la possibilit�
di trasformare la differenza ontologica, di pensare che dal presupposto di ogni
metafisica impensato torna alla sua origine essenziale per appropriazione. L a
maggior parte di questo volume � impegnato nella
elaborazione di ci� che �
accaduto nella storia dell'essere come metafisica. Con la distinzione di
Platone di essenza (whatness) ed esistenza (thatness), la differenza tra essere
ed ente � oscurata, e in
quanto tale � pensato
esclusivamente in termini della sua relazione con gli esseri come loro causa
prima (causa prima, causa sui) e quindi se stessa come la pi�
alta di quegli esseri (summum ens). Cos�
la metafisica come storia dell'essere, come la storia delle trasformazioni
epocali dell'essere, � proprio la storia
dell'oblio dell'essere. Quando la distinzione di essenza ed esistenza si pone, �
l'essenza, whatness, che ha la priorit�.
L a priorit� di essenza
sull'esistenza rimanda a un altro accento su esseri. T ha significato originale
di esistenza come physis, originario, derivante, rendere presente, si perde, e
l'esistenza si pensa solo a differenza di essenza come ci�
che "di fatto" esiste. In contrasto con ci�
che "di fatto" esiste qui e ora, l'Essere si configura come presenza
stabile, una presenza (nominale) astratti da rendere presente (verbale) in
termini di spaziotemporale.

Questo volume traccia la storia
delle trasformazioni epocali dell'essere fino al pensiero di Heidegger in
Essere e tempo, e ricorda che al di l�
di ci� che ha da dire in proposito lo
stanziamento. Come egli osserva, la natura essenziale dell'essere pu�
essere spiegato in termini di appropriazione, ma lo stanziamento pu�
in alcun modo essere intesa come una forma di "Essere". E 'nello
spirito di queste osservazioni circa la metafisica come la storia della oblio
dell'essere che il titolo di questo volume �
di essere compreso. I l fine della filosofia non significa che la filosofia di
Heidegger in quanto tale � diventata una cosa
del passato, una ricerca che ha fatto il suo significato per la natura umana. N�
Heidegger significa che la filosofia nel suo senso fondamentale ha svolto il
suo telos, che il "duro lavoro del concetto" (Hegel) ha compiuto il
suo compito. Piuttosto, egli intende che la filosofia come metafisica �
giunto a una conclusione, che offre ora la possibilit�
di un modo pi� originale di
pensare. L a seguito domande e risposte, quali sono aggiunti cerchio attorno al
rapporto dell'essere, il tempo, e di appropriazione, nella speranza che possano
gettare ulteriore luce su questi problemi ^. ^

1. Temporalit�.

DOMANDA: al concetto di temporalit�,
cos� accade cenWhat

trale in Essere e tempo, nel tuo
pensiero pi� tardi? C'�
un rapporto tra temporalit� e appropriazione?
RISPOSTA: La temporalit� �
"centrale" in Essere e tempo, perch�
la questione dell'essere come tale, nel senso di presenza inizia con un analitico
dell'essere umano che si tiene estaticamente aperto all'essere. Come
conseguenza del turno, la temporalit�
non � rinunciato, ma diventa la
questione del tempo e di essere. L '"temporalit�"
dello stanziamento che temporalizes �
la vicinanza a quattro dimensioni

4. Queste domande sono pervenute
con Heidegger scritta nell'estate del 1970, dopo essere stato formulato dai
redattori. Sono qui tradotto con il suo permis-

Sion.

INTRODUZIONE

Introduzione "La messa a terra
esplicito della differenza ontologica" si verifica nel "passo
indietro" dal proseguire in ci�
che � impensabile per l'identit�,
ma l'identit� pensiero lo
stanziamento. L a differenza ontologica scompare nella misura in cui il
pensiero non � pi�
persiste nel suo elemento impensato, la differenza ontologica non scompare in
quanto � il pensiero torna
alla sua origine essenziali (identit�
e differenza, p. 65). 3. Essere. DOMANDA: Contrariamente alla Essere degli
esseri, dovrebbe di per s� Essere essere
pensato come l'appropriazione? Qual �
il rapporto tra (a) pensare l'essere senza riguardo per gli esseri (che non
significa metafisicamente come la pi�
alta e la terra degli esseri, causa sui), e (b) "Che cosa ne pensa della
differenza se l'essere cos� come esseri appaiono
da O virt� della differenza,
ognuno a modo suo? " f (Identit�
e Differenza, pp. 63-64)? RISPOSTA: "Essere se stesso" si intende: L
'Stanziamenti non pu� pi�
essere pensato come "Essere" in termini di presenza.'
"Appropriazione" I nomi non sono pi�
un altro modo e per epoca di "essere". "Essere" pensiero
senza riguardo per gli esseri (cio�,
sempre solo in termini di, e per quanto riguarda, li) significa allo stesso
tempo: non pi� concepito come
"Essere" (presenza). Se questo accade, allora il pensiero pensa cos�
trasformato la seguente: la differenza ontologica scompare nello stanziamento
attraverso il passo indietro. Si perde la sua determinazione per pensare e
quindi abbandonato in un certo modo di pensare. Un'ultima domanda che avrebbe
dovuto avere "rispose se stesso": Pu�
qualcosa di pi� da dire sul rapporto
tra (a) il epocale

7. Il cammino verso il linguaggio,
trad. di Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). p. 129n.

portando-presente vicino. L
'appropriazione � senza destino
(geschicklos) perch� si invia presenza.
Si tratta, tuttavia, non senza tempo, nel senso di vicinanza. Non �
n� "in tempo" non �
nemmeno la "temporalit�" di essere
umano, ma piuttosto mette ciascuno in modo diverso in proprio. In "Essere
e tempo", tuttavia, il rapporto tra lo stanziamento e l'essere umano dei
mortali � consapevolmente
escluso.

2. Differenza ontologica. Domanda:
La differenza ontologica scomparire nello stanziamento? Qual �
la differenza ontologica relative alle distinzioni (a) Essere e gli esseri, (b)
essentia e existentia? Qual � il significato della
differenza ontologica nel seguente passaggio: '"la perenne verit�
dell'essere, fondata su esplicita la messa a terra della differenza ontologica,
cio� la distinzione tra gli esseri e
l'essere (al di fuori di ogni metafisica ed esistenziale filoso-

PHY). "RISPOSTA: Identit�
e Differenza, una frase recita:" per noi, formulata in modo preliminare,
la questione del pensiero � la differenza quanto
a differen e. ~ "~ tale, la differenza �"
identit� ", pensava in
termini dello stanziamento, il che significa il rapporto che perdura
perdurance. Nella distinzione "Essere e gli esseri," la differenza �
sempre gi� rappresentato senza
pensiero, impensato per quanto riguarda la differenziazione. In tutte le epoche
della metafisica, la differenza resta l'inspiegabile presupposto. L a
differenza rimane senza posto e determinazione. Qui la distinzione di
essentia-existentia appartiene sul lato di essere nel differenza impensato.

6. Cf. Identit�
e Differenza, trad. Stambaugh da Joan (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p.
47.

xii

INTRODUZIONE

trasformazioni di Essere, (b)
Stanziamenti, e (c) espropriazione (kryptesthai)? Le trasformazioni epocali di
Essere appropriazione-espropriazione Framing testa Uanus)

ONE

- TJI ..

Whatness e Thatness nella
Metafisica o Essential Inizio: f idea e energeia

Stanziamenti non �
gi� di per s�
una doppia relazione: (1) un rapporto "separabili che attraverso Framing
eventualmente superare il gradino indietro le trasformazioni epocali di Essere
dovrebbe essere assorbita in Stanziamenti, e (2) di un" rapporto
inscindibile: appropriazione e di espropriazione non pu�
mai essere separati l'uno dall'altro, ma piuttosto costituiscono una relazione
che � la cosa pi�
originale di tutti (ma non originale, nel senso di essere una causa)? Tra le
trasformazioni epocali di Essere e appropriazione regna la relazione del dare
(Esgibt), ma nemmeno questo si pu�
dire del rapporto appropriazione-espropriazione.

Si potrebbe prendere la segue come
una relazione storica sulla storia del concetto di Essere. Quindi ci�
che � essenziale sarebbe mancato. Ma
forse ci� che �
essenziale, a volte pu� certo dire in altro
modo. "Essere" significa che gli esseri sono, e non sono inesistenti.
"Essere" i nomi di questo "che" come la fermezza della
insurrezione contro il nulla. risolutezza rese dal Essere al primo arriva di
esseri, e qui in modo adeguato, anche. In questi esseri Essere appare. Cos�
ha deciso esseri vengono attribuiti a s�
(in essere) che questa non deve essere pensato espressamente. Esseri fornire
informazioni adeguate circa l'Essere. "Esseri" sono considerate ci�
che � reale. "Esseri sono
reali." Questa frase significa due cose. In primo luogo: h T e del
benessere degli esseri sta nella realt�.
Allora: come ci� che �
reale, gli esseri sono "reali", cio�,
quello che veramente sono. L 'attuale �
l'atto di completamento o il prodotto di un'attivit�.
Questo prodotto � di per s�
a sua volta, attiva e capace di attivit�.
L 'attivit� di ci�
che � reale pu�
essere limitato alla capacit� di produrre una
resistenza che si pu� opporre a un altro
cosa reale in modi diversi. P er quanto esseri che agiscono come ci�
che � reale,

Xiu

T H E fine della filosofia

La metafisica come storia
dell'essere

Essere si manifesta come realt�.
L a vera natura dell'essere si � annunciato come
"attualit�", per lungo
tempo. "Attualit�" spesso
significa "esistenza", troppo. Cos�
Kant parla di "prove dell'esistenza di Dio". Questo dovrebbe
dimostrare che Dio � reale, cio�
"esiste". "La lotta per l'esistenza", la lotta di tutto ci�
che (la vita vegetale, animale, uomo) di diventare e rimanere effettivo.
Metafisica conosce la questione se il mondo reale, cio�
quella "esistenti" ora, �
il migliore dei mondi possibili o meno. Essere come la realt�
di ci� che �
reale pronuncia il suo nome pi� comune metafisico
della parola "esistenza" (existentia). Nel linguaggio della
metafisica "realt�,", "realt�"
e di "esistenza" dicono la stessa cosa. Ma cosa dicono questi nomi
non � affatto univoca. Questo non �
dovuto alla sciatteria di uso delle parole, ma deriva piuttosto da all'Essere
stesso. E 'facile per noi e ci piace fare appello al fatto che tutti sanno
sempre quello che "essere", "realt�",
"realt�" e
"esistenza" dicono. Ma in che modo l'essere stesso determina come
attualit� di agire e dal
lavoro � oscuro. Inoltre,
"Essere" non sarebbe del tutto il nome di metafisica se il detto del
benessere degli esseri erano soddisfatti equiparare essere ed esistere. La
metafisica ha contraddistinto per secoli tra ci�
che gli esseri sono e che gli esseri sono, o non lo sono. L 'linguaggio della
metafisica scolastica conosce questa distinzione come quella tra essenza ed
esistenza. Essentia: la quidditas, quella che, per esempio, l'albero come
albero, come qualcosa di crescita, di vita, come albero, �
senza alcun riguardo per la questione se, e che questo o quel albero
"esiste". Qui di albero �
determinata come g�nos nel duplice senso
di origine e specie, cio� come la gallina a
Polla. E 'l'uno come dove e come ci�
che � comune a molti (koinon). nomi
Essentia ci� che qualcosa di
simile a un albero esistente pu� essere, se esiste,
quella che rende possibile in quanto tali una cosa: la possibilit�.
L'essere � diviso in whatness e
thatness. L a storia dell'essere come metafisica comincia con la distinzione e
la sua preparazione. La metafisica comprende la distinzione nella struttura
della verit� su esseri in quanto
tale nel suo complesso. hus T l'inizio della metafisica si rivela come un
evento che consiste in una determinazione di

Essere, nel senso di l'aspetto
della divisione in whatness e thatness. Un supporto per la determinazione di
differenziazione existentia � ora data da
Essentia. L'attualit� si distingue dalla
possibilit�. Si potrebbe tentare
di afferrare la divisione dell'Essere nella whatness e thatness da indagare
l'elemento comune che determina ci�
che � diviso. Che cosa �
che rimane ancora come ", �" a prescindere
da cosa e il che? Ma se questa ricerca di ci�
che � pi�
generale conduce a vuoto, whatness deve essere colto come una sorta di thatness
o, al contrario, questi ultimi devono essere colto come una degenerazione della
prima? Anche se ci� fosse successo, la
questione circa l'origine della distinzione rimarrebbero. Proviene Essere se
stessa? Che cosa "�" Essere? Come
funziona la venuta della distinzione, la sua origine, il risultato di Essere? r
O � semplicemente questa distinzione
attribuita al Essere? Se s�, con quale pensiero
e con quale diritto? C ome viene data a tale attribuzione per l'attribuzione
del genere? I f le questioni sollevate sono pensata anche approssimativamente,
l'illusione di un corso o la materia, in cui l'Essentia o distinzione e segg
existentia � l'acronimo di ogni
metafisica, scompare. L 'distinzione �
priva di fondamento se la metafisica tenta semplicemente di nuovo e di nuovo
per definire i limiti di ci� che �
diviso, e viene su con numerazione i costumi di possibilit�
e il tipo di realt� che galleggiano nel
vago via, insieme con la differenza di cui sono gi�
inserito. Tuttavia, se � vero che i conti
metafisica per la sua essenza attraverso questa differenza, in origine oscura,
della quale e quello, e allora la sua essenza motivi, pu�
di per s� mai venuto a
conoscenza di questa distinzione. Essa dovrebbe essere in precedenza e come
tali dalla avvicinato Essere che ha inserito questa distinzione. Ma essendo
rifiuta questo approccio e, quindi, da solo rende possibile l'inizio essenziale
della metafisica-alla maniera di preparazione e lo sviluppo di questa
distinzione. L 'origine della distinzione di essentia ed existentia, per di pi�
l'origine delle Essendo cos� divisi, resta
nascosto, espressi alla maniera greca: dimenticato. Oblio dell'essere:
l'auto-occultamento dell'origine della

La fine della filosofia

La metafisica come storia
dell'essere

Essendo diviso in whatness e
thatness in favore di Essere che si apre esseri come esseri e rimane
incontestata come Essere. Il divtsion in whatness e thatness non contengono
solo un pensiero o dottrina metafisica. Si punta a un evento nella storia o
Essere. Questo f f � quello che deve
essere pensato. Non � sufficiente che tale
raccoglimento per tracciare la distinzione comune tra essentia ed existentia
alla sua origine nel pensiero dei Greci. E non �
affatto sufficiente "per spiegare", cio�,
per spiegare il terreno in termini di conseguenze, la distinzione che �
diventato decisivo per il pensiero greco, con l'aiuto della successiva
formulazione concettuale comune per la metafisica degli scolastici. Si tratta,
ovviamente, ~ t facile stabilire storicamente la connessione della distinzione
tra essentia e existentza con il pensiero di Aristotele, che per primo ha
portato la distinzione di un concetto, che �,
allo stesso tempo alla sua terra essenziali. Ci�
� avvenuto dopo che il pensiero di
Platone avevano risposto alla richiesta di essere in un modo che ha preparato
questa distinzione, portando la sua istituzione allo scoperto. Essentia
risponde alla domanda ti estin: che cosa �
(un essere)? Existentia dice di essere estin hoti: che �.
T h e la distinzione tra a estin nomi diversi. Essere (einai), si annuncia in
una differenza. Come pu� essere venuto a
parte in questa distinzione? Quale essenza dell'essere si rivela in questa
distinzione, come in l'apertura di tale essenza? All'inizio della sua storia,
l'essere stesso si apre come emergenti (pbysis) e disvelatezza (aletbeia). Da
qui si raggiunge la formulazione di presenza e permanenza nel senso di perenne
(ousia). La metafisica vera e propria inizia con questo. Ci�
che appare in presenza-presente? Che cosa diventa mostra presentarsi al
pensiero di Aristotele, come quella che si trova in una permanenza dover
arrivare a uno stand, o si trova attualmente essendo stato portato al suo
posto. L 'permanente parto attuale che si �
fatto avanti per disvelatezza � in ogni caso questo
e quello, a ti tode. Aristotele capisce ci�
che � permanente, che giace in qualche
modo presente come qualcosa a riposo. Resto risulta essere una qualit�
di presenza. Ma il resto � un modo eminente di
essere spostato. Motion si integra in riposo.

Che cosa �
spostato � portato a stare in
piedi e la posizione di una presentazione (verbale), ha portato in un far-via.
Ci� si pu�
verificare nel modo di physis (che consente di emergere qualcosa di se stesso)
o nel modo di poiesis (per produrre e rappresentare qualcosa). L a presenza di
presentare, se si tratta di qualcosa a riposo o in movimento, riceve la sua
determinazione essenziale quando il movimento e, con essa, il resto come
caratteristiche fondamentali dell'essere provenienti da presentare sono intesi
come una delle modalit�. Nella sua
"Fisica", Aristotele distingue essere nel movimento e di essere a
riposo come caratteristiche di presenza e interpreta queste caratteristiche in
termini di essenza primordiale decisivo di essere, nel senso di rendere
presente emergente in quello che �
palese. La casa in piedi � esposto in
disvelatezza, in quanto

casa, li risolto nel senso di
completato boundary-Peras, telos-non nel senso di cessazione semplice. Resto
conserva il completamento di ci� che viene spostato.
T h e casa vi � come ergon.
"Opera", ci� che �
completamente a riposo nel resto esteriore appearancestanding, disteso in essa,
che cosa � completamente a
riposo nel presentare in disvelatezza. H ~ ~ ~ nel modo tGreek, il lavoro non �
un lavoro nel senso di gh la realizzazione di un processo faticoso. Inoltre non
� risultato ed effetto. Si tratta di
un lavoro nel senso di ci� che si trova nella
disvelatezza del suo aspetto esteriore e dura quindi in piedi o sdraiata. T o
sopportare qui significa: essere presenti a riposo come lavoro. Ergon ormai
caratterizza il modo di presentare. Presenza, ousia, significa quindi energeia:
la presenza-as-lavoro (inteso presenza verbalmente) nel lavoro di lavoro-ness.
Workness non significa attualit� come il risultato di
un'azione, ma piuttosto la presentazione, in piedi in disvelatezza, di ci�
che � istituito. T h energeia u s,

T H E fine della filosofia

La metafisica come storia
dell'essere

pensato alla maniera greca, ha
niente a che fare con la cosiddetta energia di epoche successive. Nel migliore
dei casi � vero il contrario,
ma solo in un senso molto remoto. Invece di energeia, Aristotele utilizza anche
il termine entelechia che lui stesso coniata. Telos �
il termine in cui il movimento della produzione e creazione di per s�
raccoglie. Questo incontro ritrae la-presente di ci�
che � completata e si �
conclusa, cio�, di ci�
che � soddisfatto (il lavoro).
Entelecheia sta avendo-(se stesso)-in-Alterminedi, il contenimento di rendere
presente che lascia tutta la produzione alle spalle ed �
quindi immediato, puro: essere in presenza. Energeia, entelecheia sui mezzi lo stesso
che a eidei en einai. Quali presenze in virt�
di "essere-in-the-lavoro-come-lavoro" �
il suo presente nella sua apparenza esteriore e attraverso il suo aspetto
esteriore. Energeia � l'ousia (presenza)
del tode ti, del presente e del che in ogni caso. Poich�
questa presenza, ousia si chiama: a eschaton, la presenza nel-presente, che
contiene tutto il possibile e definitiva. Questo modo pi�
alto di presenza concede anche il primo e pi�
vicina presenza di tutto ci� che in ogni caso
permane come questo e come quello in disvelatezza. Se 9being einai), ha cos�
determinato il pi� alto del suo modo di
rendere presente energeia, poi ousia cos�
fissata anche della sua propria esposizione di come si pu�
separare nella differenziazione dei whatness e thatness, e va quindi distinto
anche in conseguenza della prevalente eminente di Essere come energeia. L
'distinzione di un duplice ousia (presenza) �
diventato necessario. L 'inizio del quinto capitolo del trattato aristotelico
sulla "categorie" esprime questa distinzione. Ousia de estin lui
kuriotata te kai kas protos legomene malista, ha Mete Tinos kath'hypokeimenou
legetai Mete en estin hypokeimeno Tini, Anthropos tis hoion ho e ho tis
ippopotami. "Quello che � presente nel senso
di rendere presente prevalentemente (presenza), che �
quindi basata in primo luogo e per la maggior parte �
quello che si predica n� rispetto a qualcosa
di gi� davanti a noi, n�
(prima) si verifica in qualcosa di gi�
prima di noi, per esempio , l'uomo l�,
il cavallo l�. "'

1. Cf. Ross traduzione: "Nel
merito, nel vero e primo e pi� preciso

Quali presenze in modo non �
un predicato possibile, rendere presente nulla in o con un altro. Presenza in
senso eminente e primario � il persistere di
qualche cosa che permane di se stesso, si trova presente, il persistere della
persona in ogni caso, l'ousia del kath'hekaston: L 'questo, T lui singolare. In
termini di presenza cos� definita, la
presenza di altri si distingue il cui rendere presente �
cos� caratterizzato: deuterai de ousiai
legontai, en hois eidesin hai protos ousiai hyparchousin legomenai, Tauta te
kai ton ta gene Eidon Touton: Anthropos tis hoion ho it uomini eidei hyparchei
a antropologici, genos tou de eidous stima di zoon. deuterai oun hautai
legontai ousiai, te hoion ho anthropos kai di zoon. (Categ. V, 2 bis, 11 e
segg.) "Ci� che �
presente nel secondo grado, tuttavia, sono quelli (notare il plurale), in cui
ci� che si parla come presenza di
primo grado (in quanto tale in ogni caso) domina gi�
come nel modo di aspetto esteriore. L '(dal nome) maniere di aspetto esteriore
e anche le origini di queste modalit�
appartengo a questo posto, per esempio, questo uomo sta l�
in l'aspetto esteriore di un uomo, ma per questo aspetto esteriore' uomo, 'l'
origine (del suo aspetto esteriore) �
'l'essere vivente.' Cos� ci�
che � presente nel secondo grado sono
questi: ad esempio, 'uomo' (in generale) e anche 'l'essere vivente' (in
generale). "2 Presenza in senso secondario �
la stessa mostra di aspetto esteriore a cui tutti origini fanno parte anche, in
cui ci� che persiste in realt�
permette che come presenze che per emergere. Presenza nel senso primario �
l'Essere che si esprime nella estin hoti: che qualcosa �,
existentia. Presenza nel secondario

senso della parola, �
quello che non � n�
prevedibile n� di un soggetto
presente in un soggetto, per esempio, il singolo uomo o di cavallo. "-All
note in questo libro sono stati forniti dal traduttore. apprezzamento �
espresso a Frank per Oveis la sua assistenza nella traduzione di brani latino.
2. Ibid.: "Ma in un certo senso secondario queste cose si chiamano le
sostanze all'interno del quale, come specie, le sostanze primarie sono inclusi;
anche quelli che, come generi, anche la specie. Per esempio, l'uomo singolo �
incluso l'uomo la specie ', e per il genere a cui appartiene la specie �'
animale ': questi, dunque, vale a dire, l'uomo la specie' e il genere
'animal1-sono denominati sostanze secondarie ".

T H E fine della filosofia

sense is Being, to which we trace
back in the ti estin: what something is, essentia. That something is and what
something is are revealed as modes of presencing whose fundamental
characteristic is energeia. But doesn't a quite different, more far-reaching
distinction underlie the difference of hoti estin and ti estin, namely that of
what presences and presencing? In this case, the difference as such first named
lies on one side of the distinction of beings and Being. T h e hoti estin and
the ti estin name manners of presencing to the extent that what is present in
them presences in the lasting of each thing or else remains hidden in the mere
showing itself of outward appearance. T h e distinction between what something
is and that it is comes from Being (presence) itself. For presencing has within
itself the difference of the pure nearness of lasting and of levels of being in
the origins of outward appearance. But how does presencing have this diference
within itself7 As familiarly as the distinction of essentia and existentia
together with the difference of Being and beings offers itself for thinking,
the essential origin of these differences is just as obscure, and the structure
of their belonging together just as indefinite. Perhaps metaphysical thinking
in accordance with its essence can produce no understanding for the enigmatic
character of these differences which are a matter of course for it.
Nevertheless, since Aristotle thinks ousia (presence) in the primary sense as
energeia and since this presence means nothing other than what in a changed
interpretation is later called actualitas, "actuality" and
"existence" and "reality," the Aristotelian treatment of
the distinction reveals a priority of the later so-called existentia over the
essentia. What Plato thought as the true, and for him sole, beingness (ousia)
of beings, presence in the manner of idea (eidos), now moves to the secondary
rank within Being. For Plato, the essence of Being gathers itself in the koinon
of the idea, and thus in the hen which, however, is determined as the unifying
One by physis and logos, that is, by the gathering allowing-to-emerge. For
Aristotle,

Metaphysics as History of Being

;

Being consists in the energeia of
the tode ti. In terms of energeia, eidos can be thought as a manner of
presencing. In contrast, the tode ti, the actual being, is incomprehensible in
its beingness when thought i n terms of idea. (The tode ti is a me on-and yet
an on.) Still, the historical relationship of Aristotle to Plato is established
even today by explanations, variously nuanced, as follows: In contradistinction
to Plato, who held that the "Ideas" were "what is truly
existent," allowed for individual beings only as seeming beings (eidolon),
and demoted them to that which really ought not to be called beings (me on),
Aristotle took the free-floating "Ideas" back from their
"supraheavenly place" and planted them in actual things. In doing
this, Aristotle thought the "Ideas" as "forms" and these
"forms" as "energies" and "forces" housed in
beings. This curious explanation, inevitable in the progression of metaphysics,
of the relationship between Plato and Aristotle with regard to the thinking of
the Being of beings calls forth two questions: How should Aristotle be able at
all to bring the Ideas down to actual beings if he has not in advance conceived
the individual actual being as that which truly presences? But how should he
reach the concept of the individual real being's presence, if he doesn't
previously think the Being of beings in the sense of the primordially decided
essence of Being in terms of presencing in unconcealment? Aristotle does not
transplant the Ideas (as if they were things) into individual things. Rather,
he thinks for the first time the individual as the actual, and thinks its
lasting as the distinctive manner of presencing, of the presenting of eidos
itself in the most extreme present of the indivisible, that is, no longer
derived, appearance (atomon eidos). T h e same essence of Being, presencing,
which Plato thinks for the koinon in the idea, is conceived by Aristotle for
the tode ti as energeia. In that Plato can never admit the individual being as
what is truly in being, and in that Aristotle, however, conceives the
individual together with presencing, Aristotle is more truly Greek in his
thinking than Plato, that is, more in keeping with the primor9

;

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

dially decided essence of Being.
Still, Aristotle was able to think ousia as energeia only in opposition to
ousia as idea, so that he also keeps eidos as subordinate presence in the
essential constitution of the presencing of what is present. However, to say
that Aristotle is more truly Greek in his thinking than Plato in the way
described does not mean that he again comes closer to the primordial thinking
of Being. Between energeia and the primordial essence of Being
(aletheia-physis) stands the idea. Both modes of ousia, idea and energeia, form
in the interplay of their distinction the fundamental structure of all
metaphysics, of all truth of beings as such. Being announces its essence in
these two modes: Being is presence as the showing itself o outward appearance.
Being is f the lasting o the actual being in such outward appearance. This
double f presence in-sists upon presence, and thus becomes present as
constancy: enduring, lasting. T h e two modes can be thought only by saying
each time, from the vantage point of beings relative back to beings, what they
are and that they are. Within its history as "metaphysics," Being
limits its truth (unconcealing) to what is in being in the sense of idea and
energeia. Energeia takes precedence without, however, ever being able to
repress idea as a fundamental characteristic of Being. T h e pro-gression-to be
taken here in its literal meaning-of metaphysics from its beginning, which
Plato and Aristotle ground, consists in the fact that these first metaphysical
determinations of presence change and also draw the mode of their mutual
distinction into this change. Finally, their distinction disappears in a
peculiar confounding.

T h e pro-gression of metaphysics
from its essential beginning leaves this beginning behind, and yet takes a
fundamental constituent of Platonic-Aristotelian thinking along. This
tradition, of which

itself retains knowledge and later
on specifically reports upon in a historical manner, gives rise to the illusion
that the transformation which pro-gressed from the essential beginning of is
the preservation of the genuine fundamental constituents and at the same time
its progressive development. This illusion has its real support in the opinion,
which has long since become public property, that the fundamental concepts of
metaphysics remain everywhere the same. Idea becomes idea, and this becomes
representational thought. Energeia becomes actualitas, and this becomes
actuality. Even though the linguistic formulations of the essential
constituents of Being change, the constituents, so it is said, remain the same.
If changing fundamental positions of metaphysical thinking develop on this
foundation, then their manifoldness only confirms the unchanging unity of the
underlying determinations of Being. However, this unchangingness is only an
illusion under whose protection metaphysics occurs as history of Being. In this
history, the two differentiated modes of Being, whatness as idea and thatness
as energeia, each assumes a different criterion for the manner in which Being
holds itself in the determination of what is in being. When it becomes valid as
Being, whatness encourages the predominance of looking at what beings are, and
thus makes possible a peculiar precedence of beings. Thatness, in which nothing
seems to be said about beings themselves (about their "what"), is
enough to establish that beings are, whereby the "is" and Being
thought in that "is" are simply taken for granted. When it becomes
valid as Being, thatness makes it possible that the essence of Being is assumed
as self-evident. Both factors, the precedence o beings and the f assumed
self-evidenceof Being, characterize metaphysics. Because thatness remains
unquestioned everywhere in its nature, not, however, with regard to actual
beings (whether they are o r are not), the unified essence of Being, Being as
the unity of whatness and thatness, also determines itself tacitly from what is
unquestioned. Thus the history of Being is primarily revealed in the history

T H E E N D OF PHILOSOPHY

of energeia which is later called
actualitas and existentia, actuality and existence. But is actuality only the
translation for the same essence of energeia retained in its sameness? And does
existentia preserve that fundamental characteristic of Being which in general received
its form in ousia (presence)? Ex-sistere speculo means for Cicero to step out
of the cave. One might suspect here a deeper relation of existentia as stepping
out and forward to coming forward to presence and unconcealment. Then the Latin
word existentia would preserve an essential Greek content. That is not the
case. Similarly, actualitas no longer preserves the essence of energeia. T h e
literal translation is misleading. In truth it brings precisely another
transposition or misplacement to the word of Being. This transposition of
another type of humanity to the whole of beings occurs by virtue of the closure
of Being. T h e character of that-being and of the "that" has
changed. In the beginning of metaphysics, beings as ergon are what presence in
their being produced. Now ergon becomes the opus of the operari, the factum of
the facere, the actus of the agere. T h e ergon is no longer what is freed in
the openness of presencing, but rather what is effected in working, what is
accomplished in action. T h e essence of the "work" is no longer
"workness" in the sense of distinctive presencing in the open, but
rather the "reality" of a real thing which rules in working and is
fitted into the procedure of working. Having progressed from the beginning
essence of energeia, Being has become actualitas. Thus in the horizon of
historical description, a transition from the Greek to the Roman conceptual
language has come about. But in order to realize sufficiently even merely
historically the scope of this transition, the Roman character must be
understood in the full wealth of its historical developments, so that it
includes the politically imperial element of Rome, the Christian element of the
Roman church, and the Romantic element as well. With a peculiar fusion of
imperial and papal elements, the Romantic becomes the origin of that
fundamental structure of the modernly experienced

Metaphysics as History of Being

reality called cultura
("culture"), and for various reasons was unknown to the Greeks and
the Romans, and to the German medieval period as well. When counted in epochs,
the determination of Being as actualitas thus extends throughout the whole of
Western history from the Romans u p until the most recent of modern times.
Because the essential determination of Being as actualitas underlies all
history in advance, that is, at the same time the structure of relationships of
a certain type of humanity to beings as a whole, all Western history since is
in a manifold sense Roman, and never Greek. Every subsequent reawakening of
Greek antiquity is a Roman renovation of that Greece already reinterpreted in a
Roman way. T h e Germanic character of the medieval period, too, is Roman in
its metaphysical essence, because it is Christian. Ever since the
transformation of energeia to actualitas (reality), the real is truly what is
in being and thus decisive for everything possible and necessary. But Being as
actualitas is in itself historical, in that it accomplishes the truth of its
essence and in that it thus makes possible the fundamental positions of
metaphysics. T h e distinction at the beginning maintains itself in Being
throughout: Actualitas is differentiated as existentia from potentia
(possibilitas) as essentia. Actualitas preserves nothing of the essence of
energeia over and above the indefinite relation to the work. And yet the
essence of Being at its beginning still prevails in actualitas, too, since
whatness is determined as idea. T h e fundamental characteristic of idea (cf.
"Plato's Doctrine of Truth," 1942) is the agathon. Outward appearance
showing itself makes beings capable of becoming present as this and that. Idea
as whatness has the character of aitia, cause. Origination from its whatness
dominates in every coming-to-be of beings. Whatness is the matter of every
thing, that is, its cause. Accordingly, Being is in itself causal. As a
consequence of the Platonic determination of Being as idea, that is, as agathon,
the decisive role of aitia unfolds in the essence of Being. Here the character
of being-responsible-for as

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

making possible does not
necessarily and exclusively have the character of effective working. Still, the
precedence of aitia gets so firmly fixed in the beginning of metaphysics that
it takes over the place of the prernetaphysical determination of Being as
arche; more exactly: it brings about the transformation of the character of
arche to that of aition. Soon the equation of arche and aitia, in part already
with Aristotle, becomes a matter of course. Being shows the essential
characteristic of the making possible of presence, that is, of effecting
constancy o r permanence. Thus, in spite of the gap between energeia and
actualitas, the transformation to Being as esse actu is prepared from the
metaphysical essence of Being at its beginning, too. When Being has changed to
actualitas (reality), beings are what is real. They are determined by working,
in the sense of causal making. T h e reality of human action and divine
creation can be explained in terms of this. Being which has changed to
actualitas gives to beings as a whole that fundamental characteristic which the
representational thinking of the biblical-Christian faith in creation can take
over in order to secure metaphysical justification for itself. Conversely,
through the dominance of the Christian-ecclesiastical interpretation of beings,
the fundamental position of Being as reality attains an assumed self-evidence
which has remained decisive ever since for all subsequent understanding of the
beingness of beings, even apart from the attitude of strict faith and its
scholarly interpretation of beings as a whole. T h e predominance of the
determination of Being as reality, now immediately comprehensible to everyone,
gets firmly fixed so that soon, conversely, energeia is understood in terms of
actualitas, and the primordial Greek essential character of Being is once and
for all misunderstood and made inaccessible by the Roman interpretation of
Being. T h e tradition of the truth about beings which goes under the title of
"metaphysics" develops into a pile of distortions, no longer
recognizing itself, covering up the primordial essence of Being. Herein lies the
reason for the necessity of the "destruction" of this distortion.
when a

Metaphysics as History of Being

thinking of the truth of being has
become necessary (cf. Being and T i m e ) But this destruction, like
"phenomenology" and all hermeneuticaI-transcendental questions, has
not yet been thought in terms of the history of Being. Real beings are what
truly is, because actuality constitutes the true essence of thatness; for
actuality thought as energeia is the fulfilled presence of the actual being.
But the more the presencing being endures in a lasting manner, the more actual
it remains. Esse, in contradistinction to essentia, is esse actu. Actualitas,
however, is causalitas. T h e causal character of Being as reality shows itself
in all purity in that being which fulfills the essence of Being in the highest
sense, since it is that being which can never not be. Thought
"theologically," this being is called "God." It doesn't
know the state of possibility because in that state it would not yet be something.
In every not-yet there lies a lack of Being, in that Being is distinguished by
permanence. T h e highest being is pure actuality always fulfilled, actuspurus.
Effecting is here the persisting presencing of itself of what persists for
itself. This being (ens) is not only what it is (sua essentia), but in what it
is, it is always also the persistence of what it is (est suum esse non
participans alio). For this reason, metaphysically thought, God is called the
summum ens. T h e apex of his Being, however, consists in his being the summum
bonum. For the bonum is causa, and as $nis the causa causarum. Thus, precisely
with respect to causalitas (that is, actualitas) the bonum is what gives
persistence to everything that persists and is thus prius quam ens; causalitas
causae Fnalis est prima. There is not a moral characterization or even an idea
of "value" contained in the statement "Deus est summum bonum.
" T h e name summum bonum is rather the purest expression for the
causality which is appropriate to the purely real, in accordance with its
effectuating the persistence of everything that can persist (cf. Thomas
Aquinas, Summa theol. I, qu. 1-23). Ontologically understood, the bonum thought
with regard to the summum ens is the echo of the Platonic agathon, that is,
what absolutely makes capable,

T H E E N D OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

Aristotle thought it originates in
that change of the essence of truth from the unconcealment of beings to the
correctness of the reasoned This change already begins with Plato and underlies
the beginning of metaphysics. Although this origin, which is likewise already
metaphysical, echoes indefinitely enough in the concept ex-sistentia, too,
ex-sistentia receives its decisive meaning from actualita~, that is, with
regard to causalitas. In his Disputationes metaphysicae (XXXI, sect. IV n. 6),
whose influence continuing into the beginning of modern metaphysics has
meanwhile become more evident, Suarez says this about ex-sistentia: nam esse
existentiae nihil aliud est quam illud esse, quo formaliter, et immediate
entitas aliqua constituitur extra causas suas, et desinit esse nihil, ac
incipit esse aliquid: sed huiusmodi est hoc esse quo formaliter et immediate
constituitur res in actualitate essentiae: ergo est verum esse existentiae. '
Existence is that Being through which a being is truly and immediately established
outside of the causes with the result that nonbeing ceases, and an actual being
begins to be. Ex-sistentia is related in each case to one being in accordance
with the underlying distinction in Being. What a being is in each case is
established by existence in the sphere outside of causality. This means:
Whatness undergoes a causal realization in such a way that what is thus
produced is released as a product from causality, and established on its own
basis as something real. T h e "extra" is no longer related like the
Aristotelian exo to the dianoia, to human reason, but rather to a transpiring
causality. Ex-sistentia is actualitas in the sense of the res extra causes et
nihilum sistentia, a production which transposes something into the realm
outside of causality and actuality, the realm of being produced, and thus
overcomes nothingness (that is, the lack of real beings). But if ex-sistentia
is placed in the realm outside of causality, how

3 . "For the being of
existence is nothing but that being by which some entity is formally and
immediately established outside of its causes, and ceases to be nothing, and
begins to be something: And indeed of such a kind is this being by which a
thing is formally and immediately established in the actuality of essence:
Therefore it is the true being of existence."

namely for beings as such-what
makes possible: the condition of possibility (cf. "Plato's Doctrine of
Truth"). But also in the actualitas, which is determined in every respect
by causalitas, the essence of beingness at the beginning maintains itself in a
changed form: presence. The summum ens is distinctively characterized by
omnipraesentia. However, "ubiquity," (to be present everywhere) is
also determined "causally." Deus est ubique per essentiam inquantum
adest omnibus ut causa essendi (qu. 8a, 3). T h e interpretation of existentia
can also be explained by the causal character of reality. This is the name for
the other concept which is mostly equated in meaning with actualitas (reality),
and is even used far more often in the conceptual language of metaphysics,
above all in the distinction of essentia and existentia ("essence"
and "existence"). T h e origin of the word existentia is traced back
to two passages in Aristotle's Metaphysics which both treat almost identically
the on hos alethes, the Being of beings in the sense of "unconcealed"
(Met. E 4, 1027b 17 and Met. K 8, 106Sa 2lff.). Here Aristotle speaks about a
exo ousa tis physis tou ontos and about the exo on kai choriston. T h e exo, outside,
means the Outside tes dianoias, that is, human reason which permeates beings in
discussion, and in doing so establishes what it has talked about. What is
established in this way consists and presences only for such discussion and in
the neighborhood of its activity. What is outside (exo) consists and stands as
something persisting in itself in its own place (choriston). What thus
"stands outside," ex-sistens, the ex-isting, is nothing other than
what presences of itself in its being produced, the on energeia. At this point,
a derivation of the Latin word ex-sistentia from an Aristotelian explanation of
beings is called for. More important for insight into the history of Being is
the fact that the characterization of what presences of itself (ousia) is
already based upon a changed essence of truth. T h e "true" is still
called alethes, the unconcealed; but what is true, namely the proposition, is
true not because it itself as revealing is something "unconcealed,"
but rather because it establishes and thinks what is unconcealed by the
adequation of reason. T h e determination of Being in the sense of ex-sistentia
as

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY Metaphysics as History
of Being

can actualitas still determine the
essence of existence? not exi5 tence the taking leave of causality? On the
contrary. In that exis tence exposes from the area of causality to the openness
of which is now a real being based upon itself and thus an effectiv being,
existence is precisely dependent upon causality. Placing an, establishing, the
making-stand of ex-sistentia, is what it is out causality, but only out of it.
T h e ex-sistentia is the actus, quo rt sistitur, ponitur extra statum
possibilitatis. It alone can and shotlld ex-pose from the cause the thing as
caused, that is, produced. T h e usual name for thatness, existence, testifies
to the pre,cedence of Being as actualitas in this interpretation. The dominance
of its essence as reality determines the progression of the history Being,
throughout which the essential determination once begun i: carried out to its
prefigured completion. T h e real is the existing. The existing includes
everything which through some manner of causality constituitur extra causas.
But because the whole of beings is the effected and effecting product of a
first producer, an appropriate structure enters the whole of beings which
determines itself as the co-responding of the actual produced being to the
producer as the highest being. T h e reality of the grain of sand, of plants,
animals, men, numbers, CO-respondsto the making of the first maker. It is at
the same time like and unlike his reality. The thing which can be experienced
and grasped with the senses is existent, but so is the object of mathematics
which is nonsensuous and calculable. "M exists" means: this quantity
can be unequivocally constructed from an established point of departure of
calculation with established methods of calculation. What is thus constructed
is thus Proven as something effective within a context of calculative proof.
"M" is something with which one can calculate, and under certain
conditions must calculate. Mathematical construction is a kind of constitution
of the constituere extra causas, of causal Being is given in the essence of
reality, and reality determines the existence of what exists. Being presences
as effecting in the unified-manifold sense according to which what effects, but
also

what is effected and also what is
the effected-effectingand the effective being, is what-is. T h e being thus
determined in a manifold way in virtue of effecting is real. ~t can only be
recollected that Being has been given to the essence of reality. Recollection
points back to the previous essence of ~~i~~ in the sense of worklike and
visible presenting. T h e progression out of this essence allows the agathon
and the airion to become determining. The essential origin of Being as making
possible and as causing rules t h r o u g ~ o thefuture history of Being.
Makingpossible, caunng, accounting u~ for are determined in advance as
gathering in virtue of the One as what 25 unifying This unifying is neither an
intertwining nor an assembling. T h e hen in which the essence of Being rests
has the Character of concealing-unconcealing, of the gathering to be thought,
The unity of the One is shown throughout the hi nor^ of ~ ~in various forms
whose differences stem from the change of i ~ g essence of aletheia, of
concealing-unconcealing. ~f as a consequence of this event beings have
meanwhile 10% since and generally been experienced and have been the subject
opinion, this opining can still never encroach upon the strange uniqueness of
even this essence of Being. T h e opining about Being as reality does veil the
event of this essential origin. But opining can never harm the decisiveness in
virtue of which this essence of Being brings the progression of its history to
its utmost completion.

THE TRANSFORMATION

OF T R U T H T O CERTAINTY

The hidden history of Being as
reality also first makes possible various fundamental positions within beings.
These western fundamental positions ground in each case the truth about Being
on the basis of what is real and establish and make this truth certain for what
is real. Even though the essence of Being as reality fixates as ultimate an
irrevocable change in the face of worklike Presence (energeia), still the
question of how effecting and reality are deter-

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

accordance with the precedence of
beings which starts with the beginning of metaphysics, Being, meanwhile
represented as the general determination (koinon, k~tholou, genur, commune) of
beings, takes its essential shape in virtue of an authoritative being. What
real being the authoritative effecting effects as the determination of
reality's essence cannot be calculated and can only be established
historically. Since the creator god as first cause is what primarily effects,
and since his effects, however, are the world, and within the world the true
effector is man; the triad: God, world (nature), man circumscribes the realm of
possibilitirc according to which one of these realms of what is real takes over
th structuring of reality's essence. Assuming, however, that the detel mination
of reality in accordance with what is authoritatively re: also does not
primordially come from beings, but rather stems fror Being itself; then the
development of reality's essence within metaphysics must also point to this
origin. An indication of thi becomes apparent in the fact that the actual
essence of truth, il whose light a period of mankind experiences beings,
participates il the history of Being. T h e manner of this participation
remains, 0 course, profoundly veiled. Truth, meanwhile in metaphysics changed
to the distinctivl trait of the intellect (humanus, divinus), comes to its
ultimate essence which is called certainty. The name expresses the fact that
truth concerns consciousness as a knowledge, a representation which is grounded
in consci0uSneS~ such a way that only that knowledge in is valid as knowledge
which at the same time knows itself and what it knows as such, and is certain
of itself in this knowledge. Certainty here is not to be taken only as an
addition to knowledge in the sense that it accomplishes the appropriation and
the possession of knowledge. Rather, certainty is the authoritative mode of
knowledge, that is, ''truth," as the consciousness, conscious of itself,
of what i! known. T h e mere having of something in consciousness is, in con.
either no longer knowledge or not yet knowledge.

~h~~ truth becomes certainty in
essence is an event whose beginning is inaccessible to all metaphysics. On the
other hand, in connection with this essential change of truth, a peculiar
preeminence of humanity within what is real soon becomes evident. and at the
same time, however, also a corresponding role of what is unconditionall~real,
thought in a theological manner. As knowing beings, both realities, God and man,
are metaphysically the bearers the reality of knowledge and certainty. of truth
and thus However, it lies in the essence of certainty to be certain of itself
case, that is, to claim for itself the final assurance of itself. in certainty
thus first and alone determines the reality of what is real1 which at first
appears to be only its actual support. By thus exhibiting its support in terms
of the essential claim to the self-accomplishmerit of its self-assuring, it
kindles the battle between the possible supports of its essence. Before all,
the creator god, and with him the institution of the offering and management of
his gifts of grace (the church), is in sole possession of the sole and eternal
truth. As actus purus, ~~d is pure actuality and thus the causality of
everything real, that is, the source and the place of salvation which as
blessedness guarantees eternal permanence. By himself, man can l ~ become, and
be, absolutely certain of this salvation. O n the other hand, through faith and
similarly through lack of faith1 man is essentially established in the
attainment of salvation's certainty, Or forced to the renunciation of this
salvation and its certainty- Thus a necessity rules, hidden in its origin, that
man make sure of his salvation in some fashion in the Christian or in another
sense (salvation: soteria: redemption: release). The origin, belonging to the
history of Being, of the dominance of truth as certainty is concealed in the
release of its essence from the primal truth of Being. Assurance of himself and
of his effectiveness determines the reality of man. T h e possibility is
contained here of man's determining the essence of certainty by himself in
accordance with the essence of certainty in general (self-assurance), and thus

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

upon and builds u p of himself what
is real as what has an effect upon him and as what he effects. What is real
becomes what can be effected within that human activity which, knowingly basing
itself upon itself, cultivates everything and takes care of it. Thus
"culture" begins historically as the structure of humanity which is
certain of itself and intent upon the assurance of itself (cf. Descartes,
Discours de la mtthode). Culture as such is elevated to the "goal,"
or, what is essentially the same, it can be set u p as the means and value of
humanity's dominance over the earth. T h e Christiz church attains a position
of protective defense. T h e decisive actic of this defense consists in taking
over the stance of this new adve sary, who at first still moves and establishes
himself within t1 Christian world. T h e Christian church becomes Christianity
culture. Conversely, however, culture, that is, the self-certainty humanity
which has become assured of its effectiveness, strives fit Christianity into
its world and to incorporate the truth of Chri tianity into the certainty of
humanity certain of itself and of i possibilities for knowledge. In that truth
becomes the certainty of knowledge of humanil making sure of itself, that
history begins which is called the mode period in the historical calculation of
epochs. T h e name says moi than it means. It says something essential about
this age. In that tf truth in which its humanity stands demands the development
of the assurance of absolute dominance, this essence of truth delivers man and
his effecting over to the inevitable and never ceasing worry of increasing the
possibilities of safety and making sure of them again in the face of newly
enkindled dangers. Man and his effecting advance in the continually new
elements of his successes and discoveries, in the continually newest elements
of his attainments and conquests, in the continually unheard of elements of his
experiences. This attainment of safety and this arrangement of what is real in
safety is able to dominate the historical movement of moder humanity only
because the relation of man to everything re: changes in the premonitory
beginning of this history, in that tl1

truth of beings has become
certainty, and certainty since then is developing its own essential fullness as
the authoritative essence of But this change of the essence of truth from the
cor,ctness of the thinking proposition to the certainty of representational
thinking, too, is determined as reality by the essence of Bring. Thus the
change of essence of truth gives an indication for the way in which Being
itself begins to complete its essence as reality. What is truly real
(actuspurus) is God. Reality (actualitas) is the effecting causality which of
itself brings about the stabilizing of independent constancy. Causality,
however, is not exhausted in the effectuation of the constancy on earth of all
that is not divine, that is, created. T h e highest causality is the actuspurus
as summum bonum, which as the final goal (finis) predestining everything and
thus .levaring everything to its true constancy anchors all reality of what is
real in the first cause. For this reason, that real being which is man, created
in the image of God, must above all bring about his reality by holding fast to
the highest good, that is, by faith (fides, qua creditur). Through faith, man
is certain of the reality of the highest real being, and thus at the same time
also of his own real continuance in eternal bliss. T h e causality of the
highest real being allots to man thus created a definite kind of reality whose
fundamental characteristic is faith. In faith rules certainty, that kind of
certainty which is safe even in the uncertainty of itself, that is, of what it
believes in. What is believed in is that real being whose reality as actus
purus binds and directs all human activity in its plans and ideas. Man can
stand in such a commitment only if he of himself and as himself bows down toward
something committing him, frees himself for what he believes in such bowing
down, and is free in such a way. Man's freedom ruling in faith and its
certainty (propensio in bonum cf. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia
IV, "De vero et falso") develops as the essential structure of
created man only when all human behavior, in its own way, bears within itself
that fundamen-

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

tal character in relation to
everything real, in its own way, whi Presents and assures what is real to
effecting man each case. Man, however, does not just relate through faith to
God and the world created by God. Man also relates to what is real throu the
lumen mturale. In the natural light of reason, a certainty nativ to him must
become authoritative if certainty decides about th adequate relation to what is
real. All natural human behavior an

something true is that which man of
himself clearly and dis-

ior must be certainty. This demand
for the self-protection of his natural constant accomplished by man himself
does not come from a revolt again! the doctrine of faith. O n the contrary, it
is the necessary conscquence of the fact that the highest truth has the
character of the Certainty of salvation. T h e essential transformation of
truth to the certainty of representational thinking is determined by the
essence Of Being as actuspurus. For this reason, the world of Christian faith
remains authoritative throughout manifold transformations for the organization
and cultivation of what is real (for culture) in the of the modern period, but
it is also authoritative for the interpretation of what is real in terms of its
reality (for modern metaphysics). Modern culture is Christian even when it
loses its faith. O n the other hand, Christianity tries in all ways to remain
capable of being cultural and to be a Christianity of culture, most of all
where the Christianity of faith is furthest removed from original Christianity.
If the natural ideas, brought about by man himself, about what is real are thus
supported and guided by truth as certainty, every real being placed in a truth,
every true being (ens verum) must be

thus represented has also already
presented what is constant, that s, what is real, to representational thinking.
Reality is representation in the sense of the constancy of the iontinuou~which
is set up by certain representational thinking and

for it.

rt is true that in the beginning of
the essential transformation

of reality whose history fulfills modern
metaphysics as Being, this essence is not yet expressed as such. O n the
contrary. It almost seems as if in the beginning of n~odernmetaphysics the
traditional essence of reality, actualitas, is maintained just as it is, and
only the manner of comprehension of what is real, knowledge, is subjected to a
special inquiry ("theory"). T h e essence of Being in the beginning
of modern metaphysics is actually ambiguous in that a manifold of essential
possibilities of the essential completion reality appears which later
coalesces, developed from original unity. The ambiguity of the essence of
reality in the beginning of n d e r n metaphysics is the sign of a genuine
tt-ansition. In contrast, the supposed singleness of meaning which is
presumably expressed in the cogito ergo sum is an illusion.

4. "And accordingly it seems
to me that already I can establish as a generai that all things which I
perceive very clearly and very distinctly are t n ~ "

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Certainty as the essence of truth
claims of itself to have a manner, thoroughly adequate for itself, of
knowability and of what can be added and built up as truly real through
certainty in knowledge, and thus assured in constancy. Certainty is the assurance
of everything represented which grounds itself in its own essence and is
entrusted to that essence alone. For this reason, certainty requires an
underlying support sufficient for it which expressly lies continually present
for representing as the ground for all representational construction and
bringing about of what is real. If the essence of truth, having become
certainty, brings about ' its adequate relation to what is real through and for
man who is placed in the essence of truth by requiring him to construct what is
knowable as that which can be produced with certainty; and if the certainty for
this construction requires that basis in which certainty's own essence is
incorporated as the foundation, then something real must be secured in advance
for all representational thinking whose reality, that is, persistence, is
removed from every threat to representational thinking in the sense of
dubitability. T h e demand for certainty goes after a fundamentum absolutum et
inconcussum, a basis which no longer depends upon a relation to something else,
but rather is absolved from the very beginning from this relation, and rests
within itself. Which real being is appropriate to be such a basis, in such a
way that it can at the same time change to suit the essence of reality (the ,
constancy for all representational thinking) prepared by certainty?

Metaphysics as History of Being

has come to be along with what is
already present the symbebekota. this name, the character of presencing and
thus the Greek essence of Being (ousia) can still be heard. However, because
the symbebekota only presence along with, only come as an addition to what
endures of itself, and only have stability along with it, they are in a certain
way a me on, something present which does not attain the pure manner of lasting
of the actual, the hypokeimenon. In accordance with the change of energeia to
actualitas, the change of hypokeimenon to subiectum obscures the essence of
Being thought in the Greek manner, in spite of the correct translation. The
subiectum is what is placed and thrown under in the actus and can then be
joined by other things. In this joining, in the accidens,
presencing-al~ng-within presence, that is, a manner of presencing, can no
longer be heard. What underlies and has been placed under (subiectum) takes
over the role of the ground upon which other things are placed so that what has
been placed under can also be conceived as what stands under, and thus is
constant before everything. Subiectum and substans mean the same thing: what is
truly constant and real, what suffices for reality and constancy and is
therefore called substantia. Soon the essence of hypokeimenon determined at the
beginning, of what lies present of itself, is interpreted from the perspective
of substantia. Ousia, presence, is thought as substantia. T h e concept of
substance is un-Greek, but it dominates together with actualitas the essential
character of Being in the metaphysics to follow. However, just as the
Aristotelian characterization of "existens" is determined as exo tes
dianoias on through the change of truth from aletheia to homoiosis and through
the concomitant transposition of truth to the proposition (logos), the same
essential change of truth and the predominance originating from it of the kataphasis
(logos) takes over the preparation of a far-reaching ambiguity and
reinterpretation of the hypok'eimenon. Since it is what of itself lies present,
what truly is becomes kath'hou legetai ti, that of which something shown and
stated (legomenon) is predicated and attributed as what is

U p to and still during the
beginning of the modern period, what is real is the ens actu, what effects and
is effected in its relative constancy. In contrast, in the beginning of
metaphysics, Being presences not as actualitas (actuality), but as workness
(energeia) for which the lasting of the actual suffices. T h e actual lies
present of itself, it is the true hypokeimenon. Aristotle calls everything
which

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

underlying. T h e hypokeimenon is
now in turn the legomenon (logos) kath'hauto, that which is addressed directly
and only as itself, thus becoming accessible as a being. T h e logos, the
proposition, now characterizes what underlies as such and signifies what presences
of itself, and thus remains the substratum of all predication and negation.
Ever since, all essential determinations of beings as such, that is,
characterizations of what-is, remain within the confines of the kataphasis,
that is, of the kategoria. They are categories. Because logos shapes the
essence of what underlies, it becomes the determination ' of that which arche
and aitia are, of what is later called the underlying ground and cause. T h e
"subiectum" subsequently becomes the name which names the subject in
the subject-object relationship, and also the subject in the subject-predicate
relationship. ! T h e change of metaphysics at its beginning releases energeia
into actualitas, ousia into the substantia, aletheia into the adaequatio.
Similarly, logos, and with it hypokeimenon, comes into the sphere of meaning of
the translation ratio (rheo, rhesis = speech, ratio; reor = to predicate, to
opine, to justify). Ratio is accordingly the other name for subiectum, for what
underlies. Thus a characterization for human (predicating) behavior comes to
play the role of the concept for that which constitutes a being in its true
Being, in that as what lasts it is constant in itself, and thus is what stands
under all beings, ' however they may be, the substantia. T h e ground,
understood as the essence of the beingness of beings, receives the not-at-all
obvious name of ratio in subsequent metaphysics. Everything that endures of
itself and thus lies present is hypokeimenon. Subiectum is a star and a plant,
an animal, a human being and a god. When a fundamentum absolutum et inconcussum
is required in the beginning of modern metaphysics which as a true being
suffices for the essence of truth in the sense of certitudo cognitionis
humanae, a subiectum is being asked for which already lies present in all
representing and for all representing, and is what is constant and standing in
the sphere of indubitable representational thinking.

Representational thin king
(percipere, co-agitare, cogitare, repraesentan in uno) is a fundamental
characteristic of all human behavior, even of n o n e p i s t e m ~ l ~ g
ibehavior. From this perspective, all behav~al ioral actions are cogitationes.
However, what constantly already lies present for representational thinking
during representation which presents something to itself is the representer
itself (ego cogitans), before which everything represented is brought, to which
and back to which (re-praesentare) it becomes present. As long as representing
continues, the representing ego cogito is also expressly what already lies
present in representing and for it. Thus the distinctive character of
continually already lying present, of the subiectum, belongs to the ego cogito
cogitatum in the sphere of the essential structure of representational thinking
(perceptio). This constancy is the permanence of that which can never be
doubted in any representing, even if this representing is itself a kind of
doubting. The ego, the res cogitans, is the distinctive subiectum whose esse,
that is, presencing, suffices for the essence of truth in the sense of
certainty. This esse circumscribes a new essence of the existentia which
Descartes defines as a veritas aetema (axiom) in section 49 of his
Principiaphilosophiae as follows: is qui cogitat, non potest non existere, dum
cogitat. "Whoever behaves toward something while representing cannot not
continually effect while r e p r e ~ e n t i n g . ~ Reality is characterized
as constancy by permanence (the persistence of representational thinking). But
at the same time it makes the representing being into an ens actu. T h e
effecting of the new essence of reality of this distinctive real being has the
fundamental characteristic of representational thinking. Accordingly, the
reality of what is represented and added in all representing is characterized
by being represented. Thus begins the development of a characteristic of the
essence of reality which is later on first conceived by Kant in all clarity as
the objectivity of the object. Representational thinking brings about

5 . "He who thinks must exist
while he thinks."

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

the presentation of the opposition
of the object. As long as we think metaphysically and not, in a manner
inappropriate to Being, psychologically, reality as being represented never
signifies that what is real is a mental-spiritual product and effect of
representational activity, and thus something which only exists as a mental
structure. O n the contrary, as soon as the fundamental characteristic of
representing and being represented comes to power in the essence of reality,
the constancy and persistence of what is real is narrowed down to the sphere of
presencing in the presence of the re-praesentatio. T h e character of presence
prevailing in the metaphysical essence of Being which was not fully
obliterated, only changed, even in the transformation of energeia to actualitas
(cf. the omnipraesentia of the actuspurus), now appears as presence within
representational thin king (repraesentatio). Descartes' Meditations, which
treat the distinction of the subiectum man as the res cogitans, think Being as
the esse of the ens verum qua certum. T h e newly thought essence of the
reality of what is real is not yet called by a name of its own. This by no
means signifies that the Meditations turn away from the Being of beings to the
knowledge of beings. For the Meditations are characterized as
Meditationesdeprimaphilosophia,thus as meditations which keep within the sphere
of the question about the ens qua ens. These Meditations are a beginning,
indeed a decisive beginning, of the true start of the metaphysics upon which
the modern period rests. But how little the whole conversion to the metaphysics
of the modern period is already accomplished here can be seen from the fact
that the res cogitans, as fundamentum absolutum et inconcussum the eminent
subiectum, is at the same time a substantia Fnita, that is, creata, in the
sense of traditional metaphysics. T h e reality of the substantia jinita is
determined by the causality of the causa prima. The distinction of the mens
humana among other subiecta is expressed by the fact that it notior est quam
corpus. This precedence in being known is not a matter of easier
comprehensibility, but rather signifies the truer presence of the res cogitans in
the sphere of human representing as a presenting to onesev Human representing
itself

Metaphysics as History of Being

and the representing human being
are here more constant, more and more in being than all other beings when
thought from the new essence of reality. In accordance with this distinction of
its lying present as subiectum, the men1 humana thus claims in the future the
name "subject" exclusively for itself, so that subiectum and ego,
,,biectivity and I-ness become equivalent. T h e "subject" as the
name for that about which something is predicated loses its metaphysical
dignity in appearance only. This dignity appears in Leib.iz and is developed
fully in Hegel's Science of Logic. At first, however, all nonhuman beings still
remain ambiguous with respect to the essence of their reality. They can be
determined by being represented and by objectivity for the representing
subiecturn, but also by the actualitas of the ens creatum and its
substantiality. On the other hand, the sole supremacy of Being as actualitas in
the sense of the actuspurus is broken down. Within its metaphysical truth as
the beingness of beings, the history of Being begins to bring the various
possibilities of its essence to unity, and thus the fulfillment of its essence
to completion. It is evident in the earliest beginning of this history that it
claims the essence of man with a peculiar decisiveness. T h e full beginning of
the history of Being in the form of modern metaphysics occurs where the
essential completion of Being determined as reality is not yet accomplished as
such, but where the possibility of the decisiveness of this completion is totally
prepared for, and the ground of the history of completion thus laid. T o take
upon himself this preparation of the completion of modern metaphysics, and thus
everywhere to rule this history of completion, is the determination of the
history of Being of that thinking accomplished by Leibniz. Since the beginning
tradition of metaphysics following Aristotle, every true being is a
hypokeimenon. This hypokeimenon is determined afterwards as subiectum.
Descartes' thinking distinguishes the subiectum which man is to the effect that
the actualitas of this subiecturn has its essence in the actus of cogitare
(percipere). But what if the actualitas should contain this basic trait of the

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Being

percipere in general? HOWcould it
happen that this essential characteristic of the actualitas remained concealed?
T h e prevailing essence of truth in each case decides about the manner and the
scope of revealedness of the essence of Being. When truth has become certaint^,
then everything which is truly real must present itself as real to the real
being that it is. All effecting is now revealed as a selfeffecting in
effecting. T h e essence of this effecting is not fulfilled in the mere
effecting of something. All effecting is rather in itself, and not just
incidentally, a self-effecting. In effecting lies the essential characteristic
which is perhaps most readily named by the expresion ''coming toward
itself," because this expression doesn't anticipate. Effecting is in itself
related to itself, and it is only in this relation that it determines its
effecting. However, that in relation to which the "coming toward
itself" presences does not need to be an I or a self. T h e "coming
toward itself" can be conceived as turning-back (repexio) with regard to
the progression of effecting to what is effected. Nevertheless, the question
must remain open to where this turning brings back, and what it really
represents. Every effecting is an effectuation which brings itself about. By bringing
something before itself each time, it accomplishes a presentation and thus
represents what is effected in a certain way. Effecting is in itself a
representing (percipere). T o think the essence of reality more appropriately,
more in its own being, now means in the realm of the essence of truth as
certainty: to think the essence of the perceptio (representation) with regard
to the question of how the essence of effecting and reality develops itself
more fully from that essence.

LEIBNIZ: BELONGING-TOGETHER THE OF
REALITY AND REPRESENTATION

In what way representation, thought
sufficiently in an original and complete way, constitutes the fundamental
characteristic of the reality of what is real, and thus in what way every being
is only

truly in being as a representing
being, can be seen in the fact that the beingness of beings (the substantiality
of substance) and representation are the same, thought from a fundamental
determination This fundamental determination of beings as such is the ambiguity
returns, which runs through all meta,,ity. physics, according to which
"unity" means the actual "one" determined by unity, but
also this determining unity itself. Similarly, ousiameans a beingness (a
being), and Being as the essence of beings. When Leibniz thinks the
"monad," he thinks unity as the essenT h e essential fullness which
gives the tial constitution of its precision stems, however. from the
beequivocal title thinking. In a letter longingtogetherofreality and of April
30, 1687, to Arnauld (Gerhardt, ed.. Die philosophischen ~ ~ b ~ Gi w k i~ n i~
, 11, 97), Leibniz says: ' B u r trancher court, / b z je tiens pour un ariome
cette proposition identique qui n'est diversifice que par 1 'accent, savoir que
ce qui n kt pas viritablement un Ptre, 'est pas non plus viritablement un
&re." U n Ptre, what presences from the actual unifying one; un etre,
a presencing (presence) which as such conrains unity. In the letter of June 20,
1703, to de Voider (Gerh. 1 7 1 251), we find the sentence: "Quodsi nullum
vere UnUm adest, omnis Vera res erit sublata. "7 What truly unifies
produces the presence of every thing. Unity constitutes the beingness of
beings. But this applies only to true unity. 1t consists in an original, that
is, simple, unification resting within itself. This unification gathers and
enfolds in such a way that what is enfolded is represented and presented to
what unifies, and thus at the same time unfolded. Unity in the sense of this
simple enfolding and unfolding unification now has the character of
representation. ~ 1 representation presents a manifold to the self-con1

short, I consider as an axiom this
identical proposition, which receives two 6, meanings on\y through a change in
accent; namely, that what is not truly being is not truly a being." 7. u ~
u if there were no true one, then every true being would be eliminated." t

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

tained unifying being, and
constitutes the state of the one (that is, of the real being). T h e manifold
thus presented is limited in each case in that, granting God as the infinite
being, the whole of beings can never be presented in a created being. Every
state of the monad produced by representation is thus in itself in transition
to the next state, and thus essentially transitional. Accordingly, section 14
of the Monadology reads (Gerh. VI, 608 ff.): "L Vtat passager qui
enveloppe et reprisente une multitude dans l'uniti ou duns la substance simple
n 'est autre chose que ce qu 'on appelle la Perception, qu'on doit bien distinguer
de 1 'apperception ou de la conscience. . . T h e essence of representation is
determined here not psychologically, but solely with regard to the essence of
the beingness of beings, as their fundamental trait. T h e metaphysical essence
of representation is stated in an abridged and thus easily misunderstood
version in a sentence in a letter of July 11, 1706, to des Bosses (Gerh. 11, 3
1 1 ) : "Cum perceptio nihil aliud sit, quam multorum in uno expressio,
necesse est omnes Entelechias seu Monades perceptione praeditas esse, neque
ulla naturae Machina sua Entelechia propria caret. '? T h e perceptio is an
essential expression of the monad. It helps to constitute the monad's unity as
the beingness of beings. It has its own essence in "expressing a manifold
in unity." T h e expressio is a presenting unfolding, a de'velopper (Gerh.
IV, 523), which belongs to the gathering enfolding, envelopper, and is
understood expressly as reprisenter. T h e "perceptions" are
"les reprisentations du composi, ou de ce qui est dehors, dans le
simple" (Principes de la Nature et de la Grace,fondis en raison, Gerh. VI,
598).1� T h e unum in which the multa are
unfolded, that is, explicated and presented in a collected manner, is the
"simple." T h e simple, unifying of itself,

8. "The passing condition
which involves and represents a multiplicity in the unity, or in the simple
substance, is nothing else than what is called Perception. This should be
carefully distinguished from Apperception or Consciousness . . ." 9. "Since
perception is nothing else than the expression of many in one, it is necessary
that all entelechies, or monads, be provided with perception. N o natural
machine lacks its own entelechy." 10. "Representations of the
compound, or of what is external, in the simple."

Metaphysics as History of Being

presents the manifold to itself,
and has the essence of its self-containedness, its constancy, that is, its
reality in this presenting representation itself. Leibniz does not understand
the Aristotelian word entelecheia in Greek manner, but rather in the sense of
his monadologic thinking: "On pourrait donner le nom d7Ente16chies d
touter les substances ou Monades crib, car elles ont en elles une certaine
per-ction jechousi to enteles), il y a une suflsance (autarkeia) qui les rend
sources de leurs actions internes et pour ainsi dire des Automates incorporels.
" I 1 (Monadologie paragraph 18, cf. paragraph 48.) In accordance with its
"n~rsistent"activity of unifying, the monad has a certain completer---
- ness working within itself which constitutes its actualitas (reality).
"True unity," that is, the substantiality of substance, is contained
in t h e essence of this reality as simple, unifying, representing effec. . -
-. tuation. ". . . Dico substantiam . . . esse una Entelechia actuatam,
sine qua nullum esset in ea principium verae Unitatis. "'2 I n contrast,
the unity of those entia, which are such entia per aggregationem, is a unity
"a cogitatione; idemque est in quovis aggregato, ut nihil vere unum invenias,
si Entelechiam demas. "I3 (Letter of June 20, 1703, to de Volder, Gerh.
11, 250.) However, what the unifying representation unfolds and presents to
representation is no arbitrary multum, but rather a definitely limited manifold
in which the universe is mirrored. T h e manifold is in each case the world,
mundus, but representing itself according to the modus spectandi, in which the
perceptio of the monad is held. In accordance with this manner of seeing and
its point of

- -

11. "The name of entelechies
might be given to all simple substances or created monads, for they have within
themselves a certain perfection (echousi to enteles); there is a certain
sufficiency (autarkeia) which makes them the sources of their internal
activities, and so to speak, incorporeal automata." 12. "1 say that a
substance is actuated by one entelechus without which it would contain no
principle of true unity." 13. "Whose unity comes from thought. This
is the same in every aggregate; you will find no true unity if you take away
the entelechy."

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

view, the world is concentrated in
such a way that the universe mirrors itself in effecting unifying
representation, and every monad itself can be addressed as a living mirror of
the universe, effecting of itself. In the fifth letter to Clarke, Leibniz says
with great conciseness: "chaque substance simple en vertu de sa nature
est, pour dire ainsi, une concentration et un miroir vivant de tout l'univers
suivant son point de vue. "" (Gerh. VII, 41 1, n. 87.) Because every
being is determined as monad in its reality by simple unifying effectuation in
the sense of representation from its point of view, the monads
("entelechies") are necessarily of themselves different from each
other: "Entelechias differre necesse est, seu non esse penitus similes
inter se, imo principia esse diversitatis, nam aliae aliter exprimunt universum
ad suum quaeque spectandi modum, idque ipsarum oficium est ut sint totidem
specula vitalia rerum seu totidem Mundi concentrati. "I5 (Letter of June
20, 1703, to de Volder, Gerh. 11, 2 5 1 / 5 2 . ) T h e unfolding-gathering
essence of the perceptio is thus first revealed in the simple originality of
"world formation" and in mirroring effecting itself. But this, too,
only hints at the essential realm of the perceptio, although in such a way that
its fundamental characteristic as effecting (actio) first becomes evident, and
the essential core of the actualitas is determined. Representation-presenting
the universe from a point of view and representing it only in a concentration
corresponding to the point of view and thus never attaining what is truly
sought after-is in itself transitional in that it is essentially together with
its actual world and drives beyond that world through its relation to the
universe. A progression driving beyond itself is thus active in representation:
principium mutationis "est inter14. "Every simple substance is by its
nature (if one may say so) a concentration and a living mirror of the whole
universe, according to its point of view." 15. "Entelechies must
necessarily differ or not be completely similar to each other; in fact, they
are principles of diversity, for they each express the universe from their own
point of view. This is their office, that they should be so many living mirrors
or so many concentrated worlds."

Metaphysics as History of Being
omnibus substantiis simplicibus, . . . consistitque in progressu perceptionurn
Monadis cuiusque, nec quicquam ultra habet tota rerum natura. "I6 (Letter
of June 30, 1704, to de Volder, Gerh. 11, 271.) In accordance with its own
essence, representation is transitional in that it drives toward transition.
This striving is the fundamental characteristic of effecting in the sense of
representing. "L 'actio, du principe interne, qui fait le changement ou le
passage d'une perceptiond une autre, peut 2tre appeli Appktition; il est vrai,
que 1 'apphit ne saurait toujours parvenir enti2rement d toute la perception ou
il tend, mais il en obtient toujours quelque chose, et parvient h des
perceptions nouvelle~. (Monadologie, section 1 5 , Gerh. VI, 609.) T h e
striving "I7 (appetitus) in which the monad effects its own unity for
itself is, on the other hand, essential representing in itself. T h e simple
selfcontainedness of what is truly persistent (persistens, to de Volder, January
21, 1704, Gerh. 11, 262) consists in representing as striving. Perceptio and
appetitus are not two determinations of the reality of what is real which are
first produced. Rather their essential unity constitutes the simplicity of what
is truly one, and thus its unity and its beingness. "lmo rem accurate
considerando dicendum est nihil in rebus esse nisi substantias simplices et in
his perceptionem atque appetitum" (Letter of June 30, 1704, to de Volder,
Gerh. 11, 270).18 T h e simple unifying unity is originally effecting in
accordance with the manner of representational striving. This originally
effecting unity is the point of departure for everything transitional and
transitory in beings, from which stems the relation to the one totality of the
All. This relation rules in all occurrences in advance. This

16. "The principle of change
is internal to all simple substances, . . . and it consists in the progress of
the perceptions of each monad, the entire nature of things containing nothing
besides." 17. "The action of the internal principle, which causes the
change of the passage from one perception to another, may be called appetition;
it is true that desire cannot always completely attain to the whole perception
to which it tends, but it always attains something of it and reaches new
perceptions." 18. "Indeed, considering the matter carefully, it may
be said that there is nothing in the world except simple substances and, in
them, perception and appetite."

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

unity is principium internum.
Leibniz calls the principle of beings as such: vis, L force, force. T h e
essence of force is not determined by a the retroactive generalization of
something effecting which we experience somewhere, but the other way around:
the essence of force is the original essence of the beingness of beings. What
truly is shows itself in the light of the truth which has become certainty, as
the cogitare of the ego cogito. T h e essence of force is defined in reflection
upon the Being of what truly is. It is only from this essence of force that
individual forces receive the character of their dependent (derivative)
essence. T h e first version of section 12 of the Monadology says this clearly:
"Et ghiralement on peut dire que la force n'est autre chose que le
principe du changement. " I 9 "Change" does not mean here any
kind of becoming-different in general, but rather the transitional essence of
striving representation in accordance with whose manner every being is, insofar
as it is. Force, the fundamental characteristic of simple unifying unity, is
thus also adequately called vis primitiva activa because it rules pure
effecting in its essence in a simple and original way. It is the subiectum and
the basis (Monadologie, section 48), the underlying supporting constant in
whose effecting the constancy of beings have their closest origination,
although not a radically producing origination (originatio radicalis). Every
subiectum is determined in its esfe by vis (perceptio-appetitus). Every
substantia is monad. Thus the essence of the reality of the res cogitans
developing in the light of truth as certainty attains its scope in which it
rules everything real. Together with the universality of the representational
essence of reality, the fundamental characteristic of representing, striving,
reveals itself so that unity as the essence of beingness first gains its full
character from the essence of vis. Thus the new essence of reality begins to
permeate everywhere and explicitly the totality of beings. In such a manner,

19. "And one can say generally
that force is n o t h ~ n g other than the principle of change."

Metaphysics as History of Being

the beginning of that metaphysics
develops which will remain the ground of history of the modern period. At the same
time, however, what is effecting in such a way (monadi~ally) retains that
characteristic of reality which distinguishes the actualitas as causalitas T h
e causa prima is the suprema substantia. But its effecting also changes in
accordance with the essential change of reality. As essential production in the
sense of striving, the effecting of the original unity, "Unit6 primitive,
" (Monadologie section 47) emanates to the individual real being which has
its limitation in the manner of its point of view. In accordance with that
range of view (perspective), the capability is determined of mirroring the
universe in such and such a manner, that is, of allowing it to shine. For this
reason, the created substances, too, originate so to speak "par des Fulgurations
continuelles de la DivrnitC de moment d moment" (Monadologie, section
47).20In this continual fulguration from moment to moment of the divinity of
the god, sparks originate striving toward light, and correspondingly let the
light of the divinity continue to shine, and copy it. Everything real is
monadical in its reality: not, however, in the same way, but in gradations.
Thus Leibniz can say: "Meae enuntiationes universales esse solent, et
servare analogiam. 'I2' (Letter of July 11, 1706, to des Bosses, Gerh. 11, 3
11.) Leibniz's thinking stands under the necessity of the essence of Being thus
revealed, which produces what is real in its actual reality in the simplicity
of representing and striving unification and thus suffices for the essence of
the constancy of what is self-contained. "Facile enim vides simplices
substantias nihil aliud esse posse quam fontes seu principia [simul et
subjects] totidem perceptionis serierum sese ordine evolventium . . . quibus
suam perfectionem quantum fas fuit suprema substantia in substantias multas ab
ipsa pendentes difudit, quas singulas tanquam concentrationes universi et
(alias prae aliis) tanquam divinitatis

20. "by continual fulgurations
of the Divinity from moment to moment." 21. "My propositions are
usually universal and retain analogy."

1 I

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

imitamenta concipere oportet.
"(Undated letter to de Volder, Gerh. 11, 278.)22 Striving and
representational effecting is the essence of the esse of every subiectum This
essence constitutes the fundamental character of existentia. In accordance with
the essence of truth which, having become certainty, requires Being as
representing self-production, a being, if it is going to exist at all, must
exist in this way insofar as it exists. "Neque alias rerum rationes puto
intelligi et (summatim) vel optari posse, et vel nullo vel hoc mod0 res
existere debuisse." (1.c.y3 But since the beginning of metaphysics, the
existentia which then first came to essence has had precedence over the
essentia in that the essential character of reality determines that of possibility.
This does not exclude the fact that, in reverse, what is possible previously
determines what is correspondingly real. In the beginning of metaphysics, the
prote and the deutera ousia still develop from the essence of presence which is
not explicitly grounded. Soon they let this origin become completely forgotten,
particularly in the transition from energeia to actualitas. Thus potentia and
actus appear as two manners of Being which is not determined more precisely. T
h e necessitas joins these two in subsequent metaphysics as the third modality.
T h e new essential appearance of reality in the beginning of modern
metaphysics brings along the related change of the potentia, so that the
distinction of essentia and existentia changes as a distinction, too, until it
is completely reabsorbed in the presencing of

22. "You can easily see that
simple substances can be nothing else than just as

Metaphysics as History o Being f

many sources or principles [and
also subjects] of perception of series disclosing themselves in order. . . by
which the supreme substance scattered its perfection, as much as possible, into
many substances depending upon itself, which substances are to be conceived of
individually as concentrations of the universe and as imitations (some more
than others) of divinity." 23. "1 think that no other reasons for
things could be understood or (in brief) desired: A thing ought to exist in
this or no other way."

Being itself with the renewed
essential character of reality as something essentially unconditional. It is
only from the change of the nature of the existentia already accomplished that
Leibniz's short treatise "De primae philosophiae Emendatione, et de
Notione Substantiae" (1694; Gerh. IV, 468 ff.) eceives its true import
right down to the title. Looking back to the traditional distinction of
potentia and actus, the vis is characterized, SO to speak, as the intermediate
being between the two. In truth, this overcoming the previous concepts of
possibility and reality. T h e inquiry, however, is in the service of the
improvement of "first philosophy" which asks about the beingness of
beings and acknowledges the substantia as what truly is. Vis is the name for
the Being of self-contained beings. Accordingly, this Being consists neither in
the actualitas, in that it means the production of what merely lies present,
nor in the potentia in the sense of the predisposition of a thing for something
(for example, of the tree trunk for a wooden beam). T h e vis has the character
of conatus, of the already driving endeavor of a possibility. T h e conatw is
in itself nisus, the inclination to realization. Tendentia thus belongs to vis,
and signifies the striving to which representational thinking belongs.
Endeavoring, inclined self-exerting production is the fundamental trait of the
constancy in virtue of which actual beings bring themselves about, that is,
develop to a mundus concentratus. Representing, striving stabilization is the
nature of existentia. T h e modalities "possibility" and
"necessity" are modi existendi. T h e nature of the existentia which
is expressed for the first time shows its authoritative emanation throughout
all the fundamental characteristics of beingness and its corresponding basic
principle "of the ground" in twenty-four short sections which Leibniz
once wrote down. T h e hidden succinctness and cogency of these sentences,
seemingly just following each other, first gives us a glimpse of the simplicity
of Being which here claims the thinking of a thinker. T h e "treatise"
(Gerh. VII, 289-291), still undated, has no title. We shall call it "The
Twenty-four Statements" (cf. pp. 49-54).

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics as History of Bang

they Cannot replace the ninety
sections of the Monadology which are similarly constructed. But Leibniz's
thinking really first attains the culmination of its mysterious transparency in
these "twent~-fourstatements." Instead of a thorough interpretation
of the "twenty-four statements" which would have to indicate the crux
of the implied history of Being, it will be sufficient to mention what directly
concerns the nature of the existentia. Being in the sense of the hoti estin
says that something is, and that there is not rather nothing. Thatness
(existentia) is revealed as the insurrection against nothingness (ex-sistereex
njhjlo) in that nothingness means absolutely nonexistent. However, as soon as
Being enters the essence of effecting, and beingness actually means reality,
like a procedure and an effort, an action of the actul is in every being (res,
thing, chose) as an effected being. Because nothing is needed for it and
because every arrangement is superfluous, nothingness is simpler and easier
than the real being thus effected. "Car le rien est plus srmple et plus
facile que quelque chose. " 2 4 (Princi~es la Nature et de fa GrGce,
fondts en raison, n. 7; Gerh. VI, de 602.) But in that beings are, and
Nothingness has already made itself known anyhow as what is easier and simpler,
the question must be asked: '%urquoi il y a p l ~ t 6 tquelque chose que
rien?"2s (1.c.) This question about the "why" is, of course,
only necessary and justified if everything, and thus also the precedence of
what is less simple and easy (that is, beings), has its "therefore,"
that is, its ground before nothingness. T h e question is supported by the
"grand principlen of "metaphysics" which says: "que rien ne
se fait sans railon sufisante. "26 (1.c.) But if this ''principle"
names the essential beginning of what somehow relinquishes nothingness, the
principium grande must eminently ~haracterize insurrection against nothingness,
and thus the

24. '" 26. "Nothing
happens without a sufticlent reason

like ground: hvpOkeimenon, subiectum.
Being as reality is a grounding.

(The Twenty-four Statements,"
n. 6.)

tion of itself. Thus possibility
does not repulse reality, but contains it, retains it in itself, and so remains
precisely in possession of its essence whose fundamental trait is appetitus.
Hence the first of "The Twenty-four Statementsv can begin with the
sentence: "Ratio eft in Nutura, cur aliquid potius existat quam
nihil." " A ground is in the nature of beings as beings, a reason why
something, that is, preferentially and more attractedly, exists rather than
nothing." T h i s says: beings in their Being are exigent with respect to
themselves. "To existy1 means in itself: attraction and unifying
capability which is an effecting. I n that something is it is a h 0 e ~ ~ e n t
i a lpotius. ly

27 " ~ h every poss~blecan be
said to strive to exist." u ~

1 I

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Being as existence in the sense of
representational striving which simply and unifyingly effects a mundus
concentratus (the monad) as speculum universi is the new nature of actualitas.
T h e prevalence of existentia over nonexistentia belongs to it. But the
essential structure of Being which thus comes to light would not be
metaphysical, which it is, if the causalitas which has ruled Being since
Plato's agathon were not still determinative in the nature of actualitas as vis
primitiva activa. The metaphysical basic characteristic o f the monadic nature
o Being appears in the progression o the $rst four f f statements: T h e ratio
(cur aliquidpotius existat quam nihil) "debet esse in aliquo Ente Reali seu
causaVz8 2). In contradistinction to the ens mentale (n. (ideale), the ens
reale is for Leibniz in each case a res actu existens. T h e ens reale, which
underlies all rationes as their causa, "hoc autem Ens oportet necessarium
esse, alioqui causa rursus extra ipsum quaerenda esset cur ipsum existat potius
quam non existat, contra Hypothesin. Est scilicet Ens illud ultima ratio Rerum,
et uno vocabulo solet appellari DEUSWZ9 (n. 3). T h e god who acts here as
ground is not thought theologically, but purely ontologically, namely as the
highest being in whom all beings and Being itself are caused. However, because
Leibniz thinks every manner of Being as modus existendi in virtue of the
monadically determined existentia, the ens possibile is not only thought as
existituriens, but the ens necessarium is also thought as existenti$cans. T h e
fourth statement: "Est ergo causa cur Existentia praevaleat
nonExistentiae, seu Ens necessarium est EXISTENTIFICANS." 'O With

28. "The ground (why something
exists rather than nothing) 'ought to be in some real being or cause'. "
29. "But this being must be necessary; otherwise, a ground would again
have to be sought why it exists rather than not--contrary to our hypothesis.
That being is, of course, the ultimate ground of things and is usually
designated by the one word GOD." 30. "Therefore there is a cause why
existence prevails over nonexistence, that is, necessary being is that which
causes to exist."

Metaphysics as History of Being

this determination of the facere,
Being's character of production appears in the sense that Being itself is made
and effected by a being. But within the causal nature of beingness permeating
metaphysics everywhere in the most various forms, the exigent nature of Being
still becomes determinative in the developed beginning of modern metaphysics. T
h e eminence of the exigere, however, does the representational character of
Being; for this charnot acter preserves the tradition of the beginning and
primal essence of Being which becomes evident as presencing. But now presence
has come to be in the repraesentatio in virtue of ousia and presence through
the veritas as certitudo. However, this presence would be thought too
one-sidedly if it were equated with presence in the sense of the representation
of what is represented for representing. T h e essence of repraesentatio, and
thus of Being in the sense of vis and existentia, now enters a peculiar
ambiguity. In that it appropriates a world as a perspective of the universe,
every monad is originally mirroring from its point of view. In that the monad
is representative in such a way, it portrays itself and represents itself,
presents itself and thus represents what it requires in its striving. It is
what it represents in this manner. T o represent something does not just say:
to bring something to oneself, but also: to portray something, namely the
representing meant in the first instance. A man "represents
something" means: he is somebody. This Being belongs to vis. As vis and
existentia, Being is at the same time this "representing something,"
which in turn is always variously brought in the individual monads by these
monads themselves to themselves, but first of all and as a whole in the
omnipraesentia of the highest substance as the central monad. What is
everywhere essential is the fact that "presence" is explicitly
related back to a kind of ego, and is really accomplished by that ego as its
own essential activity. In contradistinction to this representative presence,
the presence whose name is ousia is a presencing to and from unconcealment,
whereby unconcealment is experienced, but no longer itself grounded in its
essence.

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Correspondingly, noein is to be
thought as representing only with caution, namely when it has its essential
weight in dwelling in unconcealment and when this dwelling, attentive to
unconcealment, perceives it. Bringing to itself what is encountered in the
safety of what is presented is something quite different from dwelling in
unconcealment. Noein and percipere name essentially different kinds of
representation. For Being, which already predetermines what can be represented,
is in the first instance hypokeimenon, and in the second instance objectivity
which is grounded in a subiectum, but in a subiectum whose essence is not
identical with that of hypokeimenon.

Metaphysics as History of Being

In its developed beginning, modern
metaphysics brings the essence of Being as reality in the manner of the history
of Being to an essential plurality which from then on can never be enunciated
in a unified way, and is thus always distorted in some respect by retroactive
terms. But perhaps precisely for this reason the first attempt at a
contemplation of the history of Being might make use of such terms, even if
this procedure only serves the next task of for once preparing for the event
that the recollection in this history, nearest to us in time, of the
self-contained multiplicity of Being's essence must come to meet us. T h e term
serving such an intention may be called subiectity. T h e common name
subjectivity immediately and all too stubbornly burdens thinking with erroneous
opinions which interpret every relation of Being to man, or even to his
egoness, as a destruction of objective Being, as if objectivity in all its
essential traits did not have to remain caught in subjectivity. The name
subiectity should emphasize the fact that Being is determined in terms o the
subiectum,but not necessarily by an ego. Moreover, the f term contains at the
same time a reference to the hypokeimenon, and thus to the beginning of
metaphysics. It also presages the progression of modern metaphysics which
actually does claim egoness,

above all the selfhood of the
spirit, as an essential characteristic of true reality. If one understands by
subjectivity the idea that the essence of reality is in truth-that is, for the
self-certainty of self-consciousness ,men1 sive animus, ratio, reason, spirit,
"subjectivity" appears as a manner of subiectity. Subiectity does not
necessarily characterize Being in terms of the actualitas of representational
striving, for subiectity also means that beings are subiectum in the sense of
ens ,ctu, whether this is actuspurus or mundus as ens creatum. Subiectity says
finally: beings are subiectum in the sense of the hypokeimenon which has the
distinction of being prote ousia in the presencing of what is actual. In its
history as metaphysics, Being is through and through subiectity. But where
subiectity becomes subjectivity, the subiectum preeminent since Descartes, the
ego, has a multiple precedence. T h e ego is on the one hand the truest being,
the being most accessible in its certainty. But it is also and as a consequence
that being in which we think Being and substance in general, the simple and the
composite (Monadologie, section 30, Gerh. VI, 612), insofar as we think at all.
Finally, spirit, mens, has a precedence within the gradation of monadic beings.
"Et Mentium maxima habetur ratio, quia per ipsas quam maxima varietas in
quam minimo spatio obtinetur. " ("The Twenty-four Statements,"
n. 21.) In the mentes, an eminent representing and striving is possible, and
thus the effecting of an eminent presence. "Et dici potest Mentes esse
primarias Mundi unitates" (n. 2 2). However, for the modern history of
metaphysics, the name subjectivity expresses the full essence of Being only
when Being's character of representation is not thought about simply or even
predominantly, but rather when appetitus and its developments as a fundamental
characteristic of Being have become evident. Ever since the developed beginning
of modern metaphysics, Being is will, that is, exigentia essentiae.
"Will" contains a manifoldness of essence. It is the will of reason o
r the will of spirit, it is the will of love or the will to power. Because the
will, and thus also the representation active in it,

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

are known as human faculties and
activities, it seems as if a thorough humanization of Being had come about. As
modern metaphysics and thus all metaphysics comes closer to its completion,
anthropomorphism is expressly required and adopted as the truth, although the
fundamental position of anthropomorphism is grounded by Schelling and Nietzsche
in different ways. T h e name subiectity names the unified history of Being,
beginning with the essential character of Being as idea u p to the completion
of the modern essence of Being as the will to power. T h e multiplicity of the
modern essence already takes shape in the developed beginning of modern
metaphysics: Being is reality in the sense of indubitable representation. Being
is reality in the sense of representational striving which in each case unifies
a being which is a world in terms of simple unity. As such unification Being is
actualitas. However, as effecting (being attracted) reality, Being has the
fundamental characteristic of will. As this willing, Being is the stabilization
of constancy which still remains a becoming. In that every willing is
self-willing, Being is eminently characterized by "coming toward
itself" whose real essence is attained in reason as selfhood. Being is the
will to will. All of these characteristics of Being which belong to subiectity
as subjectivity develop a unified essence which, in accordance with its exigent
character, develops itself and thus the whole of beings in its own unity, that
is, in the conformation of its essential structure. When Being has attained the
essence of will, it is in itself systematic and a system. T h e system, thought
as the unity of order of knowledge, appears at first to be merely the paradigm
of portrayal for everything knowable in its structure. But because Being as
reality is itself will, and will is the unification of the unity of totality
striving for itself,

Metaphysics as History of Being

;

the system is no mere schematic
order which the thinker has in ,ind and always presents only incompletely and
each time somehow onesidedly. T h e system, the Sustasis, is the essential
structure of the reality of what is real--of course, only when reality has been
discovered in its essence as will. This happens when truth has become
certainty, evoking from the essence of Being the fundamental &aracteristic
of the universal ensurance of structure in a ground which ensures itself.
Because veritas does not yet ground its essence in the certitudo of the
cogitare in the medieval period, Being can never be systematic. What is called
a medieval system is always just a summa as the presentation of the whole of
doctrine. But the idea of a system is still less commensurate with the
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. T h e systematic essence of subjectivity first
brings the trend toward the unconditionality of manipulation and positing. Here
the essence of condition appears as a new form of the causality of beingness,
so that reality is true reality only when it has determined in advance of
everything real all that is in terms of the systematics of the conditioning
unconditioned. LEIBNIZ," T h e TWENTY-FOUR STATEMENTS"~'

1. Ratio est in Natura, cur aliquid
potius existat quarn nihil. Id consequens

est magni illius principii, quod
nihil fiat sine ratione, quemadmodum etiam cur hoc potius existat quam aliud
rationem esse oportet.

2. Ea ratio debet esse in aliquo
Ente Reali seu causa. Nihil aliud enim causa

est, quam realis ratio, neque
veritates possibilitatum et necessitaturn (seu negatarum in opposito
possibilitatum) aliquid efficerent nisi possibilitates fundarentur in re actu
existente.

31. 1. There is a ground in nature
why something exists rather than nothing.

This is a consequence of the great
principle that nothing exists without a ground, just as there also must be a
ground why this exists rather than something else.

T H E END O F P H I L O S O P H Y

Metaphysics a s H i s t o r y o f
Being

3. H o c a u t e m E n s o p o r t
e t necessarium esse, alioqui causa r u r s u s extra i p s u m quaerenda esset
c u r i p s u m existat potius q u a m n o n existat, c o n t r a H y p o t h e
s i n . E s t scilicet E n s illud ultima ratio R e r u m , e t u n o vocabulo
solet appellari D E U S .

8, Sed quia a h a aliis
incompatibilia s u n t , s e q u i t u r q u a e d a m possibilia n o n
pervenire ad existendum, s u n t q u e alia aliis incompatibilia, n o n t a n t
u m respectu ejusdem temporis, sed e t in universum, quia i n praesentibus f u
t u r a involvuntur.

9, Interim e x conflictu o m n i u
m possibilium existentiam exigentium h o c saltem sequitur, u t Existat ea r e
r u m series, p e r q u a m p l u r i m u m existit, seu series o m n i u m
possibilium maxima.

10, Haec etiam series sola est
determinata, u t e x lineis recta, e x angulis

4. Est e r g o causa c u r
Existentia praevaleat non-Existentiae, seu Ens necess a r i u m est
Existentificans.

5. Sed q u a e causa facit u t
aliquid existat, seu u t possibilitas exigat existentiam, facit etiam u t o m n
e possibile habeat c o n a t u m ad Existentiam, c u m ratio restrictionis ad
certa possibilia in universali reperiri n o n possit.

6. I t a q u e dici potest O m n e
p o s s i b i l e Existiturire, p r o u t scilicet f u n d a t u r in E n t e
necessario actu existente, s i n e q u o nulla est via q u a possibile
perveniret ad a c t u m .

rectus, e x figuris m a x i m e
capax, n e m p e circulus vel sphaera. E t u t i videmus liquida s p o n t e n
a t u r a e colligi i n g u t t a s sphaericas, ita i n natura universi series
maxima capax existit. 11. Existit e r g o perfectissimum, c u m nihil aliud
perfectio [missing i n G e r hardt] sit q u a m q u a n t i t a s realitatis.
12. P o r r o perfectio n o n i n sola materia collocanda est, seu i n r e p l
e n t e t e m p u s e t spatiurn, cujus q u o c u n q u e m o d o e a d e m
fuisset quantitas, sed in forma seu varietate.

7. V e r u m h i n c n o n s e q u
i t u r o m n i a possibilia existere: s e q u e r e t u r s a n e si

o m n i a possibiliaessent
compossibilia.

2. This ground ought to be in some
real being or cause. For a cause is nothing else than a real ground, and the
truths of possibilities and necessities (or

negativities in the opposition of
possibilities) would not produce anything unless the possibilities were
grounded in an actually existing thing.

3. But this being must be
necessary; otherwise, a ground would again have to

8. But because some possibles are
incompatible with others, it follows that

be sought why it exists rather than
not--contrary to our hypothesis. That being is, of course, the ultimate ground
of things and is usually designated by the one word GOD.

4. Therefore there is a cause why
existence prevailsover nonexistence, that is, necessary being is that which
causes toexist (existent;Fcans).

certain possibles do not attain
existence. Moreover, some possibles are incompatible with others not only in
regard to occurring at the same time, but also, in general, because future
possibles are involved in present ones.

9. Nevertheless, from the conflict
of all the possibles demanding existence,

this at least follows, that there
exists that series of things by which the maximum could exist, that is, the
maximal series of all possibles.

10. Only this series is determined,
so that of lines straight ones are determi-

5. But this cause which makes
something to exist, or some possibility to demand existence, also makes every
possible to have a striving for existence, since, in general, a reason for
restricting to only some possibles cannot be found.

6. Thus every possible can be said
to strive to exist (existiturire) according as it is

nate; of angles, a right one; of
figures, one with greatest capacity, to be sure, a circle or a sphere. And as
we see liquids collect according to the will of nature in spherical drops, so
in the nature of the universe the series of maximal capacity came to be.

11. Therefore the most perfect came
to be since perfection [missing in Ger-

grounded in a necessary being
actually existing, without which there is no way for a possible to become
actual.

7. Still it does not follow from
this that all possibles exist. It would follow, by all means, ifall possibles
werecompossible.

hardt] is nothing else than
quantity of reality.

12.

However, perfection is not to be
placed in matter alone, that is, in filling time and space, whose quantity
would be in whatever way the same, but in form or variety.

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

13. U n d e jam consequitur
materiam n o n ubique similem esse, sed per formas reddi dissimilarem, alioqui
n o n tantum obtineretur varietatis q u a n t u m posset. U t taceam quod alibi
demonstravi, nulla alioqui diversa phaenomena esseextitura. 14. Sequitur etiam
eam praevaluisse seriem, per quam plurimum oriretur distinctae cogitabilitatis.

Metaphysics as History of Being

19. Itaque cum nobis aliqua
displicet in serie rerum, id oritur ex defectu intellectionis. Neque enim
possibile est ut omnis Mens omnia distincte intelligat, e t partes tantum alias
prae aliis observantibus, non potest apparere Harmonia i n toto.

20. Ex his consequens est, in
Universo etiam justitiam observari, cum Justitia nihil aliud sit quam ordo seu
perfectio circa Mentes. 21. Et Mentium maxima habetur ratio, quia per ipsas q u
a m maxima varietas in quam minimo spatio obtinetur. 22. Et dici potest Mentes
esse primarias Mundi unitates, proximaque simulacra entis primi, quia rationes
distincte percipiunt necessarias veritates, id est rationes quae movere E n s
primum e t universum formare debuerunt.

IS. Porro distincta cogitabilitas
dat ordinem rei e t pulchritudinem cogitanti. Est enim ordo nihil aliud quam
relatio plurium distinctiva. E t confusio

est, c u m plura quidem adsunt, sed
non est ratio quodvis a quovis distinguendi.

16. H i n c tolluntur atomi, e t in
universum corpora, i n quibus nulla est ratio quamvis partem distinguendi a
quavis.

17. Sequiturque in universum, M u n
d u m esse kosmon, plenum ornatus, seu ita factum ut maximesatisfaciat
intelligenti.

18. Voluptas enim intelligentis
nihil aliud est quam perceptio pulchritudinis, ordinis, perfectionis. E t omnis
dolor continet aliquid inordinati sed respective ad percipientem, c u m
absoluteomnia sint ordinata.

23. Prima etiam causa summae est
Bonitatis, nam d u m quantum plurimum perfectionis producit i n rebus, simul
etiam q u a n t u m plurimum voluptatis mentibus largitur, c u m voluptas
consistat in perceptione perfectionis (instead of: perceptionis).

order, perfection. And every pain
contains something of disorder, but only with respect to the perceiver, since
absolutely all things are ordered.

13. Whence it follows that matter
is not everywhere uniform, but becomes diversified through forms; otherwise,
not as much variety as possible would obtain. To pass over in silence what I
have demonstrated elsewhere-no diverse phenomena would otherwise appear.

14. It follows also that that
series prevailed by which there emerges the

19. And so when something
dissatisfiesus in theseries of things, it arises from

a defect in the intellect. It is
impossible for every mind to understand all things distinctly, and the harmony
of the whole cannot be seen by those who observe only some parts rather than
others. 20. It is a consequence of this that justice is observed in the
universe, since justice is nothing but the order or perfection that obtains in
respect to minds.

21. And the greatest ground belongs
to minds, because through them is

greatest possibility of thinkingof
things asdistinct.

15. Further, the possibility of
thinking of things as distinct gives order to the

thing and beauty to the thinker.
For order is nothing but the distinctive relation between many things, and
confusion arises when there are many things, but noground for
distinguishinganything from anythingelse. 16. Hence atoms are done away with
and, in general, bodies in which there is noground fordistinguishingany part
from any other.

17. And it follows, in general, that
the world is a cosmos, fully adorned, that is,

obtained as much variety in as
little space as possible. 22. And it can be said that minds are the primary
unities of the world and the closest images of prime being, because they
perceive grounds distinctly as necessary truths, that is, grounds which were
bound to move prime being and to form the universe. 23. The first cause is of
the highest goodness, for, while it produces as much perfection as possible in
things, it also bestows as much pleasure as possible

so made as togive the most
satisfaction to the perceiver. 18. For the pleasure of the perceiver is nothing
but the perception of beauty,

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

24. Usque adeo ut mala ipsa
serviant ad majus bonum, et quod dolore:

reperiuntur in Mentibus, necesse
sit proficere ad majores voluptat

(N. 1 1 and n. 2 3 are corrected
following the manuscript.)

on minds, since pleasure consists
in the perception of perfection (inste,. of: perception).

24. In order that evils themselves
may serve the greater good, and becaust

Sketchesfor a Hirtory of Beingas
Metaphysics

disappointments are found in minds,
it is necessary to advance to highel pleasures.

TWO

Aletheia, barely presencing and not
returning to the origin, but rather going forth to mere unconcealedness, comes
under the yoke of the idea. 2. Viewed from the arche, the subjugation of
aletheia stems from a release of beings to presence thus beginning. 3. T h e
subjugation of aletheia is the preeminence of appearing and showing itself of
the idea; the hen as phainotaton. 4. T h e precedence of the idea brings the ti
estin along with the ezdos to the position of authoritative Being. Being is
primarily whatness. We must consider how whatness as exclusive Being (idea as
ontos on) gives more room to being itself, the on nominally conceived, than to
the on verbally conceived. T h e undecidedness of beings and Being in the on,
and its ambiguity. 5. T h e precedence of whatness brings the precedence of
beings themselves in what they are. T h e precedence of beings establishes
Being as koinon in terms of the hen. T h e eminent character of metaphysics is
decided. T h e one as unifying unity becomes authoritative for subsequent
determination of Being. 6. As authoritative Being, whatness usurps the realm of
Being, namely Being in the primal determination lying before the distinc1.

i!l

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY tion of what and that,
which preserves for Being the fundamental characteristic of originating and
emerging and presencing, thus of that which subsequently appears as thatness
(hoti estin), but first and only in contrast to the precedence of whatness
(idea). T h u s the prote ousia determined by Aristotle is precisely no longer
the primal presencing of Being. Accordingly, the later existentia and existence
can never reach back to the original essential fullness of Being, not even when
it is thought in its Greek origin. We must consider how the that of the
existentia never again attains the esti (eon) gar einai. 7. T h e ambiguity of
the eon and on, not thought grammatically. What the nominal (beings themselves)
and the verbal (Being) means when thought primally. H o w the ambiguity of the
on includes the distinction. 8. T h e transformation of Being to certainty
stems from the criterion of whatness. 9. T h e essence of thatness (reality)
which remains taken for granted in its essential character finally permits the
equation of unconditional certainty with absolute reality. 10. All events in
the history of Being which is metaphysics have their beginning and ground in
the fact that metaphysics leaves and must leave the essence of Being undecided,
in that it remains indifferent from the beginning to a regarding of what is
worthy of question in favor of saving its own essence, and indeed in the
indifference of not-knowing.

Sketchesfor a History of Being as
Metaphysics respect to the will as a faculty of the soul. T h e will must
rather be brought to essential unity with appearance: idea, re-praesentatio,
becoming evident, portraying itself; attaining itseK transcending itself; and
thus "having itself;" and thus "being." 2. T h e necessity
of the system as the constitution of subiectity, that is, of Being as the
beingness of beings, lies in the essential constituents of the will understood
in this way. 3. T h e system is a system only as an absolute system. 4. Hence
the two characteristics of modern metaphysics' essential completion: (1) the
manner in which the concept of philosophy is determined by the absolute system;
(2) the manner in which the system is distorted and negated in the most extreme
completion of metaphysics by Nietzsche.

OBJECTIVITY-TRANSCENDENCE-UNITY-BEIN

(Critique o Pure Reason, section
16) f T h e system: Unity-ousia-hen as unity of "standing together"
before consciousness and for consciousness. Standing together determines the
essence of unity. However, unity itself must be determined and questioned in
its essence in the question about the truth of Being. Co-agito, legein,
gathering: Hen and Logos. Together: collected-present. Standing: constancy.
Representation and letting stand together. Representation as
"certain," certum, as securing. Certainty as guarantee of stability.
System. Then what does the Kantian "I think" mean? Something like: I
represent something as something, that is, I let something stand together
before me. Unity is necessary for standing together and is in essence
determined by it. Unity is the condition (of synthesis and connection); but its

1. In the essential change of truth
as veritas to certitudo, Being is prefigured as the representedness of
self-representing in which the essence of subiectity develops. T h e simplest
name for the determination of the beingness of beings in preparation here is
the will, will as willing-itsel$ T h e essential fullness of the will cannot be
determined with

T H E E N D OF PHILOSOPHY

Sketches for a History of Being as
Metaphysics

~l;

essence is itself conditioned by
the essence of "standing together' (section 16): that standing together
presences at all, that Being presences as hen and not nothing. Together-para.
Stand: place, posit, ponere; sistere: Sistence, Position. Standing-there-stasis.
Appearance-eidos, idea. But everything already in the presence, ousia, of the
ego cogit0 cogitationes.

Since the fifteenth century, the
word, "object" has had the meaning of: opposition. For Luther, object
means: the opposed "status": the Jewish status and the Christian
status: "to adopt the opposing status." Since the eighteenth century,
the word has been taken as the translation of obiectum. A quarrel begins as to
whether one should say ob-ject or ob-stacle. Ob-ject and representation:
re-praesentare. For a carpenter the wood is the object, that is, "what he
works againstm-when he functions as cause. With regard to the ontic-ontological
distinction of beings and Being, what is objective is that in the object which
has color, extension, etc.; what is objective: what constitutes its standing
against as such.

One thinks Being as objectivity,
and then tries from there to find beings in themselves. Only one forgets to
question and to say what one means by "in being." What "is"
Being? Being-unquestioned and a matter of course and thus unthought and
uncomprehended in a truth which has long since been forgotten, and is
groundless. Being is beingness; beingness as ousia is presence, continual
presence with its space-time forgotten. Presence grounds the para, the
"with." T h e "with" supports and bears the
"together" and the "together with"; the latter can, of
course, be taken for unity and one, but at the same time remain unperceived and
forgotten in its true essence. Stability grounds constancy together with
presence (verbal) as objectivity when the "ob" becomes essential
through the re-praesentatio. When does this happen? With the insurrection of
the subiectum qua ego as res cogitans qua certum. Thus unity comes as the
changed form of ousia, determined by truth as certainty, to the relation to
representational thinking which necessarily looks with regard and as regard
representing toward unity, and which is the "I connect" in the manner
of representation. Primally, however, the hen is understood neither in terms of
"I think" nor in terms of idea, but rather from nous(Parmenides) and
logos in Heraclitus's sense as the gathering that reveals and secures.

OBJECTIVITY AND REFLEXION
NEGATIVITY AND

111

REFLEXION

How does objectivity take on the
character of constituting the essence of beings as such?

The question about the essential
origin of the "object" in general. That is the question about the
truth of beings in modern metaphysics. (Unity and objectivity; essence of
unity, ousia.) Hegel's determination of experience as allowing the new true
object to originate shows the formulation of the object's concept in the
absolute transcendental sense. Hence this is the place for a necessary
reflection upon the essence of the object in general. (The misunderstanding of
the "theory of the object.")

?'I1

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY Object in the sense of
object: Only when man becomes subject, that is, where the subject becomes the
ego and the ego becomes the ego cogito, only where this cogitare is understood
in its essence as "original synthetic unity of transcendental
apperception," only where the culmination for "logic" is reached
(in truth as the certainty of the "I think"), only there is the
essence of the object revealed in its objectivity. Only there is it at the same
time possible and inevitable to understand this objectivity itself as "the
new true object," and to think it as unconditional. Decisive: Kant-in that
doctrine which is unobtrusively contained in a side remark in the Critique o
Pure Reason; an addition, f but filled with essential insight and critical
dialogue with Leibniz and all previous metaphysics as Kant himself views it
(cf. Critique o Pure Reason, "Supplement" to the transcendental
analytic: "Of the f Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection").
"Reflexion," understood in the light of the history of Being, of
human being: shining back into aletheia without aletheia itself being
experienced and grounded and coming to "being" (Wesen). T h e uncanny
element of the shining-back (re-flexion) of what shows itself. Man's settling
down in one of his essential places. Reflexion-certainty,
certainty-self-consciousness.

Sketchesfor a History of Being as
Metaphysics reason reflexion is a fundamental characteristic of concept
formation. "Concept": What is represented as such, thinking,
representing; that is, presenting itself. What is represented in the "I
think." Thus we must distinguish at first and in general: 1. Reflexion
which is already active in the re-praesentatio and is not expressed; 2.
expressed, explicitly accomplished reflexion. Explicitly accomplished
reflexion: a. As logical (analytic) analysis, comparison (without relation to
the object as such): T h e leaf is green. b. Objective comparison as the
connection (nexus) of representations among themselves in relation to the
object: T h e sun warms the stone. c. T h e transcendental condition of the
possibility of b. When objects are to be judged apriori, that is, in a Kantian
manner: when something is to be decided upon as to its objectivity, the object
is explicitly re-presented and presented to the faculty o representation. T h e
object as such stands in the f unity of intuition and concept. Their
unification is the condition of the positing and the constancy of the
"over against."

Understood in advance as a
fundamental characteristic of representational thinking, of the
re-praesentatio. Reflexion is bendingback, and as such it is the explicitly
accomplished presentation of what is present; explicitly, that is, in such a
way that what is present is presented to the representer. T h e bending-back,
putting-back, that is, the representation of what is represented which presents
itself in advance to itself, in which what is represented is represented as
this and that, and is. T h e "what" itself in its sameness and
positedness, constancy. For this reason reflexion strives for the identical,
and for this

Reflexion, object, and subjectivity
belong together. Only when reflexion is experienced as such, that is, as the
relation to beings, is Being first determinable as objectivity. T h e
experience of reflexion as this relation presupposes, however, that the
relation to beings in general is experienced as repraesentatio, as
re-presenting, making-present. This, however, can only become historical
(understood in the manner of the history of Being) when idea has become idea,
that is, perceptio. But the change from truth as correspondence to truth as
certainty underlies this, the adaequatio still being preserved. Cer-

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY Sketches
for a History of Being as Metaphysics

tainty as self-ensuring (willing
oneself); the iustitia as the justification of the relation to beings and their
first cause, and thus the belongingness to beings; the iustitia in the sense of
the reformation and Nietzsche's concept of justice as truth. Repraesentatio is
grounded in rejlexio in accordance with its essence. Hence the essence of
objectivity as such first becomes evident where the essence of thinking is
recognized and explicitly enacted as "I think something," that is, as
reflexion.

grounded in the fundamental
position of the "I think." This "intuition" in Kant's sense
can never be equated with the precedence of aletheia, but only with the
precedence of idea and the of aletheia to homoiosis through the precedence of
the idea, as the germ of development of representing in the sense of making
present.

BEING-REALITY-WILL

Being as reality-reality as will.
Will-as self-effectuation striving toward itself in accordanrwith a
re-presentation of itself (the will to will). (All of this pre ences, shut off
from itself, in the opening of Being.) T h e will first becomes essential in
the actualitas where the ens actu is determined by the agere as cogitare, since
this cogito is me cogitare, self-conscious-being, where consciousness as knowingness
is essentially presenting-to-oneself. Will as fundamental characteristic of
reality. T h e volitional basic trait in re-presentation itself as the
perceptio; hence perceptio is in itself appetitus, co-agitare. T h e will
releases itself in truth as certainty. It is brought to the origin by this
essence of truth. Will is effecting which plans something according to what is
re-presented. Releasing itself in certainty from the misjudgment of the essence
of truth; this misjudgment is the deeper unknowing. T h e will (as essential
and fundamental characteristic of beingness) has its essential origin in the
intrinsic unknowingness of the essence of truth as the truth of Being. For this
reason, metaphysics remains the truth of the Being of beings in the sense of
reality as will. This unknowingness, however, rules in the form of the
omnicalculation of certainty. T h e will has never had the origin as its own.
It has always already intrinsically abandoned it by forgetting. T h e most
profound oblivion is not-recollecting.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL

T h e transcendental is not the
same as the "a priori," but is rather what determines the object as
object a priori, objectivity. Objectivity is meant in the sense of
transcendence. This word then means that something in the object itself goes
beyond that object by preceding it, in representing. Transcendence is grounded
in "reflexion." Reflexion is transcendental in its true essence, that
is, it accomplishes transcendence and thus conditions it in general. T h e
essential and constant re-servation of thinkability, that is, of the
representability of something as the condition of all knowledge. I think
something. (Cf. Critique of Pure Reason, B XXVI, Preface.)

I I

~11

Repraesentatio is grounded in
rejlexio. But rejlexio is the essence of "thinking," if thinking
itself is taken transcendentally as true re-presentation, bringing something as
something before oneself, that is, intuition taken in the essential sense.
Logic itself is related as transcendental logic to this original
re-presentation-presence, presencing, and ousia. It is thus meaningless to pit
thinking against intuition. Indeed, the precedence of "intuition,"
too, is and remains

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Sketches for a History of Being as
Metaphysics

BEINGAND CONSCIOUSNESS

(Expressed in the Manner of the
History of Being) Consciousness is self-consciousness, and self-consciousness
is ego-consciousness or "wew-consciousness. T h e essential thing in this
is the re-flexive, and in it the "I," "we," "self,"
the presentation-to-self and self-production. T h e will to insure in the
overpowering of everything. T h e essential thing is "I will myself."
"Consciousness" (as will of the will) must itself now be experienced
with regard to the truth of beings (as beingness)-as appropriating of Being.
Desolation. Consciousness is that appropriating in which Being gives itself to
truth, that is, leaves truth to beings and beingness, and beingness
expropriates truth. T h e appropriation of expropriation and of directing
beings into mere beingness.

REALITY WILL AS

(Kant's Concept of Being) Will
according to Kant: to act in accordance with concepts. For Kant, Being means:
1. Objectivity-certainty as representedness of experience; in this: a.
certainty of synthesis 6. impressionableness of sensibility, both as reality
(cf. "The Postulates of All Empirical Thought"). 2. Reality of
freedom-as thing in itself, that is, will. 3. Cf. 16, impressionableness of
sensibility; having an effecteffectiveness. T o consider whether and how these
determinations of Being are thought in a unified way, or whether reality (cf.
"The Postulates of All Empirical Thought") can from the beginning
remain precisely unthought, and how nevertheless ontology can persist as
transcendental philosophy.

How the concept of Being of
rationalism (ens ~ e r t u m - ~ b j ~ ~ tivity) and of empiricism
(impressio-reality) meet in the determination of the reality of what is real.
Effectiveness, however, not formal and general, but in the original manner of
the history of Being. Effectiveness and accomplishment: function. Effectiveness
and presence; givenness and impressionability. Kant's category of
"reality" in its essential ambiguity (related to sensibility and
thingness at the same time). Effecting and will, vis, actus. Everywhere the
lack of questioning Being. Most evident in Kant's definition: Being (is)
"merely position." T o begin with, the thesis means: Being (is)
merely the positing of the copula between subject and predicate. Secondly, the
thesis means: Being (in the sense of human being and existence) is the pure
positing of the thing in departing from its concept. Finally, the thesis means:
Being, the "is" of the copula, aims in the judgment of experience at
the positing of the object as a real object (Critique o Pure Reason, second
edition, section 19). f In the negative form, Kant's thesis about Being as
"merely position" means: Being is neither a real predicate with
content nor any predicate at all of any thing or object whatever. Kant's thesis
about Being-an ontotheological one, expressed in the context of the question of
God's existence in the sense of the summum ens qua ens realissimum. What was
without question for Kant is for us worthy of question: the essential origin of
L'position"in terms of letting what is present lie present in its
presence. Ponere (posit, place, gather) coming from: thesis, repraesentatio
(re-presenting), and legein (bringing to appear in a revealing way).

Aletheia (apeiron, logos,
hen-arche). Revealing as the order at the start.

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY Physis, emergence (going
back to itself). Ousia, presencing, unconcealedness. Idea, perceivability
(agathon), causality. Energeia, workness, assembly, en-echeia to telos.
Hypokeimenon, lie present (from ousia), ergon. (Presence-stability-constancy-aei.)
Hyparchein, presencing which rules from what already lies present. Subiectum.
Actualitas: beings-the real-reality creator-ens creatum causa prima (ens a se).
Certitudo-res cogitans. Vis-monas (perceptio-uppetitus), exigentia essentiae.
Objectivity. Freedom will-representedness practical reason. Will-as absolute
knowledge: Hegel. As will of love: Schelling. Will to power-eternal recurrence:
Nietzsche. Action and Organization-pragmatism. T h e will to will. Machination
(Enframing).

Sketchesfor a History of Being as
Metaphysl that does not destroy, but rather chokes what is primal in organizing
and ordering. Being's abandonment contains the undecided factor of whether the
unconcealment of this concealment, and thus the more primal Origin, is already
opening u p in this abandonment as an extreme of the concealment of Being. At
such a time span of the undecidedness, in which the completion of metaphysics
develops and claims human being for the "superman," man seizes upon
the rank of what is truly real in itself. T h e reality of what is real, long
since characterized as existence, allots this distinction to man. Man is the
truly existent, and existence is determined in terms of human being whose
essence has been decided by the beginning of modern metaphysics. Since
thinking, on the edge of the time span of undecidedness in the history of
Being, gropes its way toward a first recollection in Being, it must at the same
time go through the dominance of human being and leave it aside. T h e
preeminence of existence in the sense of reality as being-aself, prefigured in
the first completion of metaphysics with Schelling, reaches a peculiar
narrowing after being deflected from its way by Kierkegaard, who is neither a
theologian nor a metaphysician and yet the essential element of both. T h e
fact that the transformation of reality to the self-certainty of the ego cogito
is determined directly by Christianity, and the fact that the narrowing of the
concept of existence is indirectly determined by Christian factors only proves
how Christian faith adopted the fundamental trait of metaphysics and brought
metaphysics to Western dominance in this form.

T h e completion of metaphysics
sets beings in the abandonment of Being. Being's abandonment of beings is the
last reflection of Being as the concealment of unconcealment in which all
beings of any sort as such are able to appear. Being's abandonment contains the
undecided factor of whether beings persist in their precedence. In the future,
this means the question of whether beings undermine and uproot every
possibility of the origin in Being, and thus continue to be busy with beings,
but also move towards the desolation

Effecting, and thus causalitas
(agathon, as what makes possible), lies in "reality" which becomes
the dominant basic characteristic of the beingness of beings. Effecting lies in
"reality," and effecting contains in itself representation and
striving which act in virtue of

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Sketches for a History of Being as
Metaphys

their own unity. T h e effecting
thus determined is a self-effecting. Herein lies the possible claim of
self-ensuring, certainty as selfcertainty. Where there is reality, there is
will; where there is "will," there is a self-willing; where there is
a self-willing, there are possibilities of the essential development of the
will as reason, love, power. When and how does the essence of will become
essential to reality? T h e fact that reality at last enters the essence of
will in the completion of metaphysics-and "will" is not to be thought
"psychologically," but on the contrary psychology is to be defined by
the essence of self-effecting-bears witness to the decisiveness of the
essential development of beingness from the pro-gression of Beings to beingness.
T h e primal progression does, however, leave the origin behind as ungrounded,
and can therefore place great importance upon organizing itself as pro-gress
and going forth. In the essence of will of beingness as reality, there is
concealed machination (poiesis), essentially never accessible to metaphysics,
in which energeia still has resonance from its primal essential traits in which
the progression from the first origin (aletheia) takes its decisive beginning
which predetermines everything. Energeia is, however, at the same time the last
preservation of the essence of physis, and thus a belonging to the origin.

What metaphysics generally calls
existentia, existence, reality, human being is 1. ousia of the hypokeimenon
kath'hauto, that is, of the hekaston; the prote ousia; presencing as dwelling
of what is actual (Aristotle). 2. This prote ousia is understood as energeia of
the on, as tode ti on, the presencing of what is produced and set up, workness.
T h e broadest name for einai as presencing, which at the same time explains
its Greek interpretation, is hyparchein. There hypo-keisthai, what already lies
present, is thought together with arche, the ruling

origin; hyparchein means to rule
while already lying present, "ruling forthwthought in a Greek way as to
presence of itself. 3. Energeia is reinterpreted to mean actualitas of the
actus. Agere as facere, creare. T h e pure essence of actualitas is the actuspurus
as the existentia of the ens to whose essentia existentia belongs (medieval
theology). Accomplishment as effecting what is effected, not allowing to
presence in unconcealment, characterizes the actus. 4. In accordance with the
change of veritas to certitude, actualitas is understood as actus of the ego
cogito, as percipere, repraesentare. T h e precedence of the subiectum in the
sense of the ego (Descartes); the existere as the esse of the ego sum; the
repraesentare (percipere) contrasted with the noein as idein, and this
contrasted with the noein of Parmenides. From Being as presence, Being comes to
be as representedness in the subject. 5. T h e repraesentare as
perceptio-appetitus in the sense of the vis primitiva activa is the actualitas
of every subiectum in the old sense, and determines the essence of substance as
monad. T h e corresponding distinction of phenomenon and phainesthai.
Existentia is now exigentia essentiae; its principium the perfectio, perfectio
is gradus essentiae; essentia, however, nisus ad existendum. T h e Scholastic
distinction of potentia and actus, which itself represents a reinterpretation
of the Aristotelian distinction dynamis-energeia, is overcome (Leibniz). 6.
Existence as actualitas, reality, effectedness and effectingness, becomes the
objectivity of experience, and thus a modality along with possibility and
necessity. 7 . T h e unconditional certainty of the will knowing itself as
absolute reality (spirit, love). Existence as Being is determined from the
"real" distinction of the Being of beings according to ground of
existence and existence of the ground. Because the will constitutes the essence
of Being, the distinction belongs to willing itself: the will of the ground and
the will of reason.

T H E E N D OF PHILOSOPHY

Sketches for a History o f Being as
Metaph3

Existence: becoming revealed,
bringing oneself to oneself, selfbeing in self-becoming, against and opposing
the ground. Becoming "contradictory" in itself (Schelling). 8.
Existence in Schelling's sense is narrowed by Kierkegaard to the being who
"is" in the contradiction of temporality and eternity, to man who
wills to be himself. Existing as faith, that is, trust in the reality of the
real being which man himself is. Faith as revelation before God. Trust in the
reality that God became man. Faith as being a Christian in the sense of
becoming a Christian. 9. Existence in Kierkegaard's sense, only without the
essential relation to Christian faith, being a Christian. Being a self as
personality in virtue of communication with others. Existence in the
relationship to "Transcendence" (K. Jaspers). 10. Existence-sometimes
used in Being and Time as ecstatic perduring the opening of the there of human
being. Perduring the truth of Being, grounded upon the explicit grounding of
the ontological difference, that is, the distinction between beings and Being
(outside of all metaphysics and existential philosophy). 11. How the
distinction of essentia and existentia disappears in Nietzsche's metaphysics,
why it must disappear in the end of metaphysics, how nevertheless in just this
way the greatest distance from the origin is attained. But disappearance can
only be shown by trying to make the distinction visible: will to power as
essentia; eternal recurrence of the same as existentia (cf. "Nietzsche's
Metaphysics").

Christians through Kierkegaard
(existence-being a Christian) (faith-theology). 3. T h e adoption of
Kierkegaard's concept of existence in "existential philosophy" (K.
Jaspers). Existence: being-a-self-communication-metaphysics. 4. Existence as a
character of human being in Being and Time (History of Being). Here neither
Kierkegaard's concept nor that of existential philosophy is at stake. Rather,
existence is thought by returning to the ecstatic character of human being1
with the intention of interpreting being-open2 in its eminent relation to the
truth of Being. T h e occasional use of the concept of existence is determined
solely by this question. T h e question serves only to prepare for an
overcoming of metaphysics. All this is outside of existential philosophy and
existentialism. Thus it is profoundly different from Kierkegaard's passion
which is at bottom theological. But it does remain in the essential critical
dialogue with metaphysics. In what sense the concept of the existentielle can
and must appear with Schelling for the first time. T h e existentielle, that
is, what exists viewed with reference to its existence, that is, however, as an
existing being; more precisely, beings, thought in terms of their existing, as
existing beings. One must pay attention to the shift in Schelling's terminology
here: ground-existence existence-existing being.

SCHELLING KIERKEGAARD AND

1. T h e emphatic use of the
concept of existence in Schelling's distinction of existence of the ground and
ground of existence (Being as will). 2. T h e restriction of this concept of
existence to the faith of

Existence: being a
self--subjectivity (the will of reason, ego cogito) revelation
contradictiondistinction

Dasein.

2. Da-sein.

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Sketches for a History of Being as
Metaphys;

"pas~ion"-L'dri~e))-LLkn~~ing
will1'-"becoming" But for Kierkegaard: 1. restricted to man, only he
exists. 2. Existence-interest in existence, reality. 3 . This interest is not a
representation, but faith in . . . , committing oneself to what is real,
letting oneself be concerned with what is real. 4. Faith in another, not as
relation to a doctrine and its truth, but as relation to the true as the real,
to concresce with it, concretely. Existence in the modern sense. 5. Faith that
God existed as man, infinitely interested-faith as being a Christian, that is,
becoming a Christian. Lack of faith as sin.

EXISTENCE AND

THE

EXISTENTIELL.

"Willing is primal
being." All Being is the same as existing: existence. But existence is
existence of the ground. Existence and ground of existence belong to Being.
This distinction belongs to Being as a "real" one. Being itself is of
such a nature that beings as such divide themselves. This distinction lies in
the essence of willing. The distinction: will of the ground and will of reason.
How so? T h e will in willing is reason. Schelling's "distinction"
signifies an opposition (strife) which structures and rules all essence (beings
in their beingness), all of this always based upon subjectivity. Primal
being-is will. Being (not yet being-a-being) closedness. A being (substantive,
verbal-transitive): the self. being-in-itself.

T h e existentielle means this: In
his humanity man is not only related to what is real through ways of behavior,
but as an existing being he is concerned about himself, that is, about these
relations and what is real. Reality is of such a nature that everything real
preempts man everywhere as effector and an effecting being, as a co-worker and
something effected. Taken with an apparent historical indifference, the
existentielle is not necessarily to be understood in a Christian way as with
Kierkegaard, but with every respect to putting man to work as an effector of
what is real. T h e echo which existential elements have found in the last
decades is grounded in the essence of the reality which as will to power has
made man into an instrument of making (production, effecting). This essence of
Being can remain veiled in spite of Nietzsche, and even for Nietzsche himself.
Hence the existentielle admits of manifold interpretations. Its echo and
predominance and the historically impossible pairing of Nietzsche and
Kierkegaard are grounded in the fact that the existentielle is merely the
intensification of the role of anthropology within metaphysics in its
completion. T h e manifold forms of the existentielle in poetry, in thinking,
in action, in faith, in production. They can only be seen when the
existentielle itself is experienced as the completion of the animal rationale.
And this is possible only in the manner of the history of Being. "World
view" and the "existentielle." "Metaphysics" and
"anthropology." Being as beingness and man as animal rationale. T h e
exposition of the narrowing down of the nature of existence starts with
Schelling's distinction of "ground and existence." T o be shown: 1 .
How the usual distinction of essentia and existentia is hidden even behind this
distinction.

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

2. Why this distinction gets
formulated in peculiar versions which are even contrary to each other (for
example, "Being and beings"; "existence and the existing
being"; where "existence" now stands for "ground" and
the existence mentioned before is formulated as the "existing being."
This term is actually more accurate. It expresses the rank of realization and
the producer, self-ensuring as effecting and will). 3. How Kierkegaard adopts
this distinction by narrowing the concept of existence to the being a Christian
of Christian existence. This should not be taken to mean that the nonexisting
is the nonreal. If only man is the existing, precisely God is what is
absolutely real and reality.

THREE

R ecullection inMetaphysics

Recollection in the history of
Being thinks history as the arrival, always remote, of the perdurance of
truth's essence. Being occurs primally in this essence. Recollection helps the
remembrance of the truth of Being by allowing the following to come to mind: T
h e essence of truth is at the same time the truth of essence. Being and truth
belong to each other just as they belong intertwining to a still concealed
rootedness in the origin whose origination opening up remains that which comes.
That which is original occurs in advance of all that comes. Although hidden, it
thus comes toward historic man as pure coming. It never perishes, it is never
something past. Thus we also never find what is Original in the historical
retrospect of what is past, but rather only in remembrance which thinks at the
same time upon presencing Being (what has been in being), and upon the destined
truth of Being. At times recollection in history can be the only viable way to
what is primal for the mindfulness practiced by the perduring thinking of the
history of Being. Recollection in metaphysics as a necessary epoch of the
history of Being gives us food for thought: that and how Being determines the
truth of beings in each case; that and how Being opens out a realm of
projection for the explanation of beings in terms of this determination; that
and how such a determination first attunes thinking to the claim of Being, and
compels a thinker to speak of Being in virtue of this attunement.

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Recollection in Metaphysics

Recollection of the history of
Being in metaphysics is a bestowal which explicitly and uniquely gives the
relation of Being and man to awareness to be pondered. It requires the courage
for a response to the claim which either confronts the dignity of Being or else
contents itself with beings. Recollection of the history of Being entrusts
historical humanity with the task of becoming aware that the essence of man is
released to the truth of Being before any human dependency on powers and
forces, predestinations and tasks. Hence he remains left out of his essence for
a long time, as one let into the insurrection of production within Being's
realm of opening u p in the sense of unconditional objectification. Being first
lets powers arise, but also lets them sink into what is without essence,
together with their impotence. Recollection in the history of Being continually
entrusts the essence of man to Being, not individual man, but man at home in
his decisive character, in order that Being may tower in the openedness of its
own dignity and have a home in beings cared for by man's nature. Only from
human being, that is, from the manner in which man grants the word of response
to the claim of Being, can a reflection of its dignity shine forth to Being. In
the timespan when Being delivers primordiality to the Open, and lets the purity
of its freedom in relation to itself, and thus consequently its independence,
too, be known and preserved, Being needs the reflection of a radiance of its
essence in truth. This need is not the restlessness of a lack. It is the
self-containedness of the wealth of the simple. As the simple, the Origin
grants its decisiveness in a parting in which it approaches itself as what is
granting, and thus allows pure needlessness to be once more in its own
origination. This needlessness is itself a reflection of what is primal, taking
place as the appropriation of truth. At times Being needs human being, and yet
it is never dependent upon existing humanity. Humanity does stand in relationship
to Being, since it is historical and knows and preserves beings as such. But
human being's claim upon Being itself is not always

granted by Being as the gift
through which mankind may have as its own the privilege of participating in the
appropriation of the truth of Being. At such a time there sometimes arises from
the claim of Being the attempt at a response in which mankind must sacrifice
the individuals addressed who recollect Being, and thus think its history from
the essential past. Recollection does not report on past opinions and
representations about Being. It also does not trace the relations of their
influence nor tell about standpoints within conceptual history. It is
unconcerned with the progression and regression of a series of problems in themselves,
which are supposed to constitute a history of problems. Because we only know,
and only want to know, history in the context of historiography which explores
and exposes elements of the past for the purpose of using them for the present,
recollection in the history of Being also falls prey to the illusion that makes
it appear to be conceptual historiography, and a one-sided and sporadic one at
that. But when recollection of the history of Being names thinkers and pursues
their thoughts, this thinking is the listening response which belongs to the
claim of Being, as determination attuned by the voice of that claim. T h e
thinking of thinkers is neither something going on in "heads" nor is
it the product of such heads. One can always consider thought
historiographically in accordance with such viewpoints, and appeal to the
correctness of this consideration. However, one does not thus think thinking as
the thinking of Being. Recollection of the history of Being returns to the
claim of the soundless voice of Being and to the manner of its attuning.
Thinkers are not reciprocally measured with regard to their accomplishments
which deliver success for the progress of knowledge. Every thinker oversteps
the inner limit of every thinker. But such overstepping is not "knowing it
all," since it only consists in holding the thinker in the direct claim of
Being, thus remaining within his limitation. This limitation consists in the
fact that the

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Recollection in Metaphysi

thinker can never himself say what
is most of all his own. It must remain unsaid, because what is sayable receives
its determination from what is not sayable. What is most of all the thinker's
own, however, is not his possession, but rather belongs to Being whose
transmission thinking receives in its projects. But these projects only bear
witness to the dwelling1 in what is transmitted. T h e historicity of a thinker
(how he is claimed by Being for history and co-responds to this claim) is never
measured by the historiographically calculable role which his opinions, always
and of necessity misunderstood in his own time, play in their public
circulation. T h e historicity of a thinker, which is not a matter of him but
of Being, has its measure in the original loyalty of the thinker to his inner
limitation. Not to know this inner limitation, not to know it thanks to the
nearness of what is unsaid and unsayable, is the hidden gift of Being to the
rare thinkers who are called to the path of thought. O n the other hand,
historiographical calculation looks for the inner limitation of a thinker in
the fact that he is not yet informed about things foreign to him which other
and later thinkers accept as truth, sometimes only through his mediation. We
are not speaking here of the psychology of philosophers, but solely of the
history of Being. However, the fact that Being determines the truth of beings
and attunes a thinking to the uniqueness of a Saying of Being through the
presencing of truth at times, and determines a thinker in his determinacy from
such a determination, the fact that in all of this Being appropriates its own
truth previously and always primally and that this is the appropriating wherein
Being presences-this can never be proved from the perspective of beings. It is
also inaccessible to every explanation. Being in its history can only be
perdured in that perdurance which re1. Befangnir. A word which easily has
negative connotations (of being caught,

imprisoned, inhibited) in German.
But Heidegger explained that he intends no such negative connotation, only the
meaning of remaining within what is transmitted.

leases the structure of human being
to the relation to Being for the sole primal dignity of Being, so that it may
continually endure, standing in the preservation of Being. What happens in the
history of Being? We cannot ask in this manner, because there would then be an
occurrence and something which occurs. But occurrence itself is the sole
happening. Being alone is. What happens? Nothing happens if we are searching
for something occurring in the occurrence. Nothing happens, Appropriation
appropriates. Perduring the opening out, the origin takes the parting to
itself. T h e appropriating origin is dignity as truth itself reaching into its
departure. Dignity is what is noble which appropriates without needing effects.
T h e noble of the worthy Appropriating of the origin is the unique release as
Appropriation of freedom, which is unconcealment of concealment-because it
belongs to the ground-less. T h e history of Being, which is solely Being
itself, casts only a dim light into the supposedly sole transparency of the
certainty of completed metaphysical knowledge. However, metaphysics is the
history of Being as the progression out of the Origin. This progression allows
the return to become a need, and allows recollection in the Origin to become a
needful necessity. T h a t history of Being which is historically familiar as
metaphysics has its essence in that a progression from the Origin occurs. In this
progression Being releases itself to beingness and refuses the opening out of
the Origin's originating. Beingness, starting as idea, begins the precedence of
beings with regard to the essential character of truth whose essence itself
belongs to Being. In that Being releases itself into beingness and withdraws
its dignity in concealment, which is itself at the same time concealed, Being
seems to leave the appearance of Being to beings. Since man is singled out
within beings because he knows beings as beings and, knowing them, is related
to them without, however, ever being able to know, that is, to preserve as a
consequence of this distinction the ground of that distinction, man struggles
for

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

manifold dominance in the area of
beings left to themselves in the history of Being which is called metaphysics.
Beings are what is real. Reality rescues its essence in effecting, which brings
the knowing will as its own essence to authoritative effectiveness. Reality
transposes its essence to the multiple forms of the will. T h e will produces
itself in the exclusiveness of its egotism as the will to power. But in the
essence of power there is hidden the utmost abandonment of Being to beingness.
Through this abandonment, beingness becomes machination. O n the surface,
machination appears in the form of the precedence of the actualization of what
is planned and can be planned in the area of what is calculated as real. T h e
precedence over Being of what is real as the only being is unconditional. Being
appears only to be subjected to scorn each time. T h e name of this scorn is
"abstraction."* T h e precedence of what is real furthers the
oblivion of Being. Through this precedence, the essential relation to Being
which is to be sought in properly conceived thinking is buried. In being
claimed by beings, man takes on the role of the authoritative being. As the
relation to beings, that knowledge is adequate which is used up by reification
in accordance with the essential manner of beings, in the sense of the real as
calculable and ensured. Knowledge thus becomes calculation. T h e sign of the
degradation of thinking is the elevation of logistics to the rank of true
logic. Logistics is the calculable organization of the unconditional lack of
knowledge about the essence of thinking, provided that thinking, essentially
thought, is that projecting knowledge which unfolds in virtue of Being in the
preservation of truth's essence. T h e surrender in which Being abandons itself
to the utmost deformation of essence of beingness (to "machination")
is in a hidden way the self-suspension of the primal essence of Appropriation
in the Origin which has not yet begun, not yet entered, its ground2. The
meaning here is that the scornful attitude toward Being calls it an
abstraction.

Recollection in Metapbysic.

lessness. T h e progression of
Being to beingness is that history of Being-called metaphysics-which remains
just as essentially remote from the Origin in its start as in its finish. Thus
metaphysics itself, too, that is, that thinking of Being which had to give
itself the name "philosophy," can never bring the history of Being
itself, that is, the Origin, to the light of its essence. T h e progression of
Being to beingness is at the same time the primal refusal of an essential
grounding of the truth of Being and the surrender in favor of beings of the
precedence in the essential character of Being. T h e progression from the
Origin does not relinquish that Origin. Otherwise beingness would not be a mode
of Being. T h e progression can also do nothing about the refusal of the
Origin. T h e primal veils itself in this refusal to the point of
insufficiency. But in the progression the distinction of Being and beings
enters the truth (openness) of Being undetermined in its turn, without
explicitly entering its grounded structure. However, the distinction of Being
and beings rescues itself immediately in the form of that distinction which
alone co-responds to the beginning of metaphysics because it receives its structure
from beings and from the distinction of beings and Being. Beings are. Their
Being contains the truth that they are. T h e fact that beings are gives to
beings the privilege of the unquestioned. From here the question arises as to
what beings are. From the perspective of beings, whatness is thus the being
first questioned. Here it becomes evident that Being determines itself only in
the form of beingness and then through such determination itself only brings
beings as such to presence. Only then is thatness explicitly distinguished from
whatness (idea). T h e distinction which becomes familiar under the name of the
difference of essentia and existentia in metaphysics, but hardly becomes
visible in its own transformations, is itself grounded in the primal and true
distinction of Being and beings, which is not grounded and is at the same time
hidden. T h e primal distinction, however, is not an act which invades and
coincides with what is factually undifferentiated of Being and

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Recollection in Metaphysics

beings. T h e distinction is
primally rather the presencing of Being itself whose origination is
Appropriation. T h e original distinction can never be reached by going back
behind the distinction of essentia and existentia, which underlies all
metaphysics and which has its core in the essential character of the
existentia. O n the other hand, the metaphysical distinction itself-that means
always, the distinction which structures and underlies all metaphysics-must
first be experienced in its Origin, so that metaphysics becomes decisive as
occurrence of the history of Being, and relinquishes the illusory form of a
doctrine and an opinion, that is, of something produced by man. T h e history
of Being is neither the history of man and of humanity, nor the history of the
human relation to beings and to Being. T h e history of Being is Being itself,
and only Being. However, since Being claims human being for grounding its truth
in beings, man is drawn into the history of Being, but always only with regard
to the manner in which he takes his essence from the relation of Being to
himself and, in accordance with this relation, loses his essence, neglects it,
gives it up, grounds it, or squanders it. T h e fact that man belongs to the
history of Being only in the scope of his essence which is determined by the
claim of Being, and not with regard to his existence, actions, and
accomplishments within beings, signifies a restriction unique in its manner.
This restriction can become evident as a distinction as often as Being itself
allows what takes place to be known if man may venture his essence which has
sunk into oblivion for him through the precedence of beings. In the history of
Being, Appropriation makes itself known to humanity at first as a
transformation of the essence of truth. This could give rise to the opinion
that the essential character of Being might be dependent upon the dominance of
the actual concept of truth which guides the manner of human representational
thinking, and thus the thinking of Being. But the possibilities of the actual
concepts of truth are delineated in advance by the manner of the

essence of truth and the prevailing
of this essence. Opening out is itself a fundamental characteristic of Being,
and not only its consequence. Recollection in the history of Being is a
thinking ahead to the Origin, and belongs to Being itself. Appropriation grants
the time from which history takes the granting of an epoch.' But that time span
when Being gives itself to openness can never be found in historically
calculated time or with its measures. T h e time span ganted shows itself only
to a reflection which is already able to glimpse the history of Being, even if
this succeeds only in the form of an essential need which soundlessly and
without consequences shakes everything true and real to the roots.

3 . In a conference Heidegger
amended the original Zeit (time) in the German text to read Epoche (epoch).

Overcoming Metaphysics

OvercomingMerap/IY~~ic.c

FOUR

[The text contains notes on the
overcoming of metaphysics from the years 1936 to 1946. Their major part was
selected as a contribution to the Festschrift for Emil Pretorius; one section
(XXVI) appeared in the Barlachheft of the state theater at Darmstadt 1951
(editor: Egon Vietta). "Overcoming Metaphysics" from the volume
Vortrage und Auf satze was added to this book at the request of Martin
Heidegger.]

in which Being itself is overcome.
Above all, overcoming does not mean thrusting aside a discipline from the field
of philosophical deducation." "Metaphysics" is already thought
as the destiny of the truth of beings, that is, of beingness, as a still hidden
but distinctive Appropriating, namely the oblivion of Being. Since overcoming
is meant as a product of philosophy, the more adequate rubric might be: the
past of metaphysics. Of course this calls forth new erroneous opinions. T h e
past means here: to perish and enter what has been. In that metaphysics
perishes, it is past. T h e past does not exclude, but rather includes, the
fact that metaphysics is now for the first time beginning its unconditional
rule in beings themselves, and rules as beings in the form, devoid of truth, of
what is real and of objects. Experienced in virtue of the dawning of the
origin, metaphysics is, however, at the same time past in the sense that it has
entered its ending. T h e ending lasts longer than the previous history of
metaphysics.

What does "overcoming
metaphysics" mean? In the thinking of the history of Being, this rubric is
used only as an aid for that thinking to be comprehensible at all. In truth,
this rubric is the occasion for a great deal of misunderstanding because it
doesn't allow experience to reach the ground in virtue of which the history of
Being first reveals its essence. This essence is the Appropriating

1. Although Heidegger uses the
familiar word Uberwindung for "overcoming," he means it in the sense
of the less familiar word Verwindung. When something is overcome in the sense
of being iiberwunden, it is defeated and left behind. This is not the sense
Heidegger intends here. When something is overcome in the sense of being
verwunden, it is, so to speak, incorporated. For example, when one
"overcomes" a state of pain, one does not get rid of the pain. One
has ceased to be preoccupied with it and has learned to live with it. Thus, to
overcome metaphysics would mean to incorporate metaphysics, perhaps with the
hope, but not with the certainty, of elevating it to a new reality.

Metaphysics cannot be abolished
like an opinion. One can by no means leave it behind as a doctrine no longer
believed and represented. T h e fact that man as animal rationale, here meant
in the sense of the working being, must wander through the desert of the
earth's desolation could be a sign that metaphysics occurs in virtue of Being,
and the overcoming of metaphysics occurs as the incorporation of Being. For
labor (cf. Ernst Junger, Der Arbeiter, 1932) is now reaching the metaphysical
rank of the unconditional objectification of everything present which is active
in the will to will. If this is so, we may not presume to stand outside of
metaphysics because we surmise the ending of metaphysics. For metaphysics
overcome in this way does not disappear. It returns transformed, and remains in
dominance as the continuing difference of Being and beings. T h e decline of
the truth of beings means: T h e openne0-

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphy.

beings and only beings loses the
previous uniqueness of their au. thoritative claim.

T h e still hidden truth of Being
is withheld from metaphysical humanity. T h e laboring animal is left to the
giddy whirl of its SO that it may tear itself to pieces and annihilate itself
in empty nothingness.

T h e decline of the truth of
beings occurs necessarily, and indeed as the completion of metaphysics. T h e
decline occurs through the collapse of the world characterized by metaphysics,
and at the same time through the desolation of the earth stemming from
metaphysics. Collapse and desolation find their adequate occurrence in the fact
that metaphysical man, the animal rationale, gets fixed as the laboring animal.
This rigidification confirms the most extreme blindness to the oblivion of
Being. But man wills himselfas the volunteer of the will to will, for which all
truth becomes that error which it needs in order to be able to guarantee for
itself the illusion that the will to will can will nothing other than empty
nothingness, in the face of which it asserts itself without being able to know
its own completed nullity. Before Being can occur in its primal truth, Being as
the will must be broken, the world must be forced to collapse and the earth
must be driven to desolation, and man to mere labor. Only after this decline
does the abrupt dwelling of the Origin take place for a long span of time. In
the decline, everything, that is, beings in the whole of the truth of
metaphysics, approaches its end. T h e decline has already taken place. T h e
consequences of this occurrence are the events of world history in this
century. They are merely the course of what has already ended. Its course is
ordered historico-technologically in the sense of the last stage of
metaphysics. This order is the last arrangement of what has ended in the
illusion of a reality whose effects work in an irresistible way, because they
claim to be able to get along without an unconcealment of the essence o Being.
They do this so decisively that they need f suspect nothing of such an
unconcealment.

How does metaphysics belong to
man's nature? Metaphysically represented, man is constituted with faculties as
a being among others. His essence constituted in such a way, his nature, the
what and how of his Being, are in themselves metaphysical: animal
(sensuousness) and rationale (nonsensuous). Thus confined to what is
metaphysical, man is caught in the difference of beings and Being which he
never experiences. T h e manner of human representation which is metaphysically
characterized finds everywhere only the metaphysically constructed world.
Metaphysics belongs to the nature of man. But what is this nature itself? What
is metaphysics itself? Who is man himself within this natural metaphysics? Is
he only an ego which first thoroughly fixates itself in its egoity through
appealing to a thou in the I-thou relationship? For Descartes the ego cogito is
what is already represented and produced in all cogitationes, what is present
without question, what is indubitable and always standing within knowledge,
what is truly certain, what stands firm in advance of everything, namely as
that which places everything in relation to itselfand thus "over
against" others. T o the object there belongs both the what-constituent of
that which stands over against (essentia-possibilitas) and the actual standing
of that which stands opposite (existentia). T h e object is the unity of the
constancy of what persists. In its standing, persistence is essentially related
to the presentation of re-presentation as the guarantee of
having-something-in-front-of-oneself. T h e original object is objectively
itself. Original objectivity is the "I think," in the sense of the
"I perceive" which already presents and has resented itself in
advance for everything perceivable. It is the subiectuw- In the

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

order of the transcendental genesis
of the object, the subject is the first object of ontological representation.
Ego cogito is cogito: me cogitare.

The modern form of ontology is
transcendental philosophy which becomes epistemology. How does such a thing
arise in modern metaphysics? In that the beingness of beings is thought as
presence for the guarantee of representation. Beingness is now objectivity. The
question about objectivity, about the possibility of standing over against (namely,
over against guaranteeing, calculating representation) is the question about
knowability. But this question is not really meant as the question about the
psycho-physical mechanism of the procedure of knowing, but rather about the
possibility of the presence of the object in and for knowledge.
"Epistemology" is viewing, theoria, in that the on, thought as
object, is questioned with regard to objectivity and what makes objectivity
possible (he on). How does Kant guarantee the metaphysical element of modern
metaphysics through the transcendental manner of questioning? In that truth
becomes certainty and thus the beingness (ousia) of beings changes to the
objectivity of the perceptio and the cogitatio of consciousness, of knowledge;
knowing and knowledge move to the foreground. "Epistemology" and what
goes under that name is at bottom metaphysics and ontology which is based on
truth as the certainty of guaranteed representation. On the other hand, the
interpretation of "epistemology" as the explanation of
"knowledge" and as the "theory" of the sciences errs,
although this business of guaranteeing is only a consequence of the
reinterpretation of Being as objectivity and representedness.
"Epistemology" is the title for the increasing, essential power-

lessness of modern metaphysics to
know its own essence and the ground of that essence. The talk about
"metaphysics of knowledgew within the same misunderstanding. In truth, it
is a matter of the metaphysics of the object, that is, of beings as object, of
the object for a subject. The mere reverse side of the empirical-positivistic
misinterpretation of epistemology shows itself in the growing dominance of
logistics.

The completion of metaphysics
begins with Hegel's metaphysics of absolute knowledge as the Spirit of will.
Why is this metaphysics only the beginning of the completion and not the
completion itself? Hasn't unconditional certainty come to itself as absolute
reality? Is there still a possibility here of self-transcendence? Probably not.
But the possibility of unconditional self-examination as the will of life is
still not accomplished. The will has not yet appeared as the will to will in
its reality which it has prepared. Hence metaphysics is not yet completed with
the absolute metaphysics of the Spirit. In spite of the superficial talk about
the breakdown of Hegelian philosophy, one thing remains true: Only this
philosophy determined reality in the nineteenth century, although not in the
external form of a doctrine followed, but rather as metaphysics, as the
dominance of beingness in the sense of certainty. The counter movements to this
metaphysics belong to it. Ever since Hegel's death (183 I), everything is
merely a countermovement, not only in Germany, but also in Europe.

It is characteristic for
metaphysics that in it existencia is always consistently treated only briefly
and as a matter of course, if it is treated at all. (Cf. the inadequate
explanation of the postulates of

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY reality in Kant's
Critique o Pure Reason.) T h e sole exception is Ari f totle, who thinks out
energeia, without this thinking ever being ab to become essential in its
originality in the future. T h e transform tion of energeia to actualitas and
reality buried everything whit became apparent in energeia. T h e connection
between ousia an energeia becomes obscure. Hegel first thinks out existentia,
but in h "Logic." Schelling thinks it in the distinction of ground
and exi tence. However, this distinction is rooted in subjectivity. A later and
confused echo of Being as physis shows itself in tk narrowing down of Being to
"Nature." Reason and freedom are contrasted with nature. Because n;
ture is what-is, freedom and the ought are not thought as Being. T h opposition
of Being and the ought, Being and value, remains. F nally Being itself, too,
becomes a mere "value" when the will entel. its most extreme
deformation of essence. Value is thought as a condition of the will.

Overcoming Metaphysics This fate,
which is to be thought in the manner of the history

of Being, is, however, necessary,
because Being itself can open out in its truth the difference of Being and
beings preserved in itself

VIII

Metaphysics is in all its forms and
historical stages a uniquc but perhaps necessary, fate of the West and the
presupposition of its planetary dominance. T h e will of that planetary
dominance is now in turn affecting the center of the West. Again, only a will
meets the will from this center. T h e development of the unconditional
dominance of metaphysics is only at its start. This beginning starts when
metaphysics affirms its deformation of essence which is adequate to it, and
surrenders its essence to that deformation and fixates it there. Metaphysics is
a fate in the strict sense, which is the only sense intended here, that it lets
mankind be suspended in the middle of beings as a fundamental trait of Western
European history, without the Being of beings ever being able to be experienced
and questioned and structured in its truth as the twofoldness of both in term
of metaphysics and through metaphysics.

only when the difference explicitly
takes place. But how can it do this if beings have not first entered the most
extreme oblivion of Being, and if at the same time Being has not taken over its
unconditional dominance, metaphysically incomprehensible, as the will to which
asserts itself at first and uniquely through the sole precedence of beings (of
what is objectively real) over Being? Thus what can be distinguished in the
difference in a way presents itself, and yet keeps itself hidden in a strange
incomprehensibility. Hence the difference itself remains veiled. A sign of this
is the metaphysico-technological reaction to pain which at the same time
predetermines the interpretation of the essence of pain. Together with the
beginning of the completion of metaphysics, the preparation begins,
unrecognized and essentially inaccessible to metaphysics, for a first
appearance of the twofoldness of Being and beings. In this appearance the first
resonance of the truth of Being still conceals itself, taking back into itself
the precedence of Being with regard to its dominance.

Overcoming metaphysics is thought
in the manner of the history of Being. It is the preliminary sign of the primal
incorporation of the oblivion of Being. More prior, although also more
concealed than the preliminary sign, is what shows itself in that sign. This is
Appropriation itself. What looks to the metaphysical way of thinking like the
preliminary sign of something else, is taken into account only as the last mere
illusion of a more primal opening out. Overcoming is worthy of thought only
when we think about incorporation. This perduring thinking still thinks at the
same time about overcoming. Such remembrance experiences the unique
Appropriating of the expropriating of beings, in which the need of the

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

truth of Being, and thus the
origination of truth, opens up ar radiates upon human being in the manner of a
parting. Overcomir is the delivering over of metaphysics to its truth. At first
the overcoming of metaphysics can only be r c in terms of metaphysics itself,
so to speak, in the manner ot heightening of itself through itself. In this
case the talk about tl metaphysics of metaphysics, which is touched upon in the
boc Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, is justified in that it attempts I
interpret the Kantian idea from this perspective, which still sten from the
mere critique of rationalist metaphysics. However, mol is thus attributed to
Kant's thinking than he himself was able LU think within the limits of his
philosophy. T h e talk of overcoming metaphysics can also mean that
"metaphysics" is the name for the Platonism portrayed in the modern
world by the interpretation of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The reversal of
Platonism, according to which for Nietzsche the sensuous becomes the true world
and the suprasensuous becomes th untrue world, is thoroughly caught in
metaphysics. This kind ( overcoming of metaphysics, which Nietzsche has in mind
in th spirit of nineteenth century positivism, is only the final entanglc ment
in metaphysics, although in a higher form. It looks as if th "meta,"
the transcendence to the suprasensuous, were replaced b the persistence in the
elemental world of sensuousness, wherea actually the oblivion of Being is only
completed and the suprasenst ous is let loose and furthered by the will to
power.

is historicism. If one wanted to
construct the history of Being in accordance with the historiographical
representational thinking cornman today, the dominance of the oblivion of
Being's destiny would be confirmed by this mistake in the most blatant way. T h
e epoch of completed metaphysics stands before its beginning. T h e will to
will forces the calculation and arrangement of everything for itself as the
basic forms of appearance, only, however, for the unconditionally protractible
guarantee of itself. T h e basic form of appearance in which the will to will
arranges and calculates itself in the unhistorical element of the world of
completed metaphysics can be stringently called "technology." This
name includes all the areas of beings which equip the whole of beings:
objectified nature, the business of culture, manufactured politics, and the
gloss of ideals overlying everything. Thus "technology" does not
signify here the separate areas of the production and equipment of machines. T
h e latter of course have a position of power, to be more closely defined, which
is grounded in the precedence of matter as the supposedly elemental and
primarily objective factor. T h e name "technology" is understood
here in such an essential way that its meaning coincides with the term
"completed metaphysics." It contains the recollection of techne,
which is a fundamental conditon of the essential developent of metaphysics in
general. At the same time, the name makes it possible for the planetary factor
of the completion of metaphysics and its dominance to be thought without reference
to historiographically demonstrable changes in nations and continents.

Without being able to know it and
without permitting a know] edge about it, the will to will wards off every
destiny, whereby w understand by destiny the granting of an openness of the
Being o beings. T h e will to will rigidifies everything in lack of destiny.
Ths consequence of lack of destiny is the unhistorical. Its characteristit is
the dominance of historiography. Historiography's being at a 10s

Nietzsche's metaphysics makes
apparent the second to the last stage of the will's development of the
beingness of beings as the will to will. T h e last stage's failure to appear
is grounded in the predominance of "psychology," in the concept of
power and force, in life-

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

enthusiasm. For this reason this
thinking lacks the strictness and carefulness of the concept and the
peacefulness of historical reflction. Historiography rules and, thus,
apologetics and polemics. Why did Nietzsche's metaphysics lead to a scorn of
thinki~ under the banner of "life"? Because no one realized how,
according to Nietzsche's doctrine, the representational-calculative
(empowering) guarantee of stability is just as essential for "life"
as "increase" and escalation. Escalation itself has been taken only
in the aspect of the intoxicating (psychologically), but not in the decisive
aspect of at the same time giving to the guarantee of stability the true and
ever new impulse and the justification for escalation. Hence it is the
unconditional rule of calculating reason which belongs to the will to power,
and not the fog and confusion of an opaque chaos of life. T h e misled
Wagnerian cult imposed an artistic aura on Nietzsche's thinking and its
presentation, which, after the process of the scorn of philosophy (that is,
Hegel's and Schelling's) through Schopenhauer, and after Schopenhauer's
superficial interpretation of Plato and Kant, prepared the last decades of the
nineteenth century for an enthusiasm for which the superficial and foggy
element of ahistoricality automatically serves as a characteristic of what is
true. Behind all this, however, lies the singular incapacity of thinking in
terms of the being of metaphysics and recognizing the scope of truth's
essential transformation and the historical sense of the awakening predominance
of truth as certainty. Behind it, too, lies the incapacity of thinking
Nietzsche's metaphysics in its relation to the simple paths of modern
metaphysics in terms of this knowledge, instead of making a literary phenomenon
out of it which rather overheats our brains than purifies, and makes us pause,
and perhaps even frightens us. Finally, Nietzsche's passion for creators
betrays the fact that he thinks of the genius and the geniuslike only in a
modern way, and at the same time technologically from the viewpoint of
accomplishment. T h e two constitutive "values" (truth and art) in
the concept of the will to power are only circumscriptions for "technology,"
in the essential sense of a planning and calculat-

ing stabilization as
accomplishment, and for the creating of the "creators" who bring a
new stimulus to life over and above life as it is, and guarantee the business
of culture. All of this remains in the service of the will to power, but it
also prevents the will to power's being from entering the clear light of the
broad, essential knowing which can only have its origin in the thinking of the
history of Being. T h e being of the will to power can only be understood in
terms of the will to will. T h e will to will, however, can only be experienced
when metaphysics has already entered its transition.

NietzJLL,, metaphysics of the will
to power is prefigured in the sentence: "The Greek knew and sensed the terrors
and horrors of existence: In order to be able to live at all, he had to set u p
the radiant dream-creation of Olympus above them." (Socrates and Greek
Tragedy, chapter 3, 1871. T h e original version of Birth of Tragedy from the
Spirit of Music, Munich, 1933 .) T h e opposition of the "titanic"
and the "barbaric," of the "wild" and the
"impulsive" is put here on one side, and beautiful, sublime
appearance on the other. Although it is not yet clearly thought out and
differentiated and seen from a unified perspective, the idea is prefigured here
that the "will" needs at thesame time the guarantee of stability and
escalation. But the fact that will is will to power still remains concealed.
Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will dominates Nietzsche's thinking at first.
The preface to the work is written "on Schopenhauer's birthday." With
Nietzsche's metaphysics, philosophy is completed. That means: It has gone
through the sphere of prefigured possibilities. Completed metaphysics, which is
the ground for the planetary manner of thinking, gives the scaffolding for an
order of the earth which will supposedly last for a long time. T h e order no
longer needs

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY Overcoming
Metapbyst

philosophy because philosophy is
already its foundation. But with the end of philosophy, thinking is not also at
its end, but in transition to another beginning.

unthought. It holds itself in a
truth which has long since been forgotten and is without ground.

In the notes to the fourth part of
Thus spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes (1886): "We are attempting a
venture with truth! Perhaps humanity will perish by it! So be it!" (WW
XII, p. 307.) An entry written at the time of The Dawn of Day (1880181) reads:
"What is new about our present position with regard to philosophy is the
conviction which no age has ever yet had: that we do not have the truth. All
men of earlier times "had the truthw-even the skeptics." (WW XI, p.
268.) What does ~ i e t z s c h e mean when he speaks now and then of "the
truth"? Does he mean "what is true," and does he think this as
what truly is, o r as what is valid in all judgments, behavior, and life? What
does this mean: to attempt a venture with the truth? Does it mean: to bring the
will to power into relation with the eternal recurrence of the same as what
truly is? Does this thinking ever get to the question as to wherein the
essential being of truth consists and whence the truth of this essential being
occurs?

There can be an object in the sense
of ob-ject only w h l l l a~ l k becomes a subject, where the subject becomes
the ego and the ego becomes the ego cogito, only where this cogitare is
conceived in its essence as the "original synthetic unity of
transcendental apperception," only where the apex for "logic" is
attained (in truth as the certainty of the "I think"). Here the being
of the object first reveals itself in its objectivity. Here it first becomes
possible and, as a consequence, unavoidable to understand objectivity itself as
"the new true object" and to think it unconditionally.

XVI

XIV

H o w does objectivity come to have
the character of constituting the essential being of beings as such? One thinks
"Being" as objectivity, and then tries to get to "what is in itself."
But one only forgets to ask and to say what one means here by "what
is" and by "in itself." What "is" Being? May we
inquire into "Being" as to what it is? Being remains unquestioned and
a matter of course, and thus

Subjectivity, object, and reflection
belong together. Only when reflection as such is experienced, namely, as the
supporting relation to beings, only then can Being be determined as
objectivity. T h e experience of reflection as this relation, however,
presupposes that the relation to beings is experienced as repraesentatio in
general: as re-presentation. But this can become a matter of destiny only when
the idea has become perceptio. T h e transformation of truth as correspondence
to truth as certainty, in which the adaequatio remains preserved, underlies
this change. certainty as self-guaranteeing (willing-onself)is iustititia as
the justification of the relation to beings and of their first cause, and thus
of the belongingness to beings. Iusti$catio in the sense of the Reformation and
Nietzsche's concept of justice as truth are the same thing. Essentially,
repraesentatio is grounded in reflexio. For this reason, the being of
objectivity as such first becomes evident where the being of thinking is
recognized as explicitly brought about as "I

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

think something," that is, as
reflection.

XVII

Kant is on the way to thinking the
being of reflection in the transcendental, that is, in the ontological sense.
This occurs in the form of a hardly noticeable side remark in the Critique of
Pure Reason under the title "On the Amphiboly of the Concepts of
Reflection." T h e section is a supplement, but it is filled with
essential insight and critical dialogue with Leibniz, and thus with all previous
metaphysics, as Kant himself sees it and as it is grounded in its ontological
constitution in egoity.

find the pure dominance of
"egoity" which must be thought metaphysically, and which has nothing
to do with naively thought "solipsism." Philosophy in the age of
completed metaphysics is anthropology (cf. Holzwege, p. 91 f.). Whether or not
one says "philosophical" anthropology makes no difference. In the
meantime philosophy has become anthropology and in this way a prey to the
derivatives of metaphysics, that is, of physics in the broadest sense, which
includes the physics of life and man, biology and psychology. Having become
anthropology, philosophy itself perishes of metaphysics.

XIX

XVIII

Regarded from the outside, it looks
as if egoity were only the retroactive generalization and abstraction of what
is egolike from the individual "egos" of man. Descartes above all
obviously thinks of his own "ego" as the individual person (res
cogitans as substantia Fnita). Kant, on the other hand, thinks
"consciousness in general." But Descartes also already thinks his own
individual ego in the light of egoity which, however, is not yet explicitly
represented. This egoity already appears in the form of the certum, the
certainty which is nothing other than the guaranteeing of what is represented
for representational thinking. T h e hidden relation to egoity as the certainty
of itself and of what is represented is already dominant. T h e individual ego
can be experienced as such only in terms of this relation. T h e human ego as
the individual self completing itself can only will itself in the light of the
relation of the will to will, as yet unknown, to this ego. N o ego is there
"in itself," but rather is "in itself" always only as
appearing "within itself," that is, as egoity. For this reason,
egoity is also present where the individual ego by no means presses forward,
where it rather retreats, and society and other communal forms rule. There,
too, and precisely there, we

T h e will to will presupposes as
the condition of its possibility the guarantee of stability (truth) and the
possibility of exaggerating drives (art). Accordingly, the will to will
arranges even beings as Being. I n the will to will, technology (guarantee of
stability) and the unconditional lack of reflection ("experience")
first come to dominance. Technology as the highest form of rational
consciousness, technologically interpreted, and the lack of reflection as the
arranged powerlessness, opaque to itself, to attain a relation to what is
worthy of question, belong together: they are the same thing. We are
presupposing that why this is so and how it came to this has been experienced
and understood. We only want to consider the fact that anthropology is not
exhausted by the study of man and by the will to explain everything in terms of
man as his expression. Even where nothing is studied, where rather decisions
are sought, this occurs in such a manner that one kind of humanity is
previously pitted against another, humanity is acknowledged as the original
force, just as if it were the first and last element in all beings, and beings
and their actual interpretation were only the consequence. Thus the solely
decisive question comes to predominance: T o

THE END OF PHII,OSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphy.

what form does man belong?
"Form" is thought here in an indefinite metaphysical way, that is,
Platonically as what is and first determines all tradition and development,
itself, however, remaining independent of this. This anticipatory
acknowledgment of "man" leads to searching for Being first of all and
only in man's environment, and to regarding man himself as human stability, as
the actual m on to the idea. e

In that the will to power attains
its most extreme, unconditional guarantee, it is the sole criterion that
guarantees everything, and thus what is correct. T h e correctness of the will
to will is the unconditional and complete guaranteeing of itself. What is in
accordance with its will is correct and in order, because the will to will
itself is the only order. In this self-guaranteeing of the will to will, the
primal being of truth is lost. T h e correctness of the will to will is what is
absolutely untrue. T h e correctness of the untrue has its own irresistibility
in the scope of the will to will. But the correctness of the untrue which
remains concealed as such is at the same time the most uncanny thing that can
occur in the distortion of the being of truth. What is correct masters what is
true and sets truth aside. T h e will to unconditional guaranteeing first
causes ubiquitous uncertainty to appear.

tional investigation of means,
grounds, hindrances, the miscalculating exchange and plotting of goals,
deceptiveness and maneuvers, the inquisitorial, as a consequence of which the
will to will is distrustful and devious toward itself, and thinks of nothing
else than the guaranteeing of itself as power itself. T h e aimlessness, indeed
the essential aimlessness of the unconditional will to will, is the completion
of the being of will which was incipient in Kant's concept of practical reason
as pure will. Pure will wills itself, and as the will is Being. Viewed from the
perspective of content, pure will and its law are thus formal. Pure will is the
sole content for itself as form.

XXII

XXI

T h e will is in itself already the
accomplishment of striving as the realization of what is striven for. What is
striven for is explicitly known and consciously posited in the concept, that
is, as something represented in general. Consciousness belongs to the will. T h
e will to will is the highest and unconditional consciousness of the
calculating self-guaranteeing of calculation (cf. The Will to Power, no. 458).
Hence there belongs to it the ubiquitous, continual, uncondi-

In virtue of the fact that the will
is sometimes personified in individual "men of will," it looks as if
the will to will were the radiation of these persons. T h e opinion arises that
the human will is the or$in of the will to will, whereas man is willed by the
will to will without experiencing the essence of this willing. In that man is
what is thus willed and what is posited in the will to will, "the
will" is also of necessity addressed in its essence and released as the
instance of truth. T h e question is whether the individuals and communities
are in virtue of this will, or whether they still deal and barter with this
will or even against it without knowing that they are already outwitted by it.
T h e uniqueness of Being shows itself in the will to will, too, which only
admits one direction in which to will. T h e uniformity of the world of the
will to will stems from this, a uniformity which is as far removed from the
simplicity of what is original, as deformation of essence from essence,
although the former belongs to the latter.

XXIII

Because the will to will absolutely
denies every goal and only admits goals as means to outwit itself willfully and
to make room

T H E END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

for this game; because, however,
the will to will nevertheless may not appear as the anarchy of catastrophes
that it really is, if it wants to assert itself in beings; it still must
legitimate itself. T h e will to will invents here the talk about "mission."
Mission is not thought with regard to anything original and its preservation,
but rather a< the goal which is assigned from the standpoint of
"fate," thus justi fying the will to will.

XXIV

T h e essence of the history of
Being of nihilism is the abandonment of Being in that in it there occurs the
self-release of Being into machination. This release takes man into
unconditional service. ~t is by no means a decline and something
"negative" in any kind of sense. Hence not just any kind of humanity
is suited to bring about unconditional nihilism in a historical manner. Hence a
struggle is even necessary about the decision as to which kind of humanity is
capable of the unconditional completion of nihilism.

XXVI

T h e struggle between those who
are in power and those who want to come to power: O n every side there is the
struggle for power. Everywhere power itself is what is determinative. Through
this struggle for power, the being of power is posited in the being of its
unconditional dominance by both sides. At the same time, however, one thing is
still covered up here: the fact that this struggle is in the service of power
and is willed by it. Power has overpowered these struggles in advance. T h e
will to will alone empowers these struggles. Power, however, overpowers various
kinds of humanity in such a way that it expropriates from man the possibility
of ever escaping from the oblivion of Being on such paths. This struggle is of
necessity planetary and as such undecidable in its being because it has nothing
to decide, since it remains excluded from all differentiation, from the
difference (of Being from beings), and thus from truth. Through its own force
it is driven out into what is without destiny: into the abandonment of Being.

xxv

T h e pain which must first be
experienced and borne out to the end is the insight and the knowledge that lack
of need is the highest and most hidden need which first necessitates in virtue
of the most distant distance. Lack of need consists in believing that one has
reality and what is real in one's grip and knows what truth is, without needing
to know in what truth presences.

T h e signs of the ultimate
abandonment of Being are the cries about "ideas" and
"values," the indiscriminate back and forth of the proclamation of
"deeds," and the indispensability of "spirit." All of this
is atready hitched into the armament mechanism of the plan. T h e plan itself
is determined by the vacuum of the abandonment of Being within which the
consumption of beings for the manufacturing of technology, to which culture
also belongs, is the only way out for man who is engrossed with still saving
subjectivity in superhumanity. Subhumanity and superhumanity are the same
thing. They belong together, just as the "below" of animality and the
"above" of the ratio are indissolubly coupled in correspondence in
the metaphysical animal rationale. Sub- and superhumanity are to be thought
here metaphysically, not as moral value judgments. T h e consumption of beings
is as such and in its course determined by armament in the metaphysical sense,
through which man makes himself the "master" of what is
"elemental." T h e consumption includes the ordered use of beings
which become the opportunity and the material for feats and their escalation.
This use is employed for the utility of armaments. In that in the
unconditionality of escalation and of self-guaranteeing armament runs out and
in truth has aimlessness as its aim, the using is a using up. T h e "world
wars" and their character of "totality" are already a consequence
of the abandonment of Being. They press toward a

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

guarantee of the stability of a
constant .form of using things up. Man, who no longer conceals his character of
being the most important raw material, is also drawn into this process. Man is
the "most important raw material" because he remains the subject of
all consumption. H e does this in such a way that he lets his will be
unconditionally equated with this process, and thus at the same time become the
"object" of the abandonment of Being. T h e world wars are the
antecedent form of the removal of the difference between war and peace. This
removal is necessary since the "world" has become an unworld as a
consequence of the abandonment of beings by Being's truth. For
"world" in the sense of the history of Being (cf. Being and
Time)means the nonobjective presencing of the truth of Being for man in that
man is essentially delivered over to Being. In the age of the exclusive power
of power, that is, of the unconditional pressing of beings toward being used u
p in consumption, the world has become an unworld in that Being does presence,
but without really reigning. As what is real, beings are real. There are
effects everywhere, and nowhere is there a worlding of the world and yet,
although forgotten, there is still Being. Beyond war and peace, there is the
mere erring of the consumption of beings in the plan's self-guaranteeing in
terms of the vacuum of the abandonment of Being. Changed into their deformation
of essence, "war" and "peace" are taken up into erring, and
disappear into the mere course of the escalating manufacture of what can be
manufactured, because they have become unrecognizable with regard to any
distinction. T h e question of when there will be peace cannot be answered not
because the duration of war is unfathomable, but rather because the question
already asks about something which no longer exists, since war is no longer
anything which could terminate in peace. War has become a distortion of the
consumption of beings which is continued in peace. Contending with a long war
is only the already outdated form in which what is new about the age of
consumption is acknowledged. This long war in its length slowly eventuated not
in a peace of the traditional kind, but rather in a condition in which

warlike characteristics are no
longer experienced as such at all and peaceful characteristics have become
meaningless and without content. Erring knows no truth of Being. Instead, it
develops the cornpletely equipped plan and certainty of all plans whatsoever i
n every area. In the encompassment (circle) of areas, the particular realms of
human equipment necessarily become "sectors"; the "sector"
of poetry, the "sector" of culture are also only the areas,
guaranteed according to plan, of actual "leadership" along with
others. The moral outrage of those who d o not yet know what is going on is
often Gmed at the arbitrariness and the claim to dominance of the
"leadersv-the most fatal form of continual valuation. T h e leader is the
source of anger who cannot escape the persecution of anger which they only
appear to enact, since they are not the acting ones. One believes that the
leaders had presumed everything of their own accord in the blind rage of a selfish
egotism and arranged everything in accordance with their own will. In truth,
however, they are the necessary consequence of the fact that beings have
entered the way of erring in which the vacuum expands which requires a single
order and guarantee of beings. Herein the necessity of "leadership,"
that is, the planning calculation of the guarantee of the whole of beings, is
required. For this purpose such men must be organized and equipped who serve
leadership. T h e "leaders" are the decisive suppliers who oversee
all the sectors of the consumption of beings because they understand the whole
of those sectors and thus master erring in its calculability. T h e manner of
understanding is the ability to calculate which has totally released itself in
advance into the demands of the constantly increasing guarantee of plans in the
service of the nearest possibilities of plans. T h e adjustment of all possible
strivings to the whole of planning and guaranteeing is called
"instinct." T h e word here designates the "intellect"
which transcends the limited understanding that only calculates in terms of
what lies closest. Nothing which must go into the calculation of the
miscalculating of individual "sectors" as a "factor"
escapes the "intellectualism" of this intellect. Instinct is the
superescalation to

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

the unconditional miscalculation of
everything. It corresponds to superhumanity. Since this miscalculation
absolutely dominates the will, there does not seem to be anything more besides
the will than the safety of the mere drive for calculation, for which calculation
is above all the first calculative rule. Until now, "instinct" was
supposed to be a prerogative of the animal which seeks and follows what is
useful and harmful to it in its life sphere, and strives for nothing beyond
that. T h e assurance of animal instinct corresponds to the blind entanglement
in its sphere of use. T h e complete release of subhumanity corresponds to the
conditionless empowering of superhumanity. T h e drive of animality and the
ratio of humanity become identical. T h e fact that instinct is required for
superhumanity as a characteristic means that, understood metaphysically,
subhumanity belongs to superhumanity, but in such a way that precisely the
animal element is thoroughly subjugated in each of its forms to calculation and
planning (health plans, breeding). Since man is the most important raw
material, one can reckon with the fact that some day factories will be built
for the artificial breeding of human material, based on present-day chemical
research. T h e research of the chemist Kuhn, who was awarded the Goethe prize
of the city of Frankfurt, already opens up the possibility of directing the
breeding of male and female organisms according to plan and need. T h e way in
which artificial insemination is handled corresponds with stark consistency to
the way in which literature is handled in the sector of "culture".
(Let us not flee because of antiquated prudery to distinctions that no longer
exist. T h e need for human material underlies the same regulation of preparing
for ordered mobilization as the need for entertaining books and poems, for
whose production the poet is no more important than the bookbinder's
apprentice, who helps bind the poems for the printer by, for example, bringing
the covers for binding from the storage room.) T h e consumption of all
materials, including the raw material "man," for the unconditioned
possibility of the production of every-

thing is determined in a concealed
way by the complete emptiness in which beings, the materials of what is real, are
suspended. This emptiness has to be filled up. But since the emptiness of Being
can never be filled up by the fullness of beings, especially when this .
emptiness can never be experienced as such, the only way to escape it is
incessantly to arrange beings in the constant possibility of being ordered as
the form of guaranteeing aimless activity. Viewed in this way, technology is
the organization of a lack, since it is related to the em I : tiness of Being
contrary to its knowledge. Everywhere where there are not enough beings-and it
is increasingly everywhere and always not enough for the will to will
escalating itself -technology has to jump in, create a substitute, and consume
the raw materials. But in truth the "substitute" and the mass production
of ersatz things is not a temporary device, but the only possible form in which
the will to will, the "all-inclusive" guarantee of the planning of
order, keeps itself going and can thus be "itself" as the
"subject" of everything. T h e increase in the number of masses of
human beings is done explicitly by plan so that the opportunity will never run
out for claiming more "room to live" for the large masses whose size
then again requires correspondingly higher masses of human beings for their
arrangement. This circularity of consumption for the sake of consumption is the
sole procedure which distinctively characterizes the history of a world which
has become an unworld. "Leader natures" are those who allow
themselves to be put in the service of this procedure as its directive organs
on account of their assured instincts. They are the first employees within the
course of business of the unconditional consumption of beings in the service of
the guarantee of the vacuum of the abandonment of Being. This course of business
of the consumption of beings in virtue of the unknowing defense against
unexperienced Being excludes in advance the distinctions between nations and
countries as still being essential determinative factors. Just as the
distinction between war and peace has become untenable, the distinction between
"national" and "international" has also collapsed. Whoever

THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

Overcoming Metaphysics

thinks in "a European
way" today, no longer allows himself to be exposed to the reproach of
being an "internationalist." But he is also no longer a nationalist,
since he thinks no less about the well-being of the other nations than about
his own. Nor does the uniformity of the course of history of our present age
consist in a supplementary assimilation of older political systems to the
latest ones. Uniformity is not the consequence, but the ground of the warlike
disputes of individual intendants of the decisive leadership within the
consumption of beings for the sake of securing order. T h e uniformity of beings
arising from the emptiness of the abandonment of Being, in which it is only a
matter of the calculable security of its order which it subjugates to the will
to will, also conditions everywhere in advance of all national differences the
uniformity of leadership, for which all forms of government are only one
instrument of leadership among others. Since reality consists in the uniformity
of calculable reckoning, man, too, must enter monotonous uniformity in order to
keep u p with what is real. A man without a uni-form today already gives the
impression of being something unreal which no longer belongs. Beings, which
alone are admitted to the will to will, expand in a lack of differentiation
which is only masked by a procedure and arrangement which stands under the
"principle of production." This seems to have as a consequence an
order of rank; whereas in truth it has as its determining ground the lack of
rank, since the goal of production is everywhere only the uniform vacuity of
the consumption of all work in the security of order. T h e lack of
differentiation, which erupts glaringly from this principle, is by no means the
same as the mere leveling down, which is only the disintegration of previous
orders of rank. T h e lack of differentiation of total consumption arises from
a "positive" refusal of an order of rank in accordance with the
guardianship of the emptiness of all goal-positing. This lack of
differentiation bears witness to the already guaranteed constancy of the
unworld of the abandonment of Being. T h e

earth appears as the unworld of
erring. It is the erring star in the manner of the history of Being.

XXVII

Shepherds live invisibly and
outside of the desert of the desolated earth, which is only supposed to be of
use for the guarantee of the dominance of man whose effects are limited to
judging whether something is important o r unimportant for life. As the will to
will, this life demands in advance that all knowledge move in the manner of
guaranteeing calculation and valuation. T h e unnoticeable law of the earth
preserves the earth in the sufficiency of the emerging and perishing of all
things in the allotted sphere of the possible which everything follows, and yet
nothing knows. T h e birch tree never oversteps its possibility. T h e colony
of bees dwells in its possibility. It is first the will which arranges itself
everywhere in technology that devours the earth in the exhaustion and
consumption and change of what is artificial. Technology drives the earth
beyond the developed sphere of its possibility into such things which are no
longer a possibility and are thus the impossible. T h e fact that technological
plans and measures succeed a great deal in inventions and novelties, piling
upon each other, by no means yields the proof that the conquests of technology
even make the impossible possible. T h e realism and moralism of chronicle
history are the last steps of the completed identification of nature and spirit
with the being of technology. Nature and spirit are objects of self-consciousness.
T h e unconditional dominance of self-consciousness forces both in advance into
a uniformity out of which there is metaphysically no escape. It is one thing
just to use the earth, another to receive the blessing of the earth and to
become at home in the law of this reception in order to shepherd the mystery of
Being and watch over the inviolability of the possible.

T H E END OF PHILOSOPFIY

XXVIII

N o mere action will change the
world, because Being as effectiveness and effecting closes all beings off in
the face of Appropriation. Even the immense suffering which surrounds the earth
is unable to waken a transformation, because it is only experienced as
suffering, as passive, and thus as the opposite state of action, and thus
experienced together with action in the same realm of being of the will to
will. But the earth remains preserved in the inconspicuous law of the possible
which it is. T h e will has forced the impossible as a goal upon the possible.
Machination, which orders this compulsion and holds it in dominance, arises
from the being of technology, the word here made equivalent to the concept of
metaphysics completing itself. T h e unconditional uniformity of all kinds of
humanity of the earth under the rule of the will to will makes clear the
meaninglessness of human action which has been posited absolutely. T h e
desolation of the earth begins as a process which is willed, but not known in
its being, and also not knowable at the time when the being of truth defines
itself as certainty in which human representational thinking and producing
first become sure of themselves. Hegel conceives this moment of the history of
metaphysics as the moment in which absolute self-consciousness becomes the
principle of thinking. It almost seems as if the being of pain were cut off
from man under the dominance of the will, similarly the being of joy. Can the
extreme measure of suffering still bring a transformation here? N o
transformation comes without an anticipatory escort. But how does an escort
draw near unless Appropriation opens out which, calling, needing, envisions
human being, that is, sees and in this seeing brings mortals to the path of
thinking, poetizing building.

key to the later Hddegger, this condensation
of his tho on Bdng is jam-peked-. .Those in the fold will welcome it."

Pubblicato da accordo con
HarperSanFrancisco, divisione di HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

La University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 60.637 Copyright 01.973 nella traduzione inglese Harper & Row,
Inc. Tutti i diritti riservati. Originariamente pubblicato da Verlag Gunther
Neske, Pfullingen, i diritti d'autore 1961 da Gunther Neske Verlag, Pfullinpart
del Volume I1 del Che Nietz ~, gen. "Superare Metafisica" è tratto da
RF AzIfSatze Vortriige ~, d copyright 1954 da Gunther Neske, Pfullingen.
traduzione in inglese da Joan Stambaugh. University of Chicago Press edizione
2003 Stampato negli Stati Uniti d'America 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 2 3 4 5 ISBN:
0-226-32383-8 (Paperback) Library of Congress Catalogare-in-pubblicazione dei
dati

la carta utilizzata in questa
pubblicazione soddisfa i requisiti minimi di American National Standard di
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Heidegger, Martin, La fine della filosofia

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