ontology10
“abstraction.52
” In the case of the Form-series, the top of the series is #
or “pure actuality”
(
).53 In the case of the Material-series, the top of the series is the
- or -
Principle (Material Principle) of “pure possibility”
This fundamental dualism is
“united” in the Unmoved Mover since the Unmoved Mover seen “in its entirety is generalization
and undeveloped.56” Hence, in the case of both series the “purest” instantiation is at the “top”
although the “purest” is inseparable from the whole series.
Whereas our modern post-Lockean philosophical understanding is concerned with the
contrast between “thing” and “mere abstraction,57” what is radical about Heidegger is that he is
not caught in this opposition between “thing” and “abstraction” because his focus is not on the
ontic but on the event of the Being-of-beings.
The Being-of-beings for Heidegger is an echo of
the ontological moment in Aristotle that stresses matter ( ) as possibility to be the necessary
condition for any and all experience in the world. Heidegger’s shift of focus away from the
subject-object split, away from consciousness “in” or “next to” a world, and away from inner
spirit and external extension, is accomplished precisely by a turn to the concealed dynamic of
possibility in every and all actual Being-in-the-world. The shift of focus to possibility in all
actuality enables a retrieval of truth as
(
" )$&as un-covering. Furthermore,
from the perspective of possibility, time or history for Heidegger is an ecstatic horizon of past,
future, present. Hence, possibility, inseparable from the actual, is radically historical since we
already are the possibilities that we are yet to become, and we cannot become without a world.
———————————
52. See Happ, Hyle, 349-350.
53. See Happ, Hyle, 26, 57-58, 197, 287, 294, 301, 306, 391-392, 431, 790.
54. See Happ, Hyle, 197, 287, 710, 639-640, 645-646, 687, 778, 790. See especially ibid., 790: “Wir
können (und müssen) ... diese Proportionen [Hyle] ist ‘der Möglichkeit nach’ (
) das, was die Form ‘der
Wirklichkeit nach’ ist (
')] sämtlich auf eine Ur-Proportion gründen: ‘... wie
( (= reine
Möglichkeit) :
( (= reine Wirklichkeit)’.”
55. See Happ, Hyle, 625, n. 225; 721; 723, n. 213, 737, 761.
56. Happy, Hyle, 646: “Der Beweger ist als reine Aktualität vollbestimmt, zugleich als Prototyp von
Substanz bzw. Sein überhaupt Allgemeinheit und Unentfaltenheit. Dieses Ineinander von Bestimmtheit und
Unbestimmtheit finden wir beim platonischen wieder, danach z.B. noch deutlicher beim Plotins; es ist dies
bezeichnend für jedes ideale Sein, für welches das
" '
[generalization is prior] gilt.”
57. See Happ, Hyle, 321. The notion of mere abstraction comes from Locke (See Happ, Hyle, 586, 588,
650-651) and is only concerned with “empty” concepts.
58. The etymological analysis of truth as “un-covering” is not by any means unique to Heidegger. See Otto
Willmann, Geschichte des Idealismus. Band 1. Vorgeschichte und Geschichte des antiken Idealismus (Aalen:
Scientia Verlag, 1973 <1894>), 188-189.
