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The Beginning of Western Philosophy

Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides

Indiana University Press

The first phase of the interpretation

A. THE FIRST SECTION OF THE STATEMENT

§2. The theme of the dictum: beings as a whole

a) The meaning of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

About what is Anaximandros speaking here? About [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] —plural of the neuter [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—the being; plural: the beings. Yet from early on, already in Sanskrit, the neuter plural does not simply mean a multiplicity of individuals; instead, it signifies the many individuals in their unity: hence "that which is," thereby thinking of that which is [das Seiende] as particularized into many individual beings, into the beings [die Seienden]. We could use "the beings" as a translation of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] only provided we recognize there is no question here of arbitrary, individual beings. More clearly at first: singular—that which is—and this indeed now requires some comments.

That which is—about beings pure and simple (cf. below p. 35, sec. a, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII])—not about just any arbitrary individual extant thing in its accidental obtrusiveness, e.g., the sea; also not the being we call the land; also not what is in the sea, on land, in the air, not the plants and animals; also not humans and their work, their trouble and joy, their success, their triumph, their death—all such is a being, not that which is. Even all this totaled up does not constitute that which is. For as soon as we start to seize any being whatever and ascribe something further to it, we have just as immediately wrenched that individual out of that which is. We do not first of all have nothingness and then the individual beings; on the contrary, first and last we have that which is. The latter is not simply all individual beings thrust together; it is more than all these and then again at the same time less. That which is means that which is before and around us, below us and above us, and includes ourselves. That which is: not this being and not that one and not everything together, but more than "everything." Then what?

Is there | something that could be "more" than "everything"? "Everything" does not tolerate still "more" outside of itself. "Everything" includes each thing and leaves nothing out. But if, for example, we carefully take apart and lay out "everything" that pertains to a plant, viz., root, stalk, leaves, blossoms, and if we omit nothing, then does all this together give us "the plant"? No; something is still missing. The whole of the plant does not result from thrusting together all the pieces but is on the contrary prior to all the components, even if these are not expressly present at hand but are, e.g., still in the bud or in the seed grain. Everything that pertains to the plant is not the plant as a being, is not the whole being.

And so we will say: that which is—if it means more than all individuals, then it means the whole of beings.

We do not mean thereby that the whole of beings would be the same as, for instance, an immense plant or some other "organism." The wholeness of a whole is not simply and necessarily the wholeness of an "organism." Yet even if we take this reservation to heart, may we then equate "that which is" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) with the whole of beings?

For could a person ever grasp all beings individually and then gather them together? Even if it were possible to grasp all particular beings individually and go through them all, would we not continually have to set aside the ones already grasped? How could a person claim to grasp all beings at one stroke? We saw, however, that that which is does not mean everything but, instead, means the whole of beings. Nevertheless, is not the whole of beings even less graspable? For that, the person would need to utterly encompass beings, stand outside of them and beyond the whole, and not belong therein himself. Outside the whole of beings is only nothingness. "That which is"—if we take this expression to mean the whole of beings, is it then not precisely vacuous? To be sure! That which is means for us therefore not the whole of beings—neither this nor "all beings."

Thus we said advisedly: "that which is" is more and at the same time less than all beings. More, insofar as it somehow proceeds to the whole; less—how so?

In this way: insofar as there is not at first or ever any necessity to grasp all beings in order to understand truly what was said. Indeed what is not decisive is the magnitude in number or in scope of the beings we explicitly know; and how much we scientifically know is utterly inconsequential. The farmer, whose "world" might strike the city dweller as narrow and poor, in the end possesses "that which is" much more intimately and immediately. The farmer's experience proceeds quite differently into the whole and comes quite differently out of the whole than the agitated squirming of the city dweller, who clings only to the "telephone and radio." The smallest and narrowest sphere of known beings has nevertheless its expansion into the whole; even narrowness is always still an expanse—an expansion into the whole. On the other hand, the widest variety is largely lacking in expanse, so much so that it—as mere scatterings and their running on and on—never even amounts to a narrowness.

That which is is always less than all beings and is also not the whole of beings purely and simply encompassed and intuited. It is rather, as we say, beings as a whole—in that way indeed more, essentially more than each and every summation, even the greatest possible.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—that which is—means beings as a whole. From this is to be distinguished all beings as well as the whole of beings. Yet let us not fool ourselves. We do not have a fully clear understanding of what is meant here. Nevertheless, something is indicated for which we have a quite sure feeling. This "as a whole" is so ungraspable in an inceptual way precisely because it is constantly what is closest and most familiar to us: we always skip over it. Indeed, even further, for the most part we unwittingly misinterpret it and render it unrecognizable. In order to experience that which is, i.e., beings as a whole, we do not need to undertake gymnastically any sort of mysterious contortion of thought and representation. Quite to the contrary, we only need to loosen somewhat our everyday shackling to what is currently obtrusive and incidental—and already we will have explicitly experienced what is astonishing in experience. | To be sure, only quite roughly, but this "roughly," this "as a whole," is in itself something completely determinate and essential, even if we are now still far removed from comprehending it.

Let this be a provisional elucidation of what Anaximandros is speaking about. We will now ask: 2) What does he actually say about it, about "beings"? "Whence (that out of which) beings step forth—precisely into this also their receding happens according to necessity."

b) Beings in [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

a)Stepping forth and receding pertain to beings. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in general [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII][the stepping-forth the receding]. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] are readily taken as "coming to be and passing away," and so in short: alteration, becoming other, or in general: becoming. That is very understandable and is not artificially formulated. For us, however, the question is whether the ready translation does not unwittingly introduce something un-Greek into the content of the whole statement. Here it is in fact so; stepping forth means originating arrival, arriving emergence, self-manifestation, appearance; correspondingly, receding means disappearance, withdrawal, going away. So what is the difference between these and coming to be and passing away? We are accustomed to think of coming to be as development, as a sequence of processes in which the earlier ones are always the causes of the following ones, as concatenation, transition, progression, as direction, as from ... to, out of ... into; and correspondingly we think of passing away as downfall and annihilation. For the Greeks, what is decisive is not the causal sequence, the coming to be out of and through one another, but purely and simply the stepping-forth, the looming up. Our term for it in short will be appearance. (Cf. below p. 8; need to carefully set aside every relation to later meanings of the word as a technical term, even the relation to the Kantian concept, although Kant does, within certain limits, use "appearance" genuinely and originarily. It is only because "appearance" becomes the counter concept to "thing-in-itself" that we cannot appeal here to Kant.)

Appearance is emergence: not the becoming seen and apprehended of something, but a character of the happening of beings as such. Only subsequently applicable to a being in its becoming perceived and grasped. To appear: to remain in apparentness—or to withdraw from this. To appear: as we say "a new book has appeared" or "the president of the society thanked the appearing guests for making an appearance." Appearing can be understood only very broadly and originarily, and it oscillates within the meaning of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—thus not coming to be, but stepping forth. And receding, disappearance, is merely a distinctive mode of appearance and belongs completely to it; for only what has appeared or can appear can also disappear and specifically such that the appearing is retracted.

c) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII];the whence-whither—our characterization of stepping forth and receding. Inadequacy of speaking about a "basic matter"

b) The stepping-forth and the receding are to beings not just any random occurrence but are instead precisely essential to the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. And now both are characterized more closely in a determinate respect. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] the whence of the coming forth and the whither of the disappearing. And it is said: the whence and the whither of appearance (disappearance) are the same. The whence is the whither, and conversely.—This information is exceedingly meager. We would very much like to know what is this whence and whither. And if we speak—as do all interpreters since Aristotle—in a completely wrong-headed way, i.e., if we speak of coming to be and passing away, then we are thinking of the coming to be of the world—"world" as nature—whereby it seems that to ask whence beings come to be is even to engage in the most thoughtful research. Whence something comes to be is ordinarily called its matter, and if beings—all of them—come to be out of, and decompose into, the same matter, then the whence-whither is the basic matter. And people go out of their way to praise Anaximandros for having already advanced so far in physics and chemistry. As if sciences as such were an advancement; as if advancement for philosophy could ever be a mark of distinction. And, above all, as if Anaximandros had ever asked about matter and the basic matter. This view of Anaximandros and his physics is not even false; it is so far removed from the content of his teaching that it does not grasp the least of it and so does not even rise to the level of the false and wrong. This way of taking him or, rather, this mis-taking is encountered at every turn; it is mentioned here only in order to be discarded. For even to enter into dialogue with it is otiose. |

At issue here cannot be matter and the basic matter, for: 1) the questioning in general does not aim to establish a sequence, the coming to be of things out of and through one another; thereby no occasion is given to ask about something as a matter out of which things are formed. 2) the questioning of a basic matter must from the outset equate "beings" with the material domain of lifeless nature. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], however, signifies beings as a whole and precisely not any individual delimited or distinctive sphere of beings. Therefore the whence and whither apply to beings as a whole, just as appearance applies not simply to the emergence of water or air or animals, but to everything that happens.

Now, to be sure, the whence-whither is different from beings as a whole, precisely as that out of which beings as a whole have their appearing and to which they revert. But what is different from beings and is not a being nor beings as a whole must be addressed by us as nothingness. Be that as it may: if indeed the whence-whither must remain differentiated from beings as a whole, then we arrive at the brink of nothingness. We must not shrink back here and must rather consider this: if we want to grasp beings (the Greeks say delimit, place within limits), then we must, indeed necessarily, proceed to the limit of beings, and that is nothingness. Accordingly, what was said about beings comes to us initially and for a long time hence as saying nothing. It says nothing to us, because we are used to apprehending only beings. And this saying nothing also implies that we can at first, as the expression is, "do nothing" with the statement that the whence and whither of appearing are the same.

Before we consider more closely what lies in such a pronouncement, the task is to lay open in full what Anaximander says about beings.

d) The whence and whither of the stepping-forth and receding [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—according to necessity

c) The whence and whither of the stepping-forth and receding of beings are the same [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—according to necessity. What this says about beings is that their receding, disappearance, into the same as that from which comes their appearance, stepping forth, is not something that just happens to occur at one time or other. It is not left to the choice and pleasure of beings to accept or not to accept, so to speak, this sameness of their whence and whither. On the contrary, it is necessity—more precisely, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], the necessity. In this sameness of the whence-whither, the necessity comes to light.

Thus we have now commented in more detail on what was pronounced about beings: stepping forth and receding (appearance), the whence and whither in their sameness, the latter as necessity.

Everything said about beings tells us how beings comport themselves, what the situation is with beings. But heed well: what is not recounted and established is how this or that individual being behaves, which properties and quirks it displays. Instead, what is supposed to be addressed is how beings, precisely as the beings they are, comport themselves. The way the singing [singend] bird comports itself we call singing [das Singen]. The way the extant [seiend] being comports itself we call Being [das Sein].

Therefore, Anaximander's pronouncement about beings as a whole speaks of the Being of beings. But it does not simply enumerate all sorts of things that pertain to the Being of beings. At the same time, as the later section of the dictum shows, it says why the enumerated characters pertain to the Being of beings, (why they constitute Being).

B. THE SECOND SECTION OF THE STATEMENT

§3. Beings in the relation of compliance and noncompliance

a) Stepping forth and receding as giving way before, and against, each other

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—they (viz., the beings as such) reciprocally bestow compliance and correspondence in consideration of the noncompliance. Reciprocally—the one to the other and the other to the one.

This is supposed to supply the grounds explaining why what was said earlier constitutes the Being of beings. With that intention, beings are characterized anew—indeed while the previous declarations are still held fast. Stepping forth and receding are not arbitrarily now this, now that; instead, in stepping forth and receding, beings are interrelated.

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Excerpted from The Beginning of Western Philosophy by Martin Heidegger, Richard Rojcewicz. Copyright © 2012 Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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