Cologne, 16 July 1996
To the few who care for thinking:
Michael Pennamacoor proposes (not) overcoming overcoming in thinking relations
with metaphysics. He quotes 'Even overcome, metaphysics does not disappear. It
returns in another form and maintains its supremacy'.
Supremacy!?? What does this translate? 'Herrschaft'? In the set-up, metaphysics
reigns supreme in the forgottenness of, its obliviousness to its origins.
Here a few further clues to the "untranslatable Verwindung".
What is going on today, among a few, in relations with metaphysics? The step
back, the shift of location. The step back allows humankind to get over
metaphysics by getting a new twist on it, by seeing it for what it is. A mere
change in attitude? Not at all. The step back allows a view of metaphysics as
what it is, a view that was/is not possible from within metaphysics. What is it
that metaphysics was/is not able to see: the sense of beyng itself and the
clearing within which beyng holds sway.
But what is the sense of beyng as such? Staendiges Anwesen - standing presence.
This sense was never thought of within metaphysics, although Plato and Aristotle
thought _from_ it. This background was lost as metaphysics got under way.
What comes to stand in presence as a standing presence? Beings as such. But what
are beings as such? Their 'essence', i.e. their whatness, quidditas, what they
are: their idea. Standing in presence in their idea, they give a view of
themselves for thinking, they show themselves of themselves to thinking. This is
metaphysics: the opening up of beings as such to the view of a knowledge of
essence (whatness, what-*being*).
But what new twist does the step back give to this that allows metaphysics to
somehow be gotten over? The step back does not abolish the being of beings, does
not do away with their coming to stand in presence, does not obscure the view of
their essence. Therefore, it also does not abolish the knowing manipulation of
beings by technology.
Metaphysics is remitted, it is sent back. Where? To its beginning, its place of
origin, to the locus from where it made its first leap. This place goes under
many names: aletheia, the clearing, time-space, the event, unconcealedness,
truth.
And then, with this twist, with this winding of history, something else comes
into view: The event grants presence, grants the time-space within which beings
as such can come to stand. It also decides AS what beings come to stand. The AS
is historical: the history of beyng. Beings are not cast once and for all in
their AS, not invested in a single gown, but can be recast, redressed. For
humankind, this means that ideas change, are transformed, but not by the fiat of
humankind. Only by thinking of beyng can humankind be used by the event for the
gown of beings to be altered.
The idea: what-ness, standing in presence in de-fined limits that provide an
outline to be seen by the seeing that sees beyng (dianoia, ratio, reason,
Vernunft).
And perhaps the step back could mean for humankind that something other than
ideas could presence, could be (not) seen, that also the non-standingness of
presence could come into its own as that which affects humankind without being
seen in its idea. Is the clearing an opening for non-entities as well as
entities?
The step back does not get around metaphysics, but twists it by coming into a
new relationship with it, a more distanced relation, achieved by the step back.
The thinking of beyng: getting over metaphysics by gaining a distance from it?
And outside the thinking of beyng?
For those dwelling within metaphysics without any distance from it (and that is
just about everyone), the destruction of metaphysics appears and must appear as
threatening. Twisting here turns into squirming. And then comes the retaliation:
metaphysics strikes back: The thinking of beyng: a vacuous play on words, a
"disgusting term" (Adorno), a hotline to Hitler, to Auschwitz, a violent
extrapolation from a Schwarzwald hut to the entire world, borne by resentment
against urban life, and so on. (Heidegger's rigid behaviour did not help
matters.) These are all ways of getting around the thinking of beyng without
thinking. And they are very effective, on one level, namely, the level of the
politics of thinking.
The thinking of beyng: the shame of German thinking after Auschwitz, the face of
German thinking that, in shame, is kept hidden and under attack?
But let's get back to thinking instead of digressing outside thinking.
Metaphysics cannot get over itself. Wherever it looks, it sees only itself. It
is locked into its own mirror reflection, has no distance from itself. It takes
beings AS such for granted, does not see that they are granted -- by beyng, by
the clearing, by the event. For metaphysics there is no difference, no gap, no
opening, but only the logic of reproduction its own logical identity.
Michael
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