Tonner: subject-object

The epochs of the history of being do not   correspond to the standard categories of narrative history. The Greek word epochi meant withdrawal and as such, a historical epoch is a particular episode in the withdrawal of being. The modern world begins with the advent of subjectivity. This occurs with Galileo and Newton  . When Galileo intimates what Newton will call the principle of inertia he employs the words, mente concipio, ‘conceive in my mind’. With this, the emphasis in the adequation of mind and thing is placed on the mind. This is the beginning of what Descartes   calls mathesis  : mathesis   is that project whereby the cogito   realizes itself and acquires its position of mastery. For Descartes, the cogito does ultimately depend upon God but, the cogito itself is the basis upon which the beingness of beings is revealed. In the epoch of Cartesian philosophy, beingness is objectivity.

With the cogito the established rule is subjectivity. Whereas in Greek the word for basis is hupokeimenon, in Latin it is subjectum. The relation of subject-object entails the submission of the thing/being/entity to the rule of the human cogito. This is the origin of modern calculative reckoning and evaluation. The modern epoch is born into the world and its screams are those of domination. It is the birth of mathesis universalis. Beings are at [152] once subjectivized and objectivized: they are referred to the cogito as master and objectivized as governable and calculable. The birth of modernity is the birth of mechanized naturae. Nature is no longer physis   and truth no longer aletheia  .

From Descartes to Nietzsche   there is essentially a continuity. Nietzsche is the last   great thinker of the West. Western thinker means metaphysician. Nietzsche, according to Heidegger, was simply the philosopher who brought metaphysics and modern subjectivity to its ontotheological apotheosis. Nietzsche, like all metaphysicians, speaks the language of Plato  . In modernity, the subject displaces God. The will-to-power is read ontologically as the beingness of beings, the eternal return is read theologically as the ground of beings and beingness. Will-to-power and eternal return repeat essentia   and existentia  , the ‘what’ and the ‘that’ of beings. The essence of every being is will-to-power and their existence is to eternally recur.

The subjectivation and objectivation bound up with mathesis reach their limit with Nietzsche: the will treats every being as an object (Gegenstand  ) and simultaneously compels it to be available for manipulation. Further, all beings are reduced to the value that they have for the self-aggrandizing value-bestowing will. The world is demythologized in favour of a world there to be used up and manipulated in the service of modern humanity’s calculating rationality. The eternal return is nothing more than endless repetitive machination. This is the essence of modern technology.

With the thought of the will-to-power and eternal return the wonder experienced by the early Greeks at the intrinsically ambiguous and mysterious event of being’s revelation has been decisively lost. From this perspective, Heidegger’s evaluation of the fundamental ontology of Being and Time   is that, despite his intentions at the time, it runs the risk of reinforcing nihilistic subjectivity. In machinating technological modernity being counts for nothing and nihilism prevails: modern technology is the summation of the oblivion of being, which is the culmination of that Platonic way of thinking — metaphysics.