GA22:241-243 – apreensão do ser

First approach toward an apprehension of Being, and yet at the same time a relapse to beings. The later philosophy of nature (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus) adheres to the thesis of Parmenides and yet attempts to determine beings in such a way that they might be objects of scientific knowledge. The question is whether beings, as given in sense experience, do not indeed exhibit structures that are connected to Being. The proper mode of grasping the world is not αἴσθησις but, instead, Λόγος. Thus Parmenides’ thesis is maintained; at the same time an intention to σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα (Plato).Their rights are to be restored to the supposed non-beings. At the same time, a methodological reflection on the understanding that makes the phenomena accessible. Empedocles: sharper gaze into the peculiarity of perception. Frag. 4: “The individual senses have their own particular rights. . . . Consider every individual thing carefully with each sense . . Every αἴσθησις has its proper evidence, and claims to knowledge are to be judged according to the evidence.

An ideal of knowledge ought not to be set up a priori. With every mode of knowledge there should also be delimited those beings made available in that mode. Anaxagoras, frag. 21: “On account of the weakness of the senses, we are unable with their help to grasp beings themselves, beings in their unconcealedness.” Aristotle, Degeneratione et corruptione, introductory part: consideration of the earlier philosophy with respect to the uncovering of the elements (A8, 324b25ff.).

Heraclitus posits oppositionality as that which properly is; Parmenides denies it. Neither achieves a scientific grasp of beings. Question: is there a way to grasp the change and succession of beings scientifically and yet in accord with the questioning of Parmenides?

Now a more precise understanding of the principle of sufficient reason. Leucippus, frag. 2: “Nothing arises by chance; on the contrary, everything comes from definite foundations and by force of necessity.” A way to grasp beings, i.e., to ask whether change and succession can be “founded” in Being, (190) whether something constant is to be substituted for succession, ἀ ίτ ιολογ ία:54 it is in λόγος that the ἀἴτιον will be apprehended. Democritus said he would be prepared to renounce the throne of Persia for some ἀιτιολογία. Foundation of beings in Being.

The immediately given beings must be grasped in a more penetrating way than they were previously. They are not to be dismissed as sheer semblance but, instead, grasped in their structure itself. More precise determination of change as such. Change and succession are not identified with Being (nor are they distinguished from it merely in a formal way), but something is to be placed at their foundation: στοιχεία, “elements” (first of all, Plato, Theatetus 201E1). Change is not some free-floating thing next to Being: on the contrary, it has its own determination as something constant in the sense of continual blending and separating. Nothing arises or passes away. Otherwise, utter nullity would always be threatening. Empedocles, frag. 8: “I want to announce something else to you. There is no arising for any thing and no passing away to mortal death, there is only blending: passing away is simply a term used by the common understanding.” Arising is called φύσις. Change is not understood as growth in the sense of a cosmogony: on the contrary, all things always are, but they constantly exchange their possibilities. Anaxagoras, frag. 17: “Incorrect way of speaking by the Greeks with regard to coming to be and passing away. Everything blends and separates out of already present-at-hand beings.” Change is not opposed to Being: instead, change exists on the basis of what is present-at-hand. Aristotle: “Motion is impossible if there is no ὑποκείμενον’’ (of. Physics A 7, 190a34ff.). Blending and separating are moments that show the ultimate structure within the whole of Being, such that τάξις, σχήμα, and θέσις alone determine Being in its structure. These elements are the basic determinations which make it possible for beings to maintain themselves as constant.

Yet, remarkably, the idea of the ὑποκείμενον is not discussed in relation to these phenomena themselves. Why the question does not arise is connected to the unclarity of the concept of motion. Motion is merely blending and separating and is reduced to the ἀείον. Empedocles excludes the concept of φύσις in the sense of growth. Nevertheless, standing for στοιχεία we find in him the designation ριζώματα (frag. 6), “roots,” and in Anaxagoras σπέρματα (frag. 4), “seeds.” The orientation toward the principle of sufficient reason leads back almost to the level of pre-Parmenidean philosophy: elements – water, earth, fire, air.

Anaxagoras: “Everything comes from everything” (of. frag. 6). The conventional view of his theory (that the world is structured out of ultimate elements which consist in like parts, like the atoms of Democritus or the four elements) is false. These elements “of like parts” are qualities, not matter (smallest things), qualities that modify themselves (of. Descartes). Every individual thing is merely a determinate constellation of the whole, a stage of the continual blending relation, πανσπερμία: the conjunction and intermingling of the elements. A thing is always a totality of present-at-hand and possible qualities. The names are not arbitrary; on the contrary, they are related, in their meaning, to the being itself, inasmuch as the latter is nothing but a form of change based on what is constant. Cosmogony (Empedocles, frag. 26): four stages of the world: 1) σφαίρος, homogeneous equalization of all oppositions, 2) κόσμος, everything bound by law, but still blended together, 3) νείκος, “strife,” 4) return to the σφαίρος. We are now in stage 2.