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Part I Preliminary Reflection on the Distinction Between Ground and Existence

§ 6 The Core Section of the Treatise: The Distinction between Essence Insofar as it Exists and Essence Insofar as it is Merely Ground of Existence

We shall initially skip over the introduction and consider the section with which the primary investigation begins (357–364). This section, as we have divided it, contains, at its core, the entire treatise, and it does so in two respects (see also below, p. 75): first, as regards content – insofar as the entire realm of questioning is unfolded, and insofar as what is asked about (the freedom of the human) is outlined. Then, however, also as regards the mode of thinking: for how thinking happens in these investigations comes most acutely to the fore here. Thus, we first practice here that thinking which is also already required in order to think through the introduction appropriately. (“Dialectics” – in unconditional thinking, and especially “identity”-thinking.)

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Nevertheless, the interpretation of this section will not resolve all of the difficulties, given that we are able to follow it out in thought {nachdenken} only in a first attempt; thus, once again, the last for comprehension.

This core section is itself organized in turn.

It begins with a paragraph that indicates, as a preliminary remark: (A) what is being treated: the distinction between “ground” and “existence”;¹

(B) two things are said about this distinction, if we disregard the “polemical” side remark which belongs in the context of the introduction.

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Regarding A: What is being treated? A distinction, namely the distinction “between essence … and essence….” Between two “essences”?

Two sorts of essence?

What does essence mean here? Beings; entities {Wesen} belonging to nature, to the household, to the state, to the realm of banditry; that which respectively is, with the stress placed on its being.

It is not two essences that are distinguished, but rather one essence – that is, any essence in a twofold “view”; “view” – but not only that of a viewing observer. What is distinguished cannot, however, be separated; yet what can be separated is, in turn, the entire twofold essence each time.

The fact that every essence is distinguished nevertheless has peculiar consequences, so that even disparate and manifold “essences” are each time disparate and manifold in accordance with the distinction that determines these respective essences. What does this distinction mean?

Let us first, however, consider what is said about the distinction in a preliminary manner.

Regarding B: What is said about this distinction?

1. That the “philosophy of nature of our time has first advanced” it “in science.”

2. The Freedom Treatise “is grounded” on this distinction. Regarding 1, (a) The “philosophy of nature of our time” = Schelling’s “philosophy of nature”; the latter is not a philosophical reflection on the region of “nature” – for instance in Kant’s sense (doctrine of categories) – but rather, contra Fichte: nature itself is, in itself, the absolute; “the visible spirit” (subject–object). “Nature” is “the odyssey of spirit.” Cognition of “nature” is here knowledge of the absolute. Nature is “identical” with spirit; identity = unity of identity (of identity and nature and identity and spirit) and unity of opposition.

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Philosophy of nature – philosophy as a whole from the perspective of another question. What this is supposed to be can be found already on p. 362:

To show how each succeeding process approaches closer to the essence of nature, until the innermost centrum appears in the highest division of forces, is the task of a comprehensive philosophy of nature.

(b) In science – which is not the same as “research” in today’s sense, but rather the unconditional knowledge of the absolute; within this knowledge (doctrine of science), which aims at the unconditional, the latter is interrogated, and that means experienced, differently – (everything first becomes clear on account of the treatise itself).

Regarding 2. The Freedom Treatise “is grounded” on this distinction. The Freedom Treatise shows the center and ground of the “system of freedom.” A “system” – in itself – cannot be invented {erfunden} but only “discovered” {“gefunden”}; not a human construct, but the jointure of the absolute, which is spirit, as spirit of love; love is the enabling of freedom; the knowing will, which binds ground and existence in the absolute, recognizes their opposition and overcomes it in the unity of their essential justice.

Now to the distinction itself and its discussion: initially incomprehensible without further ado; no clear evidence of its occurrence.

Likewise strange is the manner in which it is treated – God and the creation of the world and the human; God, just as though this were the clearest of all. Indeed. The basic manner of metaphysical absolute thinking: the non-sensuous construction of everything in God.

Misgivings: (a) from a Kantian perspective, (b) from a perspective of ecclesiastical faith – proofs of God, (c) for contemporaries: where everything disintegrates into the indeterminate (“fate” – “providence” – “Lord God”).

Which questions initially come up here: the arbitrariness and boundlessness of speculation; mere assertions; where is a guiding thread? Attempt to get closer by way of what is familiar to us. When we attempt to bring clarity of our own accord. “Ground” – “existence”: commonplace philosophical concepts; and especially “philosophy of existence” (see “On the History of the Concept of Existence”).²

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§ 7 The Organization of the Preliminary Reflection

We shall begin our elucidation of the core section, and especially the elucidation of the distinction between “ground” and “existence,” by way of a preliminary reflection. It approaches this distinction from “without”; yet at the same time we shall attempt to think beyond this distinction into the realm in which the confrontation with Schelling and metaphysics in general is carried out.

The preliminary reflection is organized into four parts:

Chapter 1: the conceptual-historical elucidation of “ground” and “existence.”

Chapter 2: the root of this distinction (the point of view according to which the distinguished are distinguished).

Chapter 3: the inner necessity of the distinction (from which the distinguishing {Unter-scheiden} emerges); (“the principle of opposition,” “negativity”; subjectivity).

Chapter 4: the essence of the distinction {Unterscheidung} and the particular formulations of the difference {Unterschied} in Schelling (not as something set forth in representation and thought, but the representing itself as deliberate self-dividing {Sich-Scheiden}; counter-turning, circle).

Yet the preliminary reflection nevertheless has the core section in view, indeed with the aim of displacing the interpretation of the treatise straightaway into the realm where everything is decided, and within which the individual steps are alone comprehensible. At the same time, however, the preliminary reflection looks beyond this into the possibility and necessity of an entirely different way of questioning (the question of being). The latter must, however, emerge where the questioning of metaphysics – and Schelling’s questioning in particular – have their impetus and ultimate fulfillment, even though there is no living and developed knowledge of it.

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1 1. On an accompanying page, Heidegger wrote out the excerpt: “The philosophy of nature of our time has first advanced in science the distinction between essence insofar as it exists and essence insofar as it is merely the ground of existence” (357).

2 2. Lecture in the Freiburg Kränzchen on 7 June 1941 (publication planned for the third division {TN: now in vol. 80.2} of the Collected Works).