Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial 2.B.1. A genealogy of the philosophic enlightenment in classical Greece Chapter 15: The Agathon in Plato's Republic ACADEMY | previous section | Table of Content | next section | GALLERY

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(2) It has already been noted in Phaedo that whereas things are not intelligible as they are unless they refer to their forms, these forms cannot be what they are unless they refer to an ultimate form, the Form of the Good. After the detailed exposition, in the previous section, of the "theory of forms" as expounded in Book V of the Republic, this "theory" shall be completed in Book VI in the "story of the Good", the divided line, and the allegory of the cave.

"[I]n order to get the finest possible look at things, another and longer road around would be required" (wV men dunaton hn kallista auta katidein allh makrotera eih periodoV, 504 b); beings and their being (forms) do not make sense (cannot be what they are) unless they refer to an ultimate source. Again, the idea of the Good as the source of being, of which the study is consequently the greatest learning (h tou agaqou idea megiston maqhma), is also the source of all (positive) values of existence, without which nothing is meaningful or worthwhile. In some way then Plato is not exactly "gnostic"; the presupposition here is that existence (things that exist) is fundamentally good, or at least trying to be good -- the orderedly existence -- even though existence is fundamentally bad, in Phaedo, because of the physical constraint (the thermodynamic condition of existence) that comes with it by which we are cut off from the source of being, the Good. I say, "trying to be good". In the context of the Republic, the concern with justice has resulted in the building of "the paradigm of the good polis" which "leaves us with the question why the paradigm developed should be dignified with the attribute 'good' at all. Is not the eidos of the models perhaps the form of a very bad polis?" (Voegelin, Order and History, vol. III, Plato and Aristotle, p. 112) Just as in the search for the aitia for the order of things none of the explanations offered makes sense unless ultimately grounded in a teleological extreme "Good" or "Necessary", so the form of justice, order, or a just (ordered) polis in reference to which value judgment can be rendered on the current polis, does not make sense as a standard unless it itself refers to an ultimate Standard (Good) which it incorporates. Hence the necessity of "the longer road."

The source of being is the Good which is thus the source of all positive values. Anyone when saying something is good -- as when the more refined (komyoteroV) says prudence (fronhsiV) is good (agaqon) -- necessarily presupposes "the Good". This is why "those that believe this can't point out what kind of prudence it is, but are finally compelled to say about the good." (oi touto hgoumenoi ouk ecousi deixai htiV fronhsiV, all'anagkazontai teleutwnteV thn tou agaqou fanai, 505 b10.) Just as one cannot explain why 10 is more than 8 except in the end by simply positing the concept (form) of "more" as ingrained in our mind, so those that say prudence is good cannot explain why it is good except by finally admitting the independent existence in our mind of the concept (form) of "good". Anything good presupposes the "idea of the Good": good pleasures or prudence is not good because it is pleasure, etc., for anyone has to admit that there is also bad pleasure (hdonaV kakaV). "... it is by availing oneself of it [the Good] along with just things and the rest that they become useful and beneficial." (hi dh kai dikaia kai talla proscrhsamena crhsima kai wfelima gignetai 505 a) Sallis puts it in another way: "Behind what Socrates says here is the contention that something can be beneficial only if one makes good use of it, which one can do only to the extent that one knows what is good. That is to say that the good is a kind of precondition. In the discussion now about to begin Socrates will extend this to the point where the good can be called the most fundamental pre-condition." (Being and Logos, p. 402) Thus, again, what Plato does is to see this idea of the Good presupposed in all our values as well as being the source of being -- in and of all forms. Once again, this identity is justified only given the teleological view of the cosmos and existence.

There are two kinds of "good" things: one susceptible of hypocrisy, the other not. Regarding the first: people would do (prattein), possess (kekthsqai), and enjoy (dokein) what seem to be good, i.e. what ordinary people take to be good, but are actually not good. Regarding the second: when people want to possess the good things, it's not enough that these are just taken by everyone to be good, seem to everyone to be good, the "seemingly good things" (ta dokounta); they seek the "really good things" (ta onta). The distinction between opinion (the ambiguous many) and reality (being, the "clear one") appears again in the way people pursue things, but here apparently even non-philosophers are aware of a hidden "being" behind the ambiguous "seeming" on the surface and taken for granted by most people. Thus someone would do and say what ordinary people opine to be good in order to get the good standing, influence, and power in the interpersonal realm, in the human community, that are required for the attainment of the actually good things. These things s/he strives for (e.g. a good car, a good house) would have to be actually good, not just opined to be good. So a car-salesman would present his car as possessing whatever characteristics people believe to be good but are actually not good for the safe performance of the car, but he does this to earn the money in order to buy, not the car which he has presented, but the good one he knows to be actually good with respect to safe performance. In the end everyone wants the really good, opinions and hypocrisies only applicable to the intermediary means. The problem is that people don't really know what "good" is, having only a vague, un-explicated and in-explicable idea of what it is. The source of being, being also the source of value, is what drives everything into action -- toward it, like Aristotle's final cause. The source of being is also the end of being, the end of all purposes. "This then every soul pursues and for the sake of this it does everything, and it divines that it is something, but is at a loss about it and unable to get a sufficient grasp of just what it is or to exercise a stable trust as it has about all other things." (O dh diwkei men apanta yuch kai toutou eneka panta prattei, apopanteuomenh [divining, presaging] ti einai, aporousa de kai ouk ecousa labein ikanwV ti pot'estin oude pistei crhsasqai monimwi [standing, fixed, steadfast, constant] oiai kai peri talla. 506e)

Again, this is where the issue of minor salvation (justice) disengages from that of salvation proper (major). Justice and beauty are to be pursued because they are "good". But without knowing what "good" is -- without the vision of the source of being -- one does not know in what way justice and beauty are good (dikaia te kai kala agnooumena oph pote agaqa estin; 506 - 5). This is the reason behind Socrates' warning, "There is a thing greater than justice [dikaiosune) and the other virtues (504d), and that greater thing is the measure of the less perfect ones (504c)." (Voegelin, ibid.) The bridge between the temporal (the meaning of life in the temporal as the pursuit of orderly existence -- whose ultimate goal is, of course, salvation after life -- rather than just of consumption and the pleasures associated with it) and the a-temporal (salvation after life to which enlightenment -- the vision of the Agathon -- leads) is established through the identification of the source with the end, of the source of being with the end of all values.

"What is the idea of the Agathon?... Concerning the content of the Agathon nothing can be said at all." The situation is the same as the Brahman of Upanishads, the Dao of Laotzu, or the Nibbana of the Buddhist. The source of being is No-thing (not-a-thing, at least). "That is the fundamental insight of Platonic ethics. The transcendence of the Agathon makes immanent propositions concerning its content impossible." (Voegelin, ibid.) Hence the discourse on the Agathon turns on its function as the source, "sourcing". And this only by analogy: "what looks like a child of the Good and most similar to it." (506e) So goes the dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon:

What is pointed out here is that such relationship as between, so to speak, the seeing (and knowing) subject and the seen (and known) object, presupposes a "third" which has freed this relationship into being in the first place. "The analysis of the elements of vision thus presents each of these three things, but doubled, so that what results are three pairs of elements, six elements in all. There is the power of sight and that in which sight comes-to-be, the eye, which is 'the most sunlike... of the organs'. Correspondingly, there is color and the thing to be seen (in which color is present). The third pair is what makes seeing exceptional among the senses": light and its source, the sun. "Socrates calls attention to something that is curious about this [last] element: the sun, as the cause of sight, can itself be seen." (Sallis, ibid., p. 404) Ar'oun ou kai o hlioV oyiV men ouk estin, aitioV d'wn authV oratai up'authV tauthV; "And the sun isn't sight either, but as its cause is seen by sight itself?" (508 b 10) "However, Socrates fails to mention the pain and even blindness that result if one does anything more than merely glance momentarily at the sun." (Sallis, ibid.) This tells of how difficult it is for us, by our very nature, to know the Source. "With the preparation completed, Socrates now states the analogy" (ibid.):

"The most immediate sense of the analogy is that in the intelligible region [noeton] the good is the origin of the yoke which yokes together the appropriate dyad, just as the sun is the origin of the light which yokes together the corresponding pair in the region of the visible [horaton]." However, "[w]e note that the analogues of two of the elements of vision are not mentioned in the statement of the analogy: the eye and light. We wonder, accordingly, what corresponds to these on the side of the good. We note also that the distinction previously (507 d) posed between color and the thing in which the color is present is not retained in the statement of the analogy." (Sallis, ibid., p. 405) This is answered: "the analogue of the eye is the soul, and the analogue of light is 'truth and being' (alhqeia te kai to on). It is of utmost importance to observe, in particular, what this says about the meaning of truth and being. It says that being is not an idea [form] nor even the totality of such -- that it is, rather, that in which what is known can be manifest to the knower. But that in which something (an idea) becomes manifest to a knower is just a showing in which that thing shows itself to the knower. Being is the name for (self-)showing. Furthermore, what Socrates says suggests that 'being' and 'truth' virtually name the same matter. Certainly it is clear that here truth does not mean some formal 'correspondence' between intelligence and intellected; on the contrary, it is the yoke which first brings this pair together and, hence, is what first makes possible anything like a correspondence. 'Truth' and 'being' are two names for the self-showing in which something comes into the open, into manifestness -- for the self-showing in which it becomes, as the word 'alhqeia' hints, unhidden, unconcealed." (Ibid., p. 406) Sallis is here speaking from the Heideggerian point of view.¹

"In the elaboration in which Socrates identifies the missing analogues, he also introduces another dimension into the analogy, namely the difference between daytime vision and nighttime vision (perfected and privative vision): when the thing is properly illuminated, what results is knowledge, but when the thing is not so illuminated, when it is 'mixed with darkness', then there is only opinion." (Sallis, ibid.) I have demonstrated that the darkness as in the visible (empirical) region results from the confusing multiple showing of many eidoi in one thing (e.g. in a thing's falling, Galileo's d = 1/2at² showing together with other laws governing friction) and the necessary mediation of this showing by embodiment (e.g. always something falling) which distracts, wrongly focuses the mind on particulars rather than on the same essence that shows itself in all these particulars (e.g. a thing falling and the moon orbiting around the earth, but not gravity). This has to be the real meaning of "darkness". "Especially in view of the previous consideration of knowledge and opinion (Book V), it is clear that what this distinction serves to distinguish are not two different regions of things but rather the two modes of showing of the same things: on the one hand, a mode of showing in which what shows itself shows itself wholly (i.e., shows itself as it is, i.e. is 'illuminated' in and by the showing) and, on the other hand, a mode of showing in which what shows itself is also concealed (i.e., shows itself as it is not, i.e. is 'mixed with darkness' in and through showing). That latter is a mode of showing in which what shows itself shows itself as many, rather than as one [the problem of the embodiment in particulars], and, correlatively, as not one with itself, as not wholly determinate [the problem of multiple showings in the one particular], as 'coming into being and passing away'." (Ibid., p. 406 - 7) This is the designation of the embodiment-particulars containing multiple showings. In this case, the Presocratic search for arche, the eternally Conserved behind the illusory temporaries, has with Plato shifted its focus from the materially conserved ("that it is", the "total, same amount") to the showingly conserved ("what it is", the "same laws" governing the same amount). But the former is not to be completely forgotten and will be briefly covered soon.

Sallis elaborates further: "Socrates says that the good provides truth to the thing known. What does this mean? It does not mean that a thing is first of all a thing known, which then, subsequently has truth provided to it, conferred upon it. Rather, as the previous elaboration indicated, it is only by being 'illuminated' by truth that something first comes to be knowable. The conferring of truth upon it, the provision of its truth, is what first lets it be a knowable thing (to say nothing of its being known). Its 'standing' in the truth is identical with its being knowable." (p. 409) In the Heideggerian spirit which fits extremely well in Plato's thinking here, this would mean that the Good is that which discloses, say, the laws of physics in the first place so that they can be discovered, intellected (noetized) in the second place. Again, leaving aside the presupposition by the scientific world-view of a pre-disclosure of a lived world by Dasein-ing in the first place on the basis of which a scientific disclosure of a world of eidoi (e.g. Galileo's d = 1/2at² and all the laws of physics) is made possible -- in what manner can, say, the laws of physics be said to be pre-disclosed? Consider Sallis' answer first.

"But what does it mean for something to be knowable -- in contrast to what is merely opinable or visible? It means, according to the previous considerations, that the thing shows itself as one, in contrast to that mode of showing in which something, showing itself in community, thereby shows itself as many. Thus, to say that the good confers truth means: the good confers, makes possible, that kind of showing in which something can show itself as one." (Ibid.) That is, instead of many different things falling in all the different circumstances, they are all somehow only the embodiment of one thing, d = 1/2at², in this way leading, when the particular circumstance of earth's mass is abstracted out, to Newton's inverse square law of universal gravitation, that all fallings on earth and all planets orbiting around are all embodiment of this one thing -- and this one thing (universal gravitation) thus shows itself as one. Truth in this regard means "the conferral of a showing in which a thing can show itself as one." (p. 410) But, differing from Sallis as to be seen below, I say that this is only the first sense of "being" as truth: "'being' is a name for the 'illumination' in which an idea [e.g. d = 1/2at²] can be manifest as an idea [d = 1/2at²], as determinately one [the same equation behind all the particular instances of falling]. Now we can add: it is not as though things first are, in the sense of their possessing some kind of inexplicable 'brute existence', and only then come to show themselves (either as they are or as they are not). It is not such that there is, first, a being which then, subsequently, shows itself -- so that the self-showing would be something extrinsic to being. On the contrary, the self-showing belongs to the very being of the thing [i.e. d = 1/2at² by nature shows itself thus and as one, in all instances of falling on earth]. This is to say that the determination of the meaning of being at the center of the Republic moves at a level which is prior to the distinction between showing ('appearance') and being and also prior to the distinction between essence and existence." (p. 410) The question then remains: "How does the good accomplish such conferral [in which something, the idea, can show itself as one]? In other words, what is the character of the conferring and why is it the good that is charged with it?" The answer Sallis provides will be seen to differ at least superficially from my presentation of it, because my task is to find the parallel between this "theory of forms" of Plato's and modern science, to see what Plato would say if he were living in the scientific age of today, whereas Sallis is concerned only with illuminating Plato's most difficult passage in the history of human philosophy with Heideggerian thinking. "The question requires that we pose another name for what Socrates is calling 'the good'. This other name is: 'the one' (to en)... [O]nce we recognize that the good is the one, then we can begin to understand how it is related to being and truth, that is, what it has to do with the mode of showing in which something can show itself as one. For something to show itself as one means precisely: to show itself as an image of the one. If the good is the one, then when something shows itself as one it thereby images the good. This kind of showing is such that what shows itself in the showing shows itself in the image of the good... [Thus] that the coming-forth of such an image (of the good, of the one) is identical with something showing itself as one, which, in turn, amounts to its standing in truth, i.e. being knowable, i.e. having being conferred on it. Thus, the good confers being and truth, i.e., confers a showing in which things can show themselves as one, by fathering images of itself." (p. 411)

How then, should we proceed? How is it accomplished that, say, d = 1/2at² shows itself as one in all particular instances of falling (on earth) and by what is it accomplished? We shall start by drawing from Plato's original statement. The source of being -- the Good -- is also the source of the way things are -- the source of the laws governing existence if seen from the structural perspective -- the presupposition being that good things are the way they are -- i.e. as good in the realm where they are, just (orderly) things as just (orderly) and beautiful things as beautiful -- not, of course, just because they are just and beautiful (on the level of form) but because of the "good" which prescribes the way they should be so as to be what they are as just and beautiful and good: the teleological point has to be presupposed even for forms. Seeing this teleological point is to know why anything "just" is even so good at all as to be pursued, equivalent in the structural perspective to knowing why any laws of nature, say, electro-weak force, should be as they are at all. Only then does "it intellect, know, and appear to possess intelligence." After this point no question can ever arise as to why something is. This final, teleological point for all forms (or for all laws governing existence) is pure being (to on), Being as such, Parmenidean Is as Being in the absolute sense in traditional metaphysics. Here Sallis' explicitation of how the Good allows forms to show themselves as one makes perfect sense (although he does not have to resort to this tradition) since the immediate articulation of Being is of it as always already "one". (C.f. D. G.'s Advanced Philosophical Orientation) In the previous exposition on Phaedo it is said that -- continuing the example of the search for arche, aitia in the case of electromagnetism -- the Good corresponds to the final "theory of everything" currently sought after (the variety of superstring theories being offered as best candidates) within which the Grand Unified Theory (of the three forces) will be grounded, together with gravity, i.e. deduced as logically necessary rather than accidentally so, the aitia for electromagnetism being grounded (in this sense) within this Grand Unified Theory (through the intermediary grounding of electro-weak theory). In the case of "falling", then, Galileo's d = 1/2at² is to be shown to be the manifestation of Newton's inverse square law of Universal Gravitation in this particular circumstance that is on earth (for a = g, and the derivation of this gravitational constant from Newton's law has already been demonstrated); but this Newton's law of Universal Gravitation is itself a special case of Einstein's general relativity theory, i.e. manifestation of Einstein's theory of gravity (as the effect of the curvature of space-time continuum) in the particular circumstance where effects of relativity do not show up and space-time remains absolute (low velocity). But then the general theory of relativity will be shown to be also just an aspect, together with the other general laws (the three other forces), of a truly "one" law, the truly one eidos, of which all the particular laws or eidoi (e.g. the 4 forces) are just "local" manifestations, i.e. under the current particular circumstance of low temperature and broken-symmetry. The way in which the "ultimate law" -- whatever it is -- allows all the current laws to show themselves is then symmetry-breaking and the low temperature associated with it: symmetry-breaking then corresponds to "truth" (aletheia) as the function of allowing to show forth, of unconcealment, of, more correctly, anamnesis -- or rather, symmetry-breaking opens up a gap, a lhqh: a forgetfulness of the Source to be remedied by recollection (anamnesis, a-letheia).

"The turn toward becoming" -- "becoming" in the sense of virtual reality and ambiguous showing, no longer the rejected sense of the incomplete presence of Being in the traditional metaphysical parlance, the mixture of Being with non-being -- will not give knowledge of the laws governing existence, will not permit a clear comprehension as to why things are as they are. Certainly, from Plato's (functional) perspective, seeing all different tables or different beautiful things will not permit any understanding of why they are as they are experienced, as table (-like) or as beautiful unless reference be made to "tableness" or "beautifulness" (forms), and these cannot be understood as they are, as good for daily life or good to pursue unless the final reference be made to "Good". This makes sense in the structural perspective as well, as has been made clear: paying attention only to the endless variations of changing things or natural phenomena -- without investigating what they have in common (the common "laws" that all the fallings of things, even the orbits of the planets, obey) and finally what those which all empirical variations have in common all have in common so as to necessarily be different as they are from each other under some particular circumstance (e.g. symmetry-breaking) -- will only disperse one's mind in a sea of disorderly confusions. One's intelligence (nous), the ability to understand the reason why things not just are but should be as they are, is dimmed. One "opines" the multivarious and changing reality -- this falling and that falling, "gravity" left un-intellected; the sun shining and compass pointing, electromagnetism left un-comprehended, and finally the one ultimate never thought of -- without knowing the reason why (the "should"). Again, from the perspective of salvation, this is, at the very least, the state of the planetonicity (wandering) of the soul among the multivarious things of the senses: changing opinions (doxa) up and down.

As the teleos, the final reason (aitia), and as the source of being in this sense (in the respect of showing), the idea of the Good gives truth to things known and power to the knowing because it lets forms (the being of beings) and so things (beings) be how they are as they should be and also thus allows the knowing to know what things are and should be in the first place (in Heidegger's terminology, ontological) so that it is possible to know them -- to know how they are what they are -- in the second place (ontic). Again, to know that 10 is more than 8 one must have in the first place known the (meaning of) "more" as provided by the source of being, which thus allows things to be as they are, as in "one more than another", and so for the comprehension of 10 more than 8 and the investigation of the means for this "more than", the "more than by 2". In this sense, as the final reason (teleos), the Good is Truth (aletheia) in Heidegger's sense of "unconcealment" (Unverborgenheit). And with respect to this sense we must be reminded that this unconcealing or recollecting disclosure in fact diverges into two extremes of which only one (the laws of nature) has been so far examined, the other not yet: the disclosure of a lived world through Dasein-ing by which a "nature" may first be disclosed so as to make intellection (noetization) of its laws possible in the second place.

In another sense, the Good as the source of being is not simply the source of how things are as they are and why they should be as they are, but also is the (so to speak) material source, literally their production. ton hlion toiV orwmenoiV ou monon oimai thn tou orasqai dunamin parecein fhseiV, alla kai thn genesin kai auxhn kai trofhn, ou genesin auton onta. (509b) "I think you may say that the sun not only provides what are seen with the power of being seen, but also with generation, growth, and nourishment, it [however] itself not being this generation." The budding of the distinction between "what it is" (ti estin) and "that it is" (oti estin, the foundation for the later scholastic distinction between existence and essence) is somewhat here, but the meaning of Being (Good) here is still as it is, compacted of the two sides.² Then, kai toiV gignwskomenoiV toinun mh monon to gignwskesqai fanai upo tou agaqou pareinai, alla kai to einai te kai thn ousian up'ekeinou autoiV proseinai, ouk ousiaV ontoV tou agaqou, all'eti epekeina thV ousiaV presbeia kai dunamei uperecontoV. (509 b6) "Therefore, say that not only being known [what it is] is present in the things known as a consequence of the Good, but also existence [einai, "to be"] and being [ousia, "being"] are in them besides as a result of it, the Good [however] not being being [ousia] but lying beyond being [ousia] and exceeding it in dignity and power." Three conditions of temporal existence are thus extinguished as the work of the Good: "being known" (to gignwskesqai), "to be as they are"; and "existence" or "to be" (einai); and "being" (ousia), here seeming to be a general designation for the totality of the conditions of existence, i.e. compacted of the second sense (with respect to material or existential conservedness) and the third (with respect to showing as "what"). Here Sallis' conclusion is simply to be rejected: "How is the conferral of truth related to this further conferral in which the good confers being [einai and ousia]? If the conferral of truth is understood in its fundamental character, i.e. as the conferral of a kind of showing, then what here looks like the addition of a further kind of conferral proves, in the end, to be only a further word about the conferral already spoken of in the first statement. With regard to the thing known, the two statements -- that the good confers truth and that it confers being -- say the same thing." (p. 409) Not true. Thus, in modern cosmology, as will be seen, the breaking of symmetry which generated the laws of nature (the one eidos showing up in many eidoi now) was at once the moment of the generation of all the energy that the universe is made of -- but this energy is virtual energy, virtual reality, i.e. neither being nor non-being nor both nor neither.

We then conclude with Sallis' explanation of "knowing": "[Socrates] says that the good gives the power (dunamiV) to the one who knows. What does power mean here?... It means: power of knowing, i.e. what one needs in order to know. But what does it meant to know? One can know only what is knowable. To be knowable means: to show itself as one [i.e. all fallings and orbitings showing themselves as just one F = G(m₁m₂/r²)]. So, to know (the knowable) means, to gather what shows itself into its appropriate openness, to gather it in such a way that its showing itself as one is brought to fulfillment [so Newton has 'gathered' from all data of showing and orbiting into the one 'inverse square law' which shows itself as one in all these many instances]. To know means to take up that showing by which the good makes images of itself [that showing by which the one ultimate law of everything makes image of itself, through symmetry-breaking, in these diverse laws of nature], to let oneself into the movement of that showing in such way as to lead it to its fulfillment [this is doing 'theoretical physics']. To know is not only to imitate the good but also to assist in the birth of the children of the good. This is the fundamental sense of Socratic midwifery [this is doing theoretical physics in the spirit of scientific enlightenment]."

"How specifically is man granted the capacity to engage in this gathering? What form does this capacity take? The form of it which we have come across again and again, especially in the Phaedrus and Cratylus, is logos. In logos a gathering has always already been initiated, and in speaking we resume that gathering." It shall be seen that, as gathering, language and speech are the beginning of (one dimensional) representation, and that, in this representation, moving from qualitative to quantitative, it becomes possible to gather up the laws of nature and the truth of existence and the truth of the Universe in knowledge, in equations, in anamnesis. Finally, "Socrates says... that the good is 'beyond being'. To be beyond being [ousia] means: to be beyond (outside of) all showing in which something would show itself as one. Hence, Socrates is saying that it belongs to the good not to show itself as one; the one does not show itself as one. This means, in turn, that the good always shows itself as it is not (since it is one -- even the one) [so the 'one' law always only as, e.g. the 'four forces']. The good shows itself only through images. This why Socrates was so insistent on speaking not about the good itself but about its offspring." (p. 411 - 2) Thus in all mystic traditions the Source always remains unspeakable. We will see if this is correct.

Footnotes:

1. C.f. Sein und Zeit, 44. Dasein, Erschlossenheit und Wahrheit.

2. Is the distinction between essence and existence in Western philosophy an Islamic import? Guerrière likes to think that the grammatical structure of a language entirely determines its speakers’ philosophical ability. Basing himself on A. C. Graham, who has made the observation that, by virtue of the undifferentiation in the Greek verb “to be” (einai) between its copulative function and its existential signification, Greek philosophers found it difficult to make the distinction between “existence” and “essence” (which is rather standard nowadays in the philosophical parlance; copulative -> essence; existential -> existence), Guerrière reiterates Graham’s conclusion that “it was in Arabic, which sharply separates the existential and copulative functions, that the distinction between existence and essence emerged.” (Unreason Within Reason: Essays on the Outskirts of Rationality, Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1991; Ch. 5, “Being in Linguistics and Philosophy”, p. 85.) We, on the other hand, assert that here Plato, in his attempt to unify the Italic Pythagorean and the Ionian strand – plus the Italic Parmenides – of Hellenic philosophy, is already making a preliminary distinction between what will later become “existence” (from the materiality of a thing) and what “essence” (from the form of a thing). Despite the limitations of its grammatical structure, the overabundant richness of any given language always allows its speakers to get around these limitations and to articulate metaphysical insights. Aristotle tries hard to use einai to express and further elaborate on the preliminary distinction between existence (hoti esti) and essence (ti esti). tou einai mh todi h todi all’aplwV thn ousian, h tou mh aplwV alla ti twn kaq’auto h kata sumbebhkoV: “the substance being not this or that [i.e. like essentiality], but absolutely [existentiality], or not absolutely but something according to itself [i.e. its essential attribute] or according to accident [i.e. its inessential attribute].” (Cited by Graham, p. 85) eti eteron to ti esti kai oti esti deixai. o men oun orismoV ti esti dhloi, h de apodeixiV oti esti tode kata toude h ouk estin: “It is a different matter to show what it is and to show that it is. Now definition [lit. distinguishing] shows what it is, and demonstration [lit. pointing out] that it is or is not, this according to this.” (Ut sup. 92b25; cited by Graham, p. 86; note that Aristotle’s hoti esti comprehends in fact both “the existence of X” and “its being in fact what it is defined as being.”) Interestingly Guerrière is of the opinion that metaphysics, as we have known it in the West, requires precisely such “confusion” between existence and essence as found in Greek in order to flourish – because “being” is a concept necessarily compacted of both sides –, and that, consequently, the Classical Chinese, who expressed the existential with “have” and the copulative by mere juxtaposition of two nominatives (with at times a particle at the end of the sentence), cannot have conceived of true metaphysics. The following chapters of course would prove this false. Graham, on the other hand, provides an illuminating summary of how the attempted distinction between existence and essence evolves since the Greeks through the Arabs and the late Latinists until the modern thinkers in English, French, and German. As noted, “in Arabic there is no convenient word which combines both [copulative and existential] functions” (p. 87). It uses kana “be, become” for the existential, and various juxtapositional means for the copulative, function (ibid.). Arabic philosophers usually translate to einai with wojud ﺠﻮﺩو “to be found.” “The Arabic versions of Aristotle are very literal, yet because of the structure of the language they transform him at one stroke into a philosopher who talks sometimes about existence, sometimes about quiddity, never about being” (p. 88). In the beginning, the Latin essentia, first coined to translate ousia, does not have the restricted meaning of “essence” (and Boethius still often uses substantia). After the re-introduction of Aristotle through Arabic sources into Latin Europe in the 12th and 13th century, under this Arabic influence “the old word essentia finally detached from its historical connexion with ousia and sharply separated from substantia. Mediaeval philosophers, for better or worse, are now like the Arabs equipped to speak of the essence or quiddity of a thing, not merely of what it is (ti esti) and what it is to be it (to ti en einai). In the second place the sharp Arabic distinction between existence and quiddity is partially obscured.... The mediaeval absorption of essence within the concept of Being is already implicit in the Latin Avicenna and Averroes, just as the Arabic refusal to embrace existence on the one hand and quiddity on the other within any common concept is already implicit in the Arabic Aristotle” (p. 90 – 1). Finally, in English and French, where “to be” and être are largely of the copulative meaning, “to exist” and exister come to dominate the existential meaning. “The Latin exsistere, existere, (‘step out from’) settled into its present meaning very gradually. For Alexander of Hales (c. 1175 – 1245) it was still ex alio sistere ‘to stand out from others’.... but by the next century Ockham (c. 1280 – 1349), for example, is discussing the distinction as between esse existere or existere and essentia or entitas. The word ‘exist’ is perhaps the most valuable legacy of the ontological vocabulary of scholasticism, since it illuminates the distinction at the level of the verb, while essentia and quidditas are nouns which illuminate it only as a metaphysical distinction between concepts” (p. 92).