George Rossolatos Lectures tic Philosophers 1997

8/9/2019 George Rossolatos Lectures tic Philosophers 1997 www.grossolatos.com

1/29

1

LECTURES & LECTURE NOTES ON PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS, ESSEXUNIVERSITY 1997

George Rossolatos

LECTURE 1 ANAXIMANDER AND THE APEIRONLECTURE 2 PARMENIDES AND THE WILL TO UNITYLECTURE 3 HERACLITUS AND THE LOGOCENTRIC NECESSITYLECTURE 4 EMPEDOCLES & DIVINE STRIFE

Kirk- Raven -

.24

.

.27 .28

A .. ,..35 .

.39 ,i.ePhanes is capable of impregnating, that is bringing into unconcealment whatlies concealed (Nyxta).

1

} Timaeus 38 B:.

.73 ..71 .

hi .2 . &.

1,

.

,

.(,310). ...l ether, la presence du present (Dissemination 349).2 (.17, .25, , 158,13)

Aussi, a linstant ou sentame la surface dassistance, ou souvre louverture et se presente la

presentation, une scene etait. A LIMPARFAIT. ETAIT DEJA EN PLACE, QUOIQUEPRESENTEMENT INVISIBLE, AU TRAVAIL SANS SE DONNER A VOIR, SANS SE LAISSER

DIRE PAR AUCUN ENONCE PRESENT, AVANT LE PREMIER ACTE (Dissemination 364).


2/29

2

Cf.Le Desir de l etre p.48: Le premier de tous le dieux, cest lAmour (Eros) quelle(la Justice) concut.Parmenide.

.101-2..13 ... .( , . .298 , .

ANAXIMANDROS ,

, . , ..

Pharmacy or Apeiron? : Le pharmakon serait une substance, avec tout que cemot pourra connoter, en fait de matiere aux vertus occultes, de profondeur crypteerefusant son ambivalence a lanalyse, preparant deja lespace de lalchimie, sinous ne devions venir plus loin a la reconnaitre comme lanti-substance elle-meme: ce qui resiste a tout philosopheme, lexcedant indefiniment comme non-identite, non-essence, non-substance, et lui fournissant par la meme linepuisableadversite de son fonds et de son absence de fond. (J.Derrida,La Disseminationp.79, Edition du Seuil 1972),. .111 .

refers to beings (ta onta) ;manifold beings in totality;this word indicatesthe source from which the fragment speaks, not merely that which itexpresses(p.28);Heidegger.Xronou What is represented in the word Time is only the vacuity of an illusory timederived from beings conceived as objects.

Genesis,fthora Anaximander could not have applied these words in a conceptualfashion since they are first used in this sense in Plato and Aristotle. Conceptuallanguage is first possible on the basis of the interpretation of Being as Idea, andindeed from then on it is unavoidable.Genesis and fthora are to be thought from phusis ,as ways of luminous rising anddecline.Genesis= origination, i.e abandonment of concealment and proceeding intounconcealment.Fthora= departure and descent into concealment of what has arrived there out ofunconcealment.Adikia= What is adikon? Absence of dike. What is out of joint?In the between(while) ,what lingers awhile is joined.Everything that lingers awhile stands indisjunction .To disjunction adikia belongs.


3/29

3

Didonai dike= How can what lingers awhile for the time being give what it does nothave, that is jointure? The jointure belongs to whatever lingers awhile, which in turnbelongs in the jointure. THE JOINTURE IS ORDER. They let order belong (by thesurmounting) of disorder,p.44.cf.Kirk -Raven p.250,the proem to the Parmenidian fragment:

There are the gates to the paths of Night and Day,in between a stone threshold,Standing high on the air, closing with doors of immense proportions AND PUNISHING JUSTICE HOLDS THE HINGES.

tisis= surely tisis can mean penalty,but it must not.. Tisis is ESTEEM. To esteemsomething means to heed it., TO TAKE SATISFACTORY CARE OF WHAT ISESTEEMABLE IN IT. They let reck (my note: from reck-on,see dictionnary) belong.Xreon= That which lingers awhile in presence lingers kata to xreon; TO USE..As to xreon it is without boundaries, to apeiron.The XREON enjoins matters in such a way that whatever is present lets order andreck belong. The xreon lets such enjoining prevail among present beings and sogrants them the manner of their arrival- AS THE WHILE OF WHATEVER LINGERS

AWHILE.

Heidegger: Whatever has its essence in such arrival and departure we would liketo call becoming and perishing,which is to say transiency rather than being; becausewe have for a long time been accustomed to set Being opposite Becoming, as ifBecoming were a kind of nothingness and did not even belong to Being; and thisbecause Being has for a long time been understood to be nothing else than sheerperdurance. NEVERTHELESS, IF BECOMING IS, THEN WE MUST THINK BEINGSO ESSENTIALLY THAT IT DOES NOT MERELY INCLUDE BEING IN AVACUOUS CONCEPTUAL MANNER, BUT RATHER IN SUCH A WY THAT BEINGSUSTAINS AND CHARACTERIZES BECOMING (genesis-fthora) IN ANESSENTIAL APPROPRIATE MANNERp.31, ..46, . (, ).THE SIMPLE TRANQUILITY OF BODILY COMPOSURE MAY ACCOMPANY THEMADNESS OF VISION (p.36)genesis : PAR-EON ,BEING ALONGSIDE WITH...; What is past and what is tocome also become present as outside the unconcealment. WHAT PRESENTSITSELF AS NON-PRESENT IS WHAT IS ABSENT.

Heid. P.38: Aristotle did not have to interpret substance, hypokeimenon, on thebasis of the subject of a predicate phrase, because the essence of substance,ousia, in the sense of PAR-OUSIA, was already granted. (MY NOTE: cf. Primary

substance=hypokeimenon,ie man horse, secondary substance=ousia, theunqualified substratum).

Cf. Plato Timaeus 30 A ... ( ) .(. .108 , , .34 C-D : () (. , ) , . 53 B. .127. (cf.Heideggers counterargument according to the archaic use of the words in Homer).

What is resentl resent lin ers awhile.IT ENDURESINAPPROACH AND WITHDRAWAL.


4/29

4

Kirk p.129: Recompense (Diels trans., penalty-Nietzsches translation0 isirreparable.Time depends on every single occasion. E.g The injustice of the nighttowards the day.Holscher p.298-99: The injustice which brings the cycles to an end is compensatedin a larger cycle ,which has its beginning and end in the limitless which directseverything.p.300 The schema of Anaximanders thought was the contrast of the finite with theEternal.He sees finitude as encroachment of the finite on finite. FATE IS SENT NOT BYTIME BUT BY X.The New Rhetoric p.97: When loci relating to order are reduced to loci of quantity,that which is regarded more anterior is more durable,stable,general..137,.The idea of intermediate substances surely arose in the first instance out ofAristotles obvious bewilderment at Anaximanders concept of an originativematerial qualified as nd as divine and all-encompassing (Kirk, Some

problems in Anaximander p.329).

WHAT IS TO APEIRON?a) Simplicius The arche and element of beings, the oppositions inhere in the

substratum ( ), .

b) Hippolytus It is eternal and ageless, container of all worldsc) pseudo-Plutarch The cause of all coming-to-be(genesis) and passing-away

(fthora).d) Aristotle Physics 4 20311 t contains everything and dominates

everything...this is the divine.

Immortal (athanaton) Imperishable (anolethron) . IT ( is) refers to ti(indeterminate) and not to(determinate)Holscher. Aristotle must have thought thatthe apeiron must contain actually or potentially the oppositesKirk p.332

Timaeus 37 D-E; Wherefore he planned to make a movable image of Eternity, andas he set in order the Heaven, of that Eternity which abides in Unity he made aneternal image... that which we have called Time.Timaeus 38 A : For we say that it is or was or will be , whereas, in truth ofspeech ( ) is alone is the appropriate term.

.

. (cf.Physics 187a27: , ).lscher .139p.296 (in his article) : It is clear that the opposites belong to the diakrisis schema.Cf. His article Anaximander and the beginnings of Greek Philosophy:P297 In the pseudo-Plutarchian extract the rise of the worlds and their kosmoi issimilarly followed by a sentence about becoming and decaying; it says that both areeternal while kosmoi return periodically.

Midway between the Being which remains always the same and the Being which is

transient and divisible in bodies he(Demiurgus) blended a third form of Beingcompounded out of twain that is to say, out of the Same and the Other. (Timaeus 35A ,cf.Sophist 244-245).


5/29

5

Psyche 50 C: ....

) (offspring), 52 c (fleets)

, .)

, 51 , , .52 -C : ,

, ,

...

. cf.Aristotle, Physics 210a10: , , , , ., . .111, ,3,11-.5 .. cf IRIGARAY READER, P.17: IN-STANT- translated asimmediate, could also be translated as immanent. It is the other side of extase, thatwhich stands inside itself, and corresponds to the non-existant French word en-stase. It appears notably in the expression extase instante, which appears to be a

contradiction in terms, but functions as a way of referring to the horizon of sexualdifference, in which male culture will no longer need to transcend the feminine inorder to maintain its subjectivity.)

LECTURE 1 ANAXIMANDER AND THE APEIRON

Can the Anaximander fragment still say something to us? By what authority shouldit speak?Only because it is the oldest? In themselves the ancient and the antiquitarian haveno weight.(3Heidegger); ANSWER p.38: Ta Eonta is a word which,while not yet spoken, is the

unspoken in thinking which addresses all thinking.THIS WORD NAMES THATWHICH FROM NOW ON, WHETHER OR NOT IT IS UTTERED , LAYS A CLAIMON ALL WESTERN THINKING.p.18: What once occurred in the dawn of our destiny would then come as what onceoccurred ,that is, as the Eschaton, at the departure of the long-hidden destiny ofBeing.

3 Heidegger , Early Greek Thinking p.16


6/29

6

How do we get to what is said in the saying , so that it might rescue the translationfrom arbitrariness?Cf Phaedrus 274 C :akoen gecho legein ton proteron.TO DALITHES AUTOIISASIN.Derrida, Dissemination p.83: La verite de lecriture, cest-a-dire la non-verite, nous

ne pouvons la decouvrir en nous-memes par nous-memes. ET ELLE NEST PASLOBJET DUNE SCIENCE , SEULEMENT DUNE HISTOIRE RECITEE, DUNEFABLE REPETEE.

We are gathered here in order to pay heed to the initiators of what came to becalled Western Philosophy.What does it mean to pay heed to? Following Heidegger,we translate this phrase as takingcare of ,as maintaining within the presence ofunconcealment. What lies in unconcealment here, what lies before us, is thebeginning of systematic thinking in its embryonic form. And it is because this modeof thinking is premature that it is close to birth. Historically speaking, or betterhistoriographically speaking, we stand at the end of what came into life with thePresocratics. So, the only we can do is gaze back at what they held into view and try

to catch a fleeting glimpse.What incites us to take this look is not a venerable feeling of dogmaticreconstitution ,but rather a deep iconoclastic attitude towards what is old. However,what is old is as new as its recurrence allows it to be. Throughout the prolongedhistory of Philosophy, the Presocratics have always been referred to as thepathbreakers, as the adventurers of thought. They are considered as the transitionfrom popular mythological beliefs to scientific questioning , however superficial thisdistinction may be. And i say this because the ancient mythologemes formed asymbolic language, which concealed as much as it revealed and to which accesswas granted only to the initiated.It is not mere chance that both mythos4 and theGreek word for initiated ,ie muemenos, share the common theme mu-. (Platos

mythological account of the origin of the world in Timaeus: GOD BROUGHT THEWORLD INTO ORDER OUT OF DISORDER. GOD=APEIRON, BROUGHT=CAMEINTO BEING, ORDER=ORDER OF TIME, CONJUNCTION,DISORDER=DISJUNCTION, EONTA, DIVINE WILL=ACCORDING TONECESSITY

5)before becoming= nothing, me on

In this mini-presentation we shall be concerned with five prominent thinkers from thePresocratic era, and these are : Anaximander, Heraclitus , Parmenides ,Empedocles and Anaxagoras.

Given that our point of departure is Anaximander, we should address a plausible

question, which was hinted upon a while ago. Can the Anaximander fragment stillsay something to us? By what authority can it speak? Only because it is the OLDest? In themselves the antiquitarian and the old have no weight. In such a rhetoricalfashion Heidegger initiates his readers into his way of heeding.At the same time,he undercuts rhetoric by redeeming himself from every quantitative considerationand piety ensuing thereupon. What is old does not need reverence. It needs to betaken care of. But in order to take care of Anaximander we must first be acquaintedwith him, listen to him. We must listen to our predecessors. For they hold fast towhat is truthful, said Plato in Phaedrus. This dictum certainly incites us to stretch

4No other western civilization was dominated to such an extent from a developped mythological

tradition (Kirk, Myth: Its meaning and function in ancient and other cultures, Cambridge 1978,p.250).5 Leucippus inherited Anaximanders rationale: nothing happens at random, but everything from a

reason and by necessity(fr.B2)


7/29

7

our ears and try to be weary of what is revealed in- between the whirling air and thecochlea. What is constituted in this auditory framework is what concerns ushere.What needs to be taken care of is the following phrase or fragment:

BUT THAT FROM WHICH THINGS ARISE ALSO GIVES RISE TO THEIRPASSING AWAY, ACCORDING TO WHAT IS NECESSARY; FOR THINGSRENDER JUSTICE AND PAY PENALTY TO ONE ANOTHER FOR THEIRINJUSTICE, ACCORDING TO THE ORDINANCE OF TIME.

The so-called Anaximander fragment has been variously interpreted,so much fromancient authors like Simplicius, Hippolytus, Plutarch and Aristotle as from laterphilologists mainly, like Diels & Kranz, who laid the foundations for modern scholarlyresearch into Presocratic philosophy, Burnet, the renowned Oxford translator of thePlatonic texts, Gregory Vlastos ,Martin Heidegger and others.

Almost all of these interpreters agree upon one thing: that the Anaximander fragment

is a quest for a first principle, an ARCHE as is called in Ancient Greek. Apart fromthe dispute which surrounds the matter of whether this word was in use duringAnaximanders time or it was attributed to the fragment from the Peripatetic School,that is Aristotle and his disciples, we should stress the importance of ARCHE as aword that stands for the origin of all things and connotes relevant meanings such aspower, authority and necessity.Simplicius notes in his Physics that Anaximander called the origin(ARCHE) andelement of all things(ONTON) the infinite (APEIRON) andHippolytus stresses that he (Anaximander) was the first to give the origin(ARCHE)such a name (i.e APEIRON).This information is not cited for the sake of historiographical considerations, whichleave in their greatest part the interpretative task aside ,while counting on the clarityand univocity of what is referred to, but for the sake of illustrating the treatment theword ARCHE received from later commentators, who although in historical proximityto Anaximander, were so far from taking care of his already antiquated saying. Thissaying concerns the then newly-emergent discipline of cosmology, which came toreplace the popular cosmogonies and the authors which had been elevated to thestatus of authority, like Hesiod , Homer and Pherekydes.

As the words themselves suggest, the distinction concerns the transition from themythopoetic account of the origin of the world , i.e Hesiods account from TheogonyIn the beginning there was Chaos...and from Chaos arose Night and Erebus andthen Aether and Dayand so forth...to the rationalized account of the origin of the

world out of primary natural elements, most dominantly fire, earth, water, air. Whatis noteworthy about Anaximander is that he does not refer at all to any particularelements in order to explain the origin of the world and this was noticed even byAristotle, who used to refer to all thinkers antedating Socrates as Physicists(Physikoi), due to their aforementioned preoccupation. Simplicius insisted thatAnaximander says that neither water nor any other from the so-called elements isthe APEIRON, but some other substance from which the heavens and the worldsthat are in them sprung forth.

For Anaximander the origin of the world is the Apeiron, that is the infinite. Theopening line of the fragment refers to this first principle and posits us immediately atthe heart of Anaximanders thought. What is contestable about this word is the

plural number in which that from which appears in the original text: we read exon


8/29

8

i genesis6.The that refers to eonta , that is beings ,and consequently birth-genesis

is attributed to them.Heidegger stresses that eonta is a word that lays claim on allWestern thinking. Given that the apeiron is the first principle and place of origin, weinfer that beings and the infinite are the two sides of the same coin. It istempting to assume that the apeiron is equivalent to the Heraclitean eternal fire, as

both suggest the unity in multiplicity, or the sameness that pierces through thetransformation between opposites. Aristotle in his Physics described it as thatwhich dominates and contains everything..the divine(cf.Metaphysics 983b24: ).But that something has already beeninterpreted as the beings, while the fragment refers to that as the origin of beings.Beings, thus, arise out of themselves. Apeiron is nothing else but the in itself , ofitself and for itself, the infinite cause of coming-into-being and perishing of itself,while the in-itself is not a substratum that underpins the transformation betweenopposites, but the opposites themselves in their self-transformation.The Apeiron isnot separated from beings and conjoined thereafter, as in a manner of contrastbetween the Infinite and the finite, or the difference between Being and beings(although cf.Holscher p.298 ft.43: Cherniss thinks wrongly that the plural ex on

indicates the plurality of the arche, which would then be a mixture of all materialsas in AnaxagorasWhy is this so since Anaximander does not qualify Apeiron asconsisting in certain materials?). The deprivative A- does not suggest anunbridgeable absence from the transient realm of beings, but rather the very core ofbeings as finite (peperasmena) in their infinite transformation. The A- is notsomething that could belong to eonta as an additive feature to be striven for. The A-manifests the plenitude of Eon in its infinite fragmentation. But the fragments do notbelong somewhere else.The Apeiron would not be a CONTAINER if it did not containbeings. Beings are self-contained in their multiplicity.Simplicius ,writing under theinfluence of Theophrastus,the latter writing under the influence of Aristotle, could notconceive of this assertion as he was still conveying the seeds of a prolongedtradition that derived from Platos seminal separation between the Forms and thebeings partaking in them.He misinterprets the Apeiron as having separate reality, ifthis Platonic language be permitted, as is explicitly stated in the opening of thefragment, etera tina fusis.If this be granted, the question as to how it is possiblethat the Apeiron be other than what it already is, thus revealing the possibility ofchange, arises. The very language in which the phrase is written suggests itsimplausibility: Other nature. How can genesis belong to the Apeiron since it is onlymet within the province of eonta, that is transience? If it had indeed come into being,then another Apeiron should be presupposed and so on ad infinitum .Here, perhaps,Heraclitus is more up-to-date than ever: ALL IN ONE , ONE IN ALL (cf.Heidegger:Jointure belongs to whatever lingers awhile, which in turn belongs in jointure).

The rest of the fragment can be interpreted in the light of these considerations:Necessity is attributed to the transience of eonta according to the order of time.What is necessary in this transience? That it be sustained, that is that eonta followthe pattern of birth and death and it is precisely in this manner that metaphysics andphysics overlap. Metaphysics is a giving-account-of-physis, of birth and death, ofbecoming. Eonta come into being and pass away according to their necessity, whichis immanent and cosmic. Temporality conveys this eternal rule in order.As Heideggerinterprets the while grants order to what lingers awhile, or the apeiron conjoinseonta in their succession. TIME is the precondition for the understanding of the

6 The paraphrase starts with ex on, while the singular physis apeiros precedes. Hence, ex on

cannot refer neither to the apeiron nor to tyhe heavens and the skies. These plurals do not referimmediately to the infinite, but to the opposites that sprout from it (apokrinintai) (Th. Veikos, The

Presocratics, p.58).


9/29

9

aletheia of beings, the emergence from absence into presence, it is the HORIZON inwhich they are understood as what they are.

However manifest the Aristotelian influence may be, that is the interpretation ofpresence as the jointure of what was and what will be, as being-alongside (pareon),

Heidegger makes plain that parousia is the bringing forward into unconcealment ofwhat was and will be in their absence.Kirk claims that Aristotles interpretation ofApeiron as intermediate substance arose out of his bewilderment at Anaximandersthought. Absence means from-Being (apo to On ,ap-on). In these respects,presence brings forth absence, that is whatever discloses beings as being side byside, discloses them from them-selves(also examine the self: tauton inAristotle). A-peiron (also read ap-eiron, from irony) is Ap-ousia insofar asbecoming is parousia, that is being coming out of itself

7. Mythology had already

revealed this tremendous and unshakable truth: Day was born out of Night(Heideggers ANS LICHT KOMMEN) according to the Hesiodian model, phanerosis ,coming-into-being, out of ab-sence,from-being. This self-subsistent infinite processwas captured in Anaximanders words: exes i genesis, from which the coming-into-

being. The feminine pronoun es refers to the Arche, that is the Apeiron, andtherefore cannot be enclosed within the explanatory set of the ontical categories ofbeing and not-being. Moreover, it does not locate Being in absence. Being isBecoming out of itself into itself without any further qualification.(cf. Ft.2)

Thus, Anaximander was the first to conceptualize the principle of Becoming asequivalent to Being and time as the locus of appearance and disappearanceaccording to its inherent order and necessity. Infinity does not reside in absence,according to this model, on the contrary absence is a mode of becoming out ofitself

8. Ta eonta are not contrasted to Being, in an unbridgeable manner, but rather

they are what they have always been, self-subsistent fragments.

The INFINITE cannot be said either to be or to not to be. It can only be taken care ofby listening attentively to its blowing into.

7 A kind of stasis is already manifest in the Presocratic conception of physis as abiding emergence.

But this standing in itselfis not a static state but an ecstatic process whereby the hidden (cf.Nietzsches

hidden something) stands out in unconcealment and nevertheless continues to stand in itself, as the

dynamic generating groundof what is made to stand out (W.Marx p.xxv). Physis as an appearing

presence is thus related to an absence without light(W.Marx 141,also 148: absence= mode of

concealment). The infinite is something other than the elements from which they arise (Aristotle,

Physics 204b 24-29). The shift to the plural (allillois) can mean only that the Boundless is explicitly

thought of as a plurality (G.Vlastos, Equality and justice in early Greek cosmologies, in D.F.Furley,

Studies in Presocratic philosophy, p.73). It is like nothing so much as that sea of dissimilitude into

which, in the myth of Platos Politicus, the cosmos is periodically in danger of sinking..Affiliated to

Aristotles prote arche. Materia prima, the substrate which is the indeterminate potentiality of all

properties, none of which it has actually...there is at any moment an infinite number of such worlds, all

of which arise from and pass away into the unlimited which encompasses them all.., ,

,guides and encompasses all things.. (H.F.CHERNISS: The characteristics and effects of

presocratic philosphy, p.4, also cf.p.8, the contrast between the Hesiodian Chaos and the Apeiron, the

first being equivalent to achaotic vacuum (??), the second being a plenum, positive and active).8

INFINITY in general does not come about by the sublation of finitude in general:the truth is rather

that the finite is only this, through its nature to become itself the infinite. The infinte is its affirmativedetermination , that which it truly is in itself. Thus the finite has disappeared in the infinite, and what is,

is nothing but the infinite (HEGEL, Logic I 126 (138) ).


10/29

10

LECTURE 2PARMENIDES AND THE WILL TO UNITY

Le meme penseur de lEtre immobile et du nous rationnel qui saisit fermement

lImmuable (lEtre qui ne souffre pas chez Melissos fait echo au coeur sanstremblement de la verite chez Parmenide,p.50.Mais contrairement a la joie delhomme qui seleve vers lEtre que decrit Parmenide ,Melissos envisage la tristessede celui qui,quoi quil fasse,restera exlu de lEtre quiil ne peut pas acceullir..),semble contraint a admettre le mouvement de la vie et par suite la necessite , pourlhomme, etre doue de raison et vivant mortel tout a la fois , de venir vers lEtre avecautre chose que la Raison Pure.La philosophie de lEtre ne va pas, chezParmenide, sans une psychologie de lexistence et de la vie.Pour penser lEtre immobile, eternel et fini, Parmenide fait essentiellement appel ala fermete de lintellect p44.Lhomme est entraine(carried away) envers la realite absolue par la

fougue(impulse) de son thymos , de son coeurp.45face au vrai lhomme eprouve une foi veritable (pistis alethes).Si le role de la Raison est capital, dans la mesure ou lEtre se decouvre au nous, oule nous est le lieu de la revelation de lEtre, une place importante est cependantliaissee aux facultes non directement rationnelles.UNE FOIS ENCORE PARMENIDEREFUSE DE PENSER LETRE EN TERMES DE FROIDE RAISON. (Face auxfragments 1-6:La persuasion est le chemin de la persuasion car il suit la verite)

. .65 .Cf.Krell: Intimations of mortality p.86: Heideggers reference to vision is compelled

to become part of the destructuring of the ontological tradition..He also identifies it


11/29


12/29

12

The next line refers to this something as the destined place. This is the way of themulti-named or multiply revealed (poly-fimon)God (daimon). Parmenides recites hispoem as if in a manner of lived experiences, something like Descartes suddenillumination, which we infer from the reference to himself as the one who is carriedby the horses, in the second line (mesodon bisan..).This way raises the man fromevery city to knowledge, it brings the light of knowledge (ferei eidota fota),line 3.Butit also conceals knowledge. One must be ready for gaining access to the realm ofthe One that unifies the illusory multiplicity. This readiness is yielded by the practiceof dialectic, which evades the common-sense assumptions that bind mortals to anearthly life-pattern. THE REALM OF BECOMING AND APPEARANCES CANNOTBE IDENTIFIED WITH DETERMINATE BEING, THUS WE CANNOT SAY OF ITTHAT IT IS THIS OR THAT, WHEREAS BEING IS IDENTIFIED WITH CERTAINIMMOBILE PROPERTIES THAT BESTOW PERMANENCE UPON IT. But how canParmenides escape the charge of petitio principii? Isnt the result he reaches just theassumption he was working with? But this is inevitable, as it is evidenced from thepoem: You have to learn everything, the silent heart of circular truth and the falseopinions of the mortals How are we to distinguish between the two modes of

thinking, that which is truly and falsely? As against Xenophanes, Parmenidesconceives of the One as finite and the multiplicity as infinite. He also conceives of themultiplicity as finite, so long as it is viewed from the standpoint of the whole, thusreduced to partia totalis. In Platos Parmenides the view that phenomena are infinitein that they suffer alterations is put forward, only to be concluded with the remarkthat they are finite as well, because they are enclosed within the boundaries of theOne. What is called for in the poem is the revelation of this oneness, which can onlybe shown under the auspices of Justice. Nevertheless, trickery is employed in orderto enter the gates where Truth resides. Trickery only achieves to create a vastCHASM between truth and falsity, which does not permit entrance to the uninitiated.Its circular character manifests what remains concealed in the way tounconcealment. Heidegger suggests that we must be attentive to the duality of Being

and beings, although he does not qualify what this duality amounts to. Duality refersto opposites, although here there is no case of two distinct opposites, each beingone. It is not a matter of the One that is different from ones, which implies that thereis another One by recourse to which the difference is measured. The One is not anaggregate either, as the parts from which it would be aggregated would themselvesbe ones, thus presupposing its existence. Parmenides, still in the homonymousPlatonic dialogue, stresses that existence involves time and time involves change.Insofar as the One cannot change, as it would then become other than it already is,we infer that it cannot exist. But this is antiphatical since the multiple ones that arepredicated of the One exist. How then could the non-existent be predicated of what

(10105, . ,

. 2,6). , (

), ()(101125).

,

(101130).= .

, , ,

, ,

( 102425). Fusis kruptesthai filei (Heraclitus fr.123). This

aphorism means for Heidegger that every luminous presentation is related to ane pervaded by darkness

(W.Marx p.142) Untruth belongs to original truth, to the disclosure of Dasein, because Dasein-as a

result of its essential immersion in beings- must again and again overcome disguise and concealment in

order to come to the discovery of beings(WM 148). Mais il ne suffit pas de rappeler la presence, de

faire apparaitre lair lui-meme, a supposer que cela soit possible, pour effacer loubli, lillusion,

lerreur (Dissemination 349). Cf. Aristotles Metaph. Quoting ... : There animals, bug there is no suchthing as animality AND Attentifs a ce qui presente nous ne pouvons voire sa presence (Derrida,

ibid).


13/29

13

is in existence? But in existence means within the boundaries of the all-encompassing One as aforementioned. And since this something is referred to, thenit cannot be nothing. In this way the paradoxical nature of the duality, which is not aduality in the strict sense, is established. The riddle that surrounds the duality cannotbe hinted at, unless recourse to a transcendental stratification is granted, asattempted by Plato for example and his theory of the separate realms of existence.But this method does not allow for logical proof and rests on literary devices, whilesuffering from infinite regress.As it was aforementioned, the way to Truth is not revealed solely through Reason, asthe object of the logical analysis is foreclosed in thymos, that is will. Parmenidesholds that overabundant joy stems from the will to unity

10, which is the proper task of

life, as against his successor Melissos, for whom this will is the source of despairand the will-to-nothingness, to use a familiar Nietzschean expression.It is thymosthat creates an amalgam between dialectic and rhetoric, the multiplicity of referentialstrategies and what they refer to.Conviction is indispensable to the way of truth. Onehas to find ones way through the grand forest that shelters Being, lose oneself andrejuvenate ones resources by mingling with becoming. The beautiful daughters that

accompany Parmenides chariot seduce Justice and bring her secrets into full-light.Their weapon is conviction. As Heidegger, Derrida and others have stressedrepeatedly, there is an etymological affiliation between the hand and joy. This ismanifest in Parmeindes description of the gesture that marks his encounter with theGoddess. He lends his hand to her. The joy stems from the gesture, rather thanthought. It is in gesture that Truth reavels herself, rather than empty contemplation.The goddess was convinced to touch Parmenides, to grant her light to him. Thegesture abridges the gap that lays open between Being and non-being, that is Truththat lies in concealment and appearance that brings truth partially intounconcealment. (Krell, p.89: LICHTUNG itself manifests the character of revealingand concealing. Yet it is not a proscenium..the clearing itself hides (,? , , .

, == always already inuntruth, in error) behind what is present; it betrays a radical silence).But truth (or BEING?) can only be reached through phenomena and non-being,hence Parmenides insistence on learning both the opinions of the mortals and thebenevolent circle of truth. The gap that laid open between truth and truth due to thetrickery of the divine daughters lurks in every step of the approximation to the realmof Being. This is why the circle is good rather than vicious. What is disclosed at everyinstance is the good that is willed and sought after in a circular fashion. Truth anduntruth are not two mutually exclusive realms, but complement each other in thedialectical ascent to true Being. The gap reveals what is absent in an anticipatoryfashion that manifests itself in the longing will. This classical metaphysical postulate,

which Parmenides was the first to cover under a semi-poetic, semi-conceptual cloak,cannot be sustained with view to the vast literature developed throughout ourcentury. The overmastering One ruling over the multiplicity of phenomena andgrounding their existence, has long ago, since its inception, been the presumedauthoritarian backdrop of being, or the Being of beings. The concept of thedeterminate one and the indeterminate Two, as put forward by Plato in aParmenidian fashion, exemplified the mutually necessitating nature of truth anduntruth.Being cannot be without phenomena. Does the same hold for phenomena?Do they have to be appearances of something other than themselves, somethingthat persists in self-identity, while they are in incessant flow?Ruben Berezdivin in his article In stalling Metaphysics: At the threshold provides aplausible answer: As a ruling principle in the Kosmos the Two is not altogether

10 Parmenides conceived of On as an eternalnun, while Melissos as eternity (aei).


14/29

14

controlled by the Oneand its ideality; its two-foldness is needed (to xreon) in orderthat the ab-Original One may be split open and apart, so that beings may scatter farand wide throughout the whole order of things, so that beings may wander astray,because of the power of the SELF-REPLICATING TWO, THE OTHER OF BEING,NOT SELF-SAME(cf.Silverman p.291:the onefoldis the place of the Eigen,which is

repeated at the crossing). Even more dramatically, Jacques Derrida concludes histreatise on the Pharmacy of Plato with the following paradoxical assertion: Truth isuntruth

11. Non-presence is presence. Differance, that is the concealment of the

originary presence (DISPARITION DE LA PRESENCE ORIGINAIRE), is at thesame time the condition of the possibility and the condition of the impossibility oftruth According to Parmenides model, originary presence is the presence of whatlies in concealment beyond the gap to itself. The gesture in between the goddessand Parmenides is an invitation beyond the gap. Although this invitation can beturned down, not be taken care of, left to its narcissistic self-complaisance. As wemight as well have OTHER things to do, than revolving incessantly around thewhirlpool of a presumed necessity. As Nietzsche remarked We can only find whatwe put there.

However deep we might dig, like children looking for the hidden treasure, thehiddenness of which depends on their being reminiscent of it, we shall alwaysdisplace our treasury, bring it beyond sight, suppressing the horizon thatleads us to what lies before us.The will, being the generative force of untruth brings forth truth. Hence Derridasassertion is justified in front of Parmenides court. Let us repeat and receive themessage anew: Truth is untruth. One is many. Being-is in between them. -is is Beingis is Being and so forth.......The ideal crossing of or plunging in the gap is the phenomenal diaspora over andabove the circle. Will captivates and releases, binds and frees.Free to be fragment bound to be one.The will is coming to a close.The One is here.Phere eidota fota.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Mans role here is to listen to the soundless saying that speaks to him through hisbasic words. The preservation of this power of the most elemental words is in theend what philosophy is all about(W.Marx p.xxiii).

HERACLITUS : ALL IS ONE AND ONE IS ALL

Kostas Axelos: Heraclite et sa philosophie

p.46: . .. (=, , , ) (.101).

11Cf. W.Marx, Heidegger and the tradition: Hegel terms the truth the synthesis that is reached each

time in the dialectical process through thesis and antithesis. This definition implies that the preceding

stages, thesis and antithesis represent the UNTRUTH. Since, in the stage by stage movement of theLogic, each synthesis reached is again the basis of a new movement leading to the antithesis, this means

also that THE TRUTH IS THE UNTRUTH OF THE SUCCEEDING STAGE(p.51).


15/29

15

.47 ..53 . (., 25120 , , ). (,.108).

, , ,, (25124-30)Its (the finite) ceasing to be is not merely a possibility, so that it could bewithout ceasing to be, but the being s such of finite things is to have the germof decease as their Being-within-itself: THE HOUR OF THEIR BIRTH IS THEHOUR OF THEIR DEATH[hegel, Logic I 117 (129) ].51 , ..52.

, , ..55 .(. , ..109 , , , ... . . . .111. . .,).

.57, .(cf. Heidegger, Logos & Heraclitus: Logos, thought as the LAYING THATGATHERS, would be the essence of saying as thought by the Greeks) (.70). (.34). (40).(.115)= . .106 , ... . () (.54). (.123).(124). (50)., ( 124). (35)( ..)..87 , .

.63. . ,


16/29

16

..69 \.

.69 .

.

.70 . , ..102 (,7,8,9)., , .

==.

.89-- .

.81 , -. , .84....89, .

Krell, Intimations of mortality p.89:Horderlin also refers to nature as lightly embracing all things in its openness, itslightening. We arrive at the apparent source of the visualist tradition in Heraclitusmysterious invocation pyr aeizoon.If Heraclitus is the obscure, questioning into theclearing, it may be because he thinks the lighting differently.(my italics) theTRANSCENDENTAL SIGNIFIED vs the EMPIRICAL SIGNIFIER.

J.Silverman: Inscriptions p.286: Here (Part III, Heraclitus and Logos) is whereHeidegger allows for the beginning of a DE-LOGOCENTRALIZATION of language ingrammatological arche-writing.

Heidegger takes as his enterprise the transportation of Logos from its home in theOne where only identity and homology can live in the place ofdifference.Unlike the metaphysics of Heraclitus, there is no Logos outside of us to which wecan refer and which does not depend upon us. With Heidegger logos enters into ourown activity-we cannot be separate from it. Thus just as we are located within theBeing of beings, just as we are that identity of difference, saying the Logos (andthinking the saying of the logos) means that we are said as well (290).

LECTURE 3: HERACLITUS AND THE LOGOCENTRIC NECESSITYBiographical data: - Timon the Phliasian (3d c. BC satyrical poet) called himainikten (ainigmatopoio), Cicero (de finibus II,5,15) called him obscurus. The

extant fragments that have been handed down to us were formulated as oralapophthegms , rather than as sections of an elaborate treatise.


17/29

17

o , (fr.50). ippolytus

Tonight we shall be concerned with the founder or rather the precursor of what cameto be known as the dialectical tradition, the advent of which was marked in HegelsLogic. The lasting impact of Heraclitus on the evolution of Western philosophy is stillevident in contemporary philosophical writings concerned with the limits of Logosand its encompassing legitimacy. The famous fragment above cited, urges us toshare Heraclitus passion and get carried away by its imposing absoluteness.Although we should guard ourselves against reaching hasty conclusions about itstruly absolute character, its engendering force, as well as its reductive nature.But first let us turn towards an examination or rather a re-interpretation of Heraclitusfragment. What might he mean by the phrase, so categorically asserted, Bylistening not to me but to Logos, it is wise to confess that All is One? (cf.Empedocle, fr.23, Kirk p.301: , , (

).

It is a tedious commonality among scholars to assert that Logos according toHeraclitus is completely divergent from the scientific conception of Logic as acomplete system of principles

12, axioms and proofs, which conception was initiated

by Aristotle in his Posterior and Prior Analytics. For Heraclitus, Logos is first principle(at least according to the scholarly identification of certain elements with principles,as was the case with Anaximander, Anaximenes, Thales ), conceived in itsprimordial signification, that is as gathering and bringing together, the revival ofwhich was rendered in the Heideggerian writings. Kostas Axelos, a prominentMarxist, describes logos as a principle that activates a fundamental intuition of theopposites.Heidegger stressed in his Introduction to Metaphysics, lego,legein

originally meant to lay one thing with another, to bring together into one, in short togather

13.Logos was identified by Heidegger with the way phenomena are made

apparent, as the manner whereby they present themselves to us. Presentingoccurs as logos in the form of a laying. The laying lays down in unconcealment andat the same time it is a laying out and a laying forth in it. Another word for theparticipial form laying is the noun text and subsequently the verb derivingtherefrom would be to textualize

14. Hence the second sentence as above quoted

would read: The text textualizes unconcealment. Axele interprets the all as themany, as the multiplicity of phenomena, and holds that the oneness that binds themtogether, is the Logos that constitutes phenomena as such, that is as what lets themappear, what textualizes them. Logos brings the world into order, or better

orders the world out of chaos

15

. Logos constructs the world out of the word, that isout of the primary material that appears within the horizon of speech, that is utteredand thus made apparent. Logos per se, that is the textualization as a text, the arche-text (cf.Heidegger p.63: The original legein, laying, unfolds itself clearly and in amanner ruling everything unconcealed as saying and talking), cannot be uttered. It is

12 ( 252 5).13

But gathering is more than mere amassing. To gathering belongs a collecting which brings under

shelter (Heraclitus, Dawn of Western thought, Logos p.61).14

The , the lying-before-for-itselfof what is in this fashion deposited, i.e the keisthai of the

hypokeimenon, is nothing more and nothing less than the presencing of that which lies before us in

unconcealment (Heidegger p.63), also look for the Stoics fictional somethings, incorporeal lekta.15

. . .

( 25215) .


18/29

18

only uttered through its utterances, that is in the presencing of what is present.Recalling our analysis of the Anaximander fragment, what is present in speech iswhat lingers awhile in presence, that is what is and what is not at the same time,spoken of not in terms of full-presence, but in terms of inexorable differa nce

16.

Although, this would be an over-romanticized interpretation, as the identity of Logossuggested by Heraclitus, hardly seems to leave enough space for the deployment ofwhat is irreducibly other. Logos, being everywhere and indifferently univocalimposes itself on phenomena and renders them redundant. Forced to signify what ismost proper to them, what is at the kernel of their existence, they lose meaning andlapse into lethe.The oneness of Logos can only be recognized on the grounds of a prolongededucational procedure (the selfsame is attentive learning, which expresses acoordination of Being and attentive learning as the unity of an order) reminiscent ofAristotles training program, that aimed at recognizing the proper meaning of wordsin relationship to their signifieds. One must learn to be attentive to the Logos itself,not to Heraclitus. Wisdom can only be granted at the end of this mystifying process.Although, the content of this wisdom is unutterable, given that its object is what

permits the occurrence of textualization17

, while itself persistently defying everyattempt at being textualized. Then how can the homology

18be established between

the acquisition of wisdom and the object thereby acquired? What is the similarity

16 It is the nature of Being to continually escape (cf.Cambridge Companion to Hegel p.146: the

necessity of these transitions consists in the drive to escape the self-contradictoriness of the two

preceding categories. the drive to find a stable meaning in Being or in both [Being and Nothing] is this

necessity itself, which leads Being and Nothing to develop and gives them a true

meaningEncyclopedia par.87)becoming an essent (carved out of the Latin essens, essentia). Being

continually differentiates itself (Unterschied: radical separation, not just Differenz) from the essent.

Being has no location (although see Aristotles Physics: topo en topo) since it is always at the

horizon (Silverman, p.48). Being is a self-moving order knowing toward itself Identity and

difference are the standard categories wherein the particular trait of self-sameness obtained expressionin Hegel. HEGEL CONCEIVED DIFFERENCE AS SO PROPERLY A PART OF IDENTITY THAT

HE TREATS OF BOTH THESE CATEGORIES AS ONE, THE CATEGORY OFNON-IDENTICAL

IDENTITY. Identity is repulsion toward difference, which at the same time is repulsion which

recalls itself into itself(W.Marx,61). The Oedipal Mechanism: The distinction between thesameness

of order and the indeterminacy of hyperdifferentiation is transposed into a distinction between identity

and undiferentiation: some bodies are what they are and are good; others are not what they seem to be

and they are bad (Massumi, Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari, p.110). Theabsolute difference

in the perpetual change could not be ascertained or held on to, it would float away like rain from the

stone(The Problem of time in Nietzsche,p.66, also p.62: absolute flux,cf. Theatetus, Cratylus) The

speculative moment, or that of positive reason, apprehends the unity of the determinations in their

opposition (Hegels dialectical method, in Cambridge Companion, p.147, from Science of Logic

p.56). When finitude is thought dialectically in that which is in truth, it unveils itself as in-finity, as

the process of self-sameness in otherness which Hegel termedAFFIRMATIVEINFINITY (W.M 64).17 CE QUI RETOURNE SANS CESSE A CET IMPARFAIT NAPPARTIENT PAS...CETTE

NON-APPARTENANCE- LA TEXTUALITE ELLE-MEME-INTERVIENT, CEST-A-DIRE

INTERROMPT, DES LA PREMIERE TRACE, QUI DEJA SE MARQUE DE DUPLICATION,

DECHO, DE MIROIR, SE PRESENTE UN PEU COMME LA TRACE DE SON REFLET(Drame)

TOUJOURS AU MOINS GEMINEE EN DEUX PARTIES, CHACUNE PLUS GRANDE QUE LE

TOUT (365). Cette coupure, cette ouverture, cette pure apparence de lapparaitre par laquelle le

present semble se liberer de la MACHINE TEXTUELLE (histoire, nombres, topologie, dissemination

etc) se denonce en fait en chaque instant...La presence, ou production, nest quun

produit...Limmediatete apparente de ce qui semble se donner a la perception presente DANS SA

NUDITE DORIGINE, dans sa nature,tombe deja comme un effet: SOUS LE COUP DUNE

STRUCTURE MACHINE QUI NE SE LIVRE PAS AU PRESENT, CELUI-CI NAYANT RIEN

AVEC ELLE (Dissemination342).18 The role of the human legein as a legomenon was limited to listening to the nonhuman occurence

oflogos in a collected way (Werner Marx p.222).


19/29

19

between wisdom19

and its object, that is the One? What is the One? The one is thepresencing, that is the process of incessantly becoming other in the self-sameness of becoming

20. The principle of becoming applies to the constant

generation of words, that is of apophanseis-appearances, generations of speech21

,i.e Logos. According to Aristotles analysis of the concepts of difference (diafora) and

alterity (heterotis) in book IV of his Metaphysics, difference applies to non-selfsameness in terms of phenomena, which may still subsist within the same genus,shape, number or analogy, while alterity applies to non-selfsameness with regard toshape, material or essence.According to this schema, Heraclitus logocentric identity applies to bothdistinctions

22, in that however different phenomena may be among them, although

identical with regard to their belonging-together to the same genus or having thesame material, or however alterior essences may be among them, they still needLogos in order to be affirmed as such, that is in order to be made apparent as such.Logos is the eschaton hypokeimenon , the self-subsisting ground that groundsitself, the groundable (-less) grounding as Heidegger called it (OR the tain-lessmirror, as Derrida re-called it?). Does the Heraclitean phrase, then , amount to an

essentializing discourse, a metaphysical axiom that strives to appropriate or prove(apo-deixei: let it come forth from itself in itself) the kernel, the center of things, whilefalling prey to the metaphysics of grammar suggested by the hastily interpretedOF? Is Logos the center of things or the center in things, however de-centralizedthis may be, that is the essence in presencing of a thing as such, the mode of itsthinghood (or reification)? Isnt the category of modality prevalent, not in itscategorial status, but in its primordial signification as the way to be, or being asbeing? Logos as the mode of being or ontification, is the way of presencing of theworld in utterances ( , , , , , 1931-5), in their coming forth withinthe horizon of language.For Heraclitus Logos amounts to a primordial theo-logywhere Logos is God (Theos) and God is Logos. Logos is , among others, theelement that creates the opposites between them. God is the common element ofevery extreme

23.

Logos is the arche (principle) that regulates the transition between opposites, suchas the succession of day and night, winter and summer, as manifested in fragment67 God is day and night, winter and summer, hunger and saturation. It changes likeFIRE and when it mixes with various odors, it is named after each one of them. ButLogos is neither a word or a concept, it is the necessary rule that differentiates and

19 Heideger interprets sophon as: Legein is dispatched to what is approprate, to whatever rests in the

assemblage of the primordially gahering laying-before, in that which the laying that gathers has

sent(68). Homologein : Homologein occurs when the hearing of mortals has become proper

hearing. (?????).20

En is the unique one, as unifying. It unifies in that, in gathering, it lets lie before us what lies before

us as such and as a whole.THE UNIQUE ONE UNIFIES AS THE LAYING THAT GATHERS

(Heid.70).

The category of becoming can be said to preserve in a way the categories of Being and Nothing while

simultaneously modifying their senses and to this extent abolishing them- what is simply becoming in a

sense has being, while in a sense it is nevertheless nothing- and it can be said thereby to render these

two categories no longer contraries and hence no longer afflicted with their original self-

contradictoriness (Cambridge Companion to Hegel, op.cit. 147)21

Unconcealment occurs when those who do battle, the creative men, nominate things to their

meanings, when they wrest works away from concealment, works of language ,of art, when the

openness of a world is formed (W.Marx p.150).22

, . (, 100525).23 Kirk, Raven: The presocratic philosophers p.109.


20/29

20

binds phenomena, thus creating a multiplicity of worlds that extend ad infinitum.Heraclitus invitation, just like Parmenides, consists in a project which was to beelaborated later on by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, that is the science of the ontoson, the Philosophia Prima, that investigates into the first principles groundingphenomenal existence. What Aristotle understood as prime mover (proto kinoun)Heraclitus conceived of as Logos, with the sole difference that whereas for Aristotlethe prime mover was unmoved, for Heraclitus Logos was neither a part of the worldnor the world as a whole, as a collection of parts

24, but the process of the worlds

worlding, that is of the worlds being constituted as such. No hint of an alreadyexistent logical substratum that underpins appearances, like the Aristotelianprincipia, is made in Heraclitus. The one is not opposite to the many, but goesbeyond the many or rather inheres in the many. Their radical identity, which shouldnot be interpreted according to the traditional principle of non-identity, as wasimplicitly stressed above in our analysis of the Aristotelian concepts of difference-alterity, consists in the means whereby the many are constituted as such in theirpresencing. The one can be located neither in the realm of Non-being, whatpersistently keeps within itself, nor as the ideal backdrop of every single phenomenal

appearance, i.e as the oneness of the one phenomenon. It should rather beinterpreted as the essencing of the essence, the worlding of the world, the coming-into-being or what we termed ontification of the different phaseis (The Aristotelianapophanseis) of Logos. Hence Heraclitus insistence that one is everything, thatevery thing is one in its being reified. This philosophical standpoint carries itsrepercussions in the famous Heraclitean metaphor of the everflowing river (cf. Plato,Cratylus 402a, Aristotle, Metaphysics Gamma 5,1010a13), which however multipledirections it might take (direction=fora was one of the basic traits of being accordingto Aristotle, hence dia-fora, according to the tropes of speech), it still remains thesame in its becoming different within the identity of becoming. Axele names thisrationale being in becoming and suggests a name for the science of the allencompassing One: This is Periexontologia25, or the science of the

24cf. Aristotles Metaphysics Book

, ,

.

, , , ...

3 () () ()

() (=)106925

, (

). (

).

Cette fois se donne comme la multuplicite dun evenement qui nest plus un evenemnt puisque SA

SINGULARITE SE DEDOUBLE DENTREE DE JEU, se dissimulant aussitot dans undouble fond

inintelligible de la non-presence, a linstant meme ou il semble se produire, cest-a-dire se

presenter324. Le present se presente comme la simplicite du fond. Un temps passe qui ne marquerait

quun autre present sassurerait sur un fondement simple, cache derriere la surface de lapparence

presente. LE DOUBLE FOND de limparfait en appelle, ici du moins, a un temps sans fondement et

sans limite, un temps, somme toute, qui ne serait plus un temps sans present, le compte total privant

le carre de son sol, le laissant suspendu dans lair (Dissemination 342-3). Ce qui (ne) serait rien si le

tain netait aussi transparent, ou plutot transformateur de ce quil laisse transparaitre. Le tain de ce

miroir reflechit donc- imparfaitement- ce qui lui vient (sc.see ft.1: the semantic affiliation of the noun

Xaos with the verb xeesthai = pouring forth, coming into being in a flooding manner, a copious flow or

stream, as of sunlight, lava etc; abundant or excessive supply)- imparfaitement- des trois autres murs et

en laisse -presentement- passer comme le fantome, lombre deformee, reformee selon la figure de ce

quon appelle present: la fixite dressee de ce qui se tient devant moi, debout; les

inscriptions...apparaissent la inversees, redressees, fixes (ibid,349).25 ( , 7,8,9). If we try to

avoid this weakness by reinterpreting the maximal proximity in conceptual content in question not as


21/29

21

Encompassing. It should also be questioned whether Heraclitus actually refers todifferences according to the oppositional system of being and non-being, as it wastraditionally interpreted. Let us take for example one of the famous Heracliteanfragments, no.51 that reads : ou xyniasin okos diaferomenon eauto xymferetai,which is most commonly rendered as They dont understand how it is possible, to

be in agreement while being in opposition with itself. Nevertheless, diaferomenoeauto26

does not refer to oppositional logic, but rather to difference within sameness,to the process of becoming other within itself. Selfhood should not be interpreted inspiritualist terms , i.e of Geist coming to its ultimate differentiation, but in terms of aplay between ontical differences that proliferate in the bodily quest for definiteselfhood. Of course, this interpretation could not possibly have crossed Heraclitusmind, thus seemingly violating the initial context. The major problem, though, occurswhen questions about the proper nature of that con-textarise; The problem, we hold,is mediated by re-cognizing the con as What comes-alongside beings, that is whatpresents itself along the process of ontification-textualization, whichisno other thanthe illusory hidden structure that founds presencing. This fond located in themargins of the Heraclitean discourse, constituting its infinite blankness, is the germ

of Western Metaphysics, which comes to a closure at its very inception. The time ofits birth is the time of its death. It is the text that differs, while the con-text remainsthe same. Being other within sameness, founding the coming-into-being in presence,being the plus-que-present, as Derrida called it, symferomenon regulatesdiaferomenonby reducing its mund-ane playfulness to its surplus, marginal, value.The mundus of the diaferomenon is transformed into an heteronomous surface-world appertaining to the la (hepekeina). But the many is not one in its presencing,unless we buy that what comes-along allows for the many, gives it to us (Gibt).Sorry..Out of cash! However radically the cash-box may allow for the flow of cashtowards whoever is in need, the flow of textualized products does not need Being. Itis only the reverse that sustains in the face of its imminent suspension-deferment.A difference: The cause is radically this. Nothing is brought along (sym-feretai) the

divisibility (dia-feromenon) of the arche-text. Divisibility is not in need of the center ofLogos, it is rather the center of Logos that is in need of a circumference. The center,rendered as the abstract machinery (grammar, tradition, race, nation, Sun, Father)that allows for textualization falls from grace in view of its dethronement by its owntexts. The Cronian Con-text is castrated by Zeus-Deus, the desire-driven machinethat unites and separates according to will, and not according to necessity...And thiswill is by no means necessary, at least to the degree that its decentering powerscorns the re-amassment of the arche-text and does not bow before present-perfectFather.

maximal proximity relative to all known categories, but as m.p simpliciter, then it becomes unclear if

this condition is genuinely meaningful and, even if it were, how one could ever tell it obtained(C.C.to

Hegel,148). Ouvrant ici, limitant et situant toute lecture (la votre, la mienne), la voici, cette fois enfin,

montree: comme telle (J.Derrida, Dissemination 322)... la voici cette fois enfin non pas montree mais

montee (323)... Montee: non pas dans une machinerie cette fois enfin visible mais dans un appareil

textuel faisant place, donnant lieu, sur lune seulement de ses quatre series de surfaces, au moment de

la visiblite, DE LA SURFACE COMME EN- FACE, DE LA PRESENCE EN VIS-A-VIS,

CALCULANT AINSI LOUVERTURE, DENOMBRANT LE PHENOMENE...DANS UN THEATRE

QUI COMPTE CETTE FOIS AVEC LE NON-REPRESENTABLE (ibid). Le monde com-prend le

miroir qui le capte et repricoquement (351). Cette reciproque contamination de loeuvre et des

moyens, empoissone lededans ,...,comme elle empoissone les textes cites a comparaitre et quon aurait

voulu tenir a labri de cette violente expatriation, de cette abstraction deracinante qui larrache a la

securite de son contextoriginel (352).26

, , .

(, 5, 396 20). (.-.201 , ) ( )

(.80).


22/29

22

Une difference; la cause est radicalement cela. Elle nest point positive , elle nestpoint incluse au sujet. Elle est ce qui lui manque essentiellement.) laMULTIPLICITE numerique ne survenant (eperxomai, epiphainomai) pas comme unmenace de mort a un germe (arche, sperma) anterieurement un avec soi. Elle fraye(dianoigo dromon, ootoko, also - un paissage: blaze new trails) au contraire la voie ala semence (sperm) qui ne se produit donc, ne savance qu au pluriel. Singulierpluriel quaucune origine singuliere naura jamais precede. GERMINATION,DISSEMINATION. Il ny a pas de premiere (artificial fertilization). La semence estdabord essaimee (bee-hive, multiple, to move, to migrate). L inseminationpremiere est dissemination. Trace, greffe dont on perde la trace. Chaque terme estbien un germe, chaque germe est bien un terme. Le terme, lelement atomique,engendre (give birth) en se divisant, en se greffant, en se proliferant. Cest unesemence et non un terme absolu. Mais chaque germe est son propre terme, a sonterme non pas hors de soi mais en soi comme sa limite interieure, faisant angle

avec sa propre mort. (Dissemination, p.338).

1.UN DISCOURS (PRESENT) PRETEND AU HORS TEXT, A LINTERRUPTIONDU RECIT (ECRIT), PAR LA DROITURE DUNE FRANCHE PAROLE ETLEXPLICATION DUN COMPLICE, COMME SI LE DISCOURS PRESENTEMENTTENU NAVAIT EN SON SURGISSEMENT IMMEDIAT ET FRONTAL AUCUNCOMPTE A RENDRE, SE TENANT LUI-MEME, EN CONSCIENCE ET SANSHISTOIRE.

2.QUIL RETOURNE NEANMOINS A LECRITURE, QUE LA FONCTIONIRREDUCTIBLEMENT GRAPHIQUE DE LA PARENTHESE APPARTIENT A LATRAME GENERALE DU RECIT, LA PRETENTION AU HORS TEXTE, A LACONFIDENCE DES COULISSES (backstage), ETANT ELLE-MEME, PAR VOIXDASSISTANCE, DEMASQUEE; OU PLUTOT RENDUE A SON MASQUE ET ASON EFFICACE THEATRALE; (Diss.364).

EMPEDOCLES:

FAUST: (to Margaret) Oh, shudder not! But let this glance,And this clasp of hands tell you What is unspeakable:To yield oneself entirely and feel A rapture which must be eternal.Eternal! For its end would be despair. No, no end! No end!

F.Solmsen: Love and strife in Empedocles cosmogony(in Studies on the presocratic philosophers, X )


23/29

23

Fragment 35: In her (Love) do all these things come together to be onealone(). his one has to be understood as the finalgoal of the developments initiated by Love.(p.223). ...the tissues entered into avariety of combinations and items seemingly heterogeneous were yet identical in

substance (228). As strife seeks to keep the elements apart, it may well beresponsible for the disintegration or death of the mixed forms, while love isresponsible for their origin (229). LOVE, whom one would suppose at that point tobe reduced to a last ditch defensive position (if not completely gone out) would haveto have an astonising degree of initiative and aggressiveness to producesomethingteleion (232)If these ideai are identical, one statement concerning their nature would cover all ofthem (227). Inasmuch as Aristotle took up and carried farther Empedocles essays incomparative physiology, the hope of recovering from him additional thoughts forEmpedocles comparative scheme should be kept alive (228).Question ; What would be in the space betwen the elements if they do not touch? -Void. But of the whole nothing is void (230).

Simplicius informs us that strife creates the cosmos, while Love creates the Sphereor the intelligible cosmos (232).

, 25223-26

. ., , , .

, , , , (23).

Fragment 35:But I will come back again to that path of the songswhich I proclaimed before , drawing discourse from discourse,this one: When strife had come to the lowest depthof the whirl (dine), and Love was in the middle of the eddyin her (Love) do all these things come together to be one alone,not all at once, but congregating all from different directions at will.And as they mingled together countless tribes of mortal beings poured forth.

Yet many things stand unmixed , in alternation with the mingling things,whatever strife still held in check, aloft; for not altogether had it gone apart fromthem, to the extreme bounds of the circle but parts of its body remained within,parts had withdrawn outside. As much as it streamed outward, so much always thereentered a gentle immortal stream of blamelessLove.At once what formerly had learnt to be immortal grew to be mortal,things before unmixed grew to be mixed, changing their ways.And as they mingled together countless tribes of mortal beings poured forth,endowed with forms of every kind, A WONDER TO BEHOLD.

231: Simplicius statements suggest that the builder of the cosmos is STRIFE,whereas LOVE manifests her power in the mixing and fashioning of living beings.

Love creates the sphere of INTELLIGIBLE COSMOS.Strife creates the sphere of perceptible cosmos.


24/29

24

-------------------------------LECTURE 4---------------------------------------------------------------EMPEDOCLES & DIVINE STRIFE----------------------------

Empedocles , along with Parmenides, Zeno and Philolaus , is one of the mostprominent exponents of the philosophical movement developed in Southern Italyduring the 5th C BC. The fundamental principles of his cosmogonic model wereLOVE & STRIFE, along with the four natural elements, present in almost everyphilosophical thought, with the respective variations in their employment.Our topic already invites us to wonder, just like Empedocles wonder on thepolychromous multiplicity of the cosmos as evidenced from the closing line offragment 35, at the sight of the strife that surrounds us. The word Empedoclesemploys for strife is Neikos, to which he counterpoises Love, named after a variationof the familiar word Filia , that is FILOTES. From a preliminary reading of thefragment at hand we can extrapolate that the world was made up by the union ofinitially separate elements, through the intervention of Filotes. This was theAristotelian interpretation which read like The cosmos is composed out of elements

that are separated. But, as F.Silmsen commented, Loves work is to bring together,not to separate

27. This problem might be somehow mediated by the interpretation

often put forward in favour of a dual cosmogonic model, the one aspect of whichreferring to the genesis of an intellectual world under the auspices of Love, while theother concerning the coming-into-being of the perceptible world through Strife.Although, this crude distinction hardly seems to gain in plausibility once the originalEmpedoclean fragments are paid sufficient attention.The problem should beapproached, it is our opinion, by looking at the role performed by the Whirl (dine), inbringing forth the cosmos. If we turn to the fragment, we find that the whirl is theencompassing topos

28where the contest between the two cosmic powers is enacted.

Empedocles locates strife at the lowest depth of the whirl29

, while love in the middle.What sort of emphasis, physically speaking, should be given to this description? It is

evident that the lowest depth is the center of all turmoil that is the dominant state ofthe worlds coming-into-being. This image evokes an immense entropic30 basketwhere the energy produced cannot be converted into malleable and recognizblematerial, unless stabilized under the power of Love. This is suggested by twophrases: First and foremost, by the fifth line which puts forward that in love themultiplicity of beings (panta) comes into the oneness of being (sunerxetai en monoeinai) -the same vocabulary and mode of thought we encountered in Heraclitus-and secondly by the sixth line where the standpoint is further explicated by adducingthat this coming was concluded by the particular beings, belonging to the initiallyunformed multiplicity, gathering under a common umbrella, while sprouting from

27 Love and Strife in Empedocles cosmogony, p.234.28

360 ,

(. , 528,11-14, 530, 16-22).29 Notice that in ancient Greece, the people of Argolida sacrificed adorned horses to an underwater

spring , which they called DINE, in the name of Neptune (today this place is called Anavolon).

SOS: Soren Kirkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, Princeton 1980, p.20: DOGMATICS MUST NOT

EXPLAIN HEREDITARY SIN BUT RATHER EXPLAIN IT BY PRESUPPOSING IT, LIKE THAT

VORTEX (WHIRL) ABOUT WHICH GREEK SPECULATION CONCERIING NATURE HAD SO

MUCH TO SAY, A MOVING SOMETHING THAT NO SCIENCE CAN GRASP.30

ENTROPY (Definition): 1. An index of the degree in which the total energy of a thermodynamicsystem is uniformly distributed and is unavailable for conversion into work 2. An information theory, a

measure of the uncertainty of our knowledge (en=in, trope=turn).


25/29


26/29


27/29


28/29


29/29

George Rossolatos Lectures tic Philosophers 1997

Documents

Transcript of George Rossolatos Lectures tic Philosophers 1997