Basic Concepts

Contents

TRANSLATOR'S FOREWARD     xi

Introduction

The Internal Connection between Ground-Being-Inception

§ 1. Elucidation of the title of the lecture “Basic Concepts”

a) Basic concepts are ground-concepts

b) The claim of the ground-concepts

c) The difference of claims upon man

α) The claim of requirements: Needing

β) The claim upon the essence of historical man

d) Readiness for the originary, the incipient, and the “‘knowing better” of historiological consciousness

e) The meaning of reflection upon the inception of history

f) The goal of the lecture: Reflection as preparation for confronting the inception of our history

RECAPITULATION

1. Our understanding of “basic concepts” and our relation to them as an anticipatory knowing

2. The decay of knowing in the present age: The decision in favor of the useful over what we can do without

3. The inception as a decision about what is essential in Western history (in modern times: unconditional will and technology)

4. Practicing the relation to what is ‘‘thought-worthy”’ by considering the ground

5. The essential admittance of historical man into the inception, into the ‘‘essence’’ of ground

PART ONE
Considering the Saying
The Difference between Beings and Being

First Division

Discussion of the “Is,” of Beings as a Whole

§2. Beings as a whole are actual, possible, necessary

§3. Nonconsideration of the essential distinction between being and beings

§4. The nondiscoverability of the “is”

§5. The unquestioned character of the “‘is’’ in its grammatical determination—emptiness and richness of meaning

a) The emptiness and indeterminacy of the “is” as a presupposition for its being a “copula”

b) Being (“is”) as the general, the universal

§6. The solution of healthy common sense: Acting and effecting among beings instead of empty thinking about being (workers and soldiers)

§7. Renouncing being—dealing with beings

RECAPITULATION

1. Consideration of beings as a whole presupposes the essential inclusion of man in the difference between being and beings

2. Wealth and poverty of meaning in the “is”

3. Equating dealing with the actual with considering beings as a whole

4. The unthought residence of man in the distinction between being and beings

Second Division

Guidewords for Reflection upon Being

§8. Being is the emptiest and at the same time a surplus

§9. Being is the most common and at the same time unique

§10. Being is the most intelligible and at the same time concealment

§11. Being is the most worn-out and at the same time the origin

§12. Being is the most reliable and at the same time the non-ground

§13. Being is the most said and at the same time a keeping silent

§14. Being is the most forgotten and at the same time remembrance

§15. Being is the most constraining and at the same time liberation

§16. Unifying reflection upon being in the sequence of guidewords

RECAPITULATION

Guidewords about Being

1. Being is empty as an abstract concept and at the same time a surplus

2. Being is the most common of all and at the same time uniqueness (The sameness of being and nothing)

3. The meaning of the guidewords: Instructions for reflection upon the difference between being and beings

Third Division

Being and Man

§17. The ambivalence of being and the essence of man: What casts itself toward us and is cast away

§18. The historicality of being and the historically essential abode of man

§19. Remembrance into the first inception of Western thinking is reflection upon being, is grasping the ground

RECAPITULATION

1. The discordant essence in the relation of man to being: The casting-toward and casting-away of being

2. Remembrance into the first inception is placement into still presencing being, is grasping it as the ground

PART TWO
The Incipient Saying of Being in the Fragment of Anaximander

§20. The conflicting intentions of philological tradition and philosophical translation

§21. Nietzsche’s and Diels’s renderings of the fragment as the - standard for interpretations current today

RECAPITULATION

The remembering return into the inception of Western thinking—listening to the fragment of Anaximander

§22. Reflection upon the incipient saying of being in the fragment of Anaximander

a) Suppositions regarding the relation between the two sentences

b) The saying about being occurs in correspondences: The first sentence thinks being as τό χρεών in correspondence with the inception as threefold enjoinment

§23. Excursus: Insight into the τό χρεών with the help of another word from Anaximander

a) The threefold unity of enjoinment (ἀρχή)

b) Enjoinment (ἀρχή) is repelling (ἄπειρον)

c) The governance of being as ἀρχή and ἄπειρον in γένεσις and φθορά for the presencing of beings

d) How does being, which is ἀρχή and ἄπειρον, let beings be?

§24. The second sentence thinks being in correspondence with its essence as presencing, abiding, time

a) Being is overcoming the unfit

b) The connection between being and time

§25. The relation of both sentences to one another: The fragment as the incipient saying of being

EDITOR'S AFTERWORD     107

GLOSSARY     109

Parmenides (GA 51) [GA App]

Ereignis