§35 [106-107]
87
Regarding 2) "Cause of everything correct and beautiful," basic determination of all order—τάχις, put together, coexisting—its principle.
Regarding 3) The Idea of the good: it itself "begets both the light in the domain of what is visible as well as the lord of that domain" (the sun). Here the good is the effective power and source of all light. Even what is looked upon in sunlight and is visible to the eyes, even such a being is, as a being, graspable in its Being only through an understanding of Being.
Regarding 4) "In the field of what is understandable, it itself holds sway," determines everything, makes possible and "bestows truth, disclosedness, and understanding."
Regarding 5) "The ground and origin of all," of both beings and Being.
Regarding 6) It "yet lies beyond beings and Being." The question of Being transcends itself.
The understanding of Being19 resides originally in the seeing of this Idea. Here is the fundamental truth itself, which makes possible all truths. (Later taken again in a purely ontic sense: Middle Ages, absolute spirit.)
Being is over and beyond all beings. Later Plato saw the distinction in a still sharper way, even if he did not follow it up.20 But here the question has this orientation: beings are not interrogated so as to discover in what they consist, how they originated, but instead to disclose what "Being" signifies, what we mean in general by speaking of "Being." And that is obscure. The question of Being transcends itself. The ontological problem turns around! Metontological; θεολογική beings as a whole. The ἰδέα ἀγαθοῦ that which is utterly preferable to everything, the most preeminent. Being in general and the preferable. Something still beyond beings, belonging to the transcendence of Being, essentially determining the Idea of Being! The most original possibility! Originally making possible everything.
§35. Indication of the center of the problem of the Ideas.21
ὀησις—λόγος; ἰδέα—εἴδη—ἀγαθόν. Understanding of Being—ψυχή—ἀνάμνησις ["recollection"]. πᾶσα μὲν ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ φύσει τεθέαται τὰ ὄντα22—"Every human soul has, by nature, already seen
19. See Morchen transcription, no. 42, p. 200f.
20. Sophist, 242Cff.
21. See Morchen transcription, no. 43, p. 201.
22. Phaedrus, 249E4f.