§22 [166-167]
Parmenides expresses that in the word γένεσις. The substantive priority, however, lies in time; i.e., Being is without emergence—perishing, without origin—future: only the present. The latter alone is the condition of the possibility of the “un” attaching to γένεσις and ὄλεθρος; not the reverse. The temporal statement has the priority.
We see again that the course of the proofs does not correspond to the sequence of the enumerated σήματα. Discussed up to now were ἀγένητον-ἀνώλεθρον and οὐδ᾽ ἦν οὐδ᾽ ἔσται, two negative respects, while leaping over the intervening positive and negative ones.
g) The impossibility of absence in Being
At 22–25, the discussion passes over to the proof of the first positive σήμα and the last one: οὖλον-συνεχές. In form, the proof is again a rejection of postulated respects, ones implying separation; for διαίρεσις is a taking apart, partitioning, dismembering. Apartness within Being would be the same as separation from another, distance from another, and so sheer negation, which is inappropriate to Being; if such partitioning were possible, then each of the parts would still be Being, although a part is not the whole and Being is only wholeness. If Being were composed of pieces, then in principle pieces could be added to it. Closed coherence would then be impossible, yet Being essentially occurs as such coherence; συνεχές would thus be excluded. Wholeness and sheer coherence do not permit any apartness—nor any “gap” where there would be no Being, such that Being would first become Being by traversing an interval. Along with the necessary exclusion of every gap, | there also drops out the possibility of any trembling in Being, as if Being could move to and fro in its parts. The proof of οὖλον-συνεχές is thus also a proof of ἀτρεμές. The necessity of disregarding any apartness (διαίρεσις) is grounded positively by regarding the fact that the whole is filled only with Being.
Since it is only sheer Being, nothing other than Being can come near to it; it fills all nearness and remoteness only as Being. The disregarding of the negative in the sense of apartness out of the respect on Being is here grounded by regarding the pure fullness of Being and the pure domination by Being of every nearness and thus of every remoteness.54 What thereby lies in the sight of this positive regarding? Everything is purely filled, no void, no “away,” i.e., no absence in Being as such, instead only presence {Anwesenheit}. In its proximity nothing other than itself, no remoteness possible for it; instead, altogether there beyond all proximity and remoteness, completely in presence. And so
54 Against διαίρεσις—pure fullness—domination; no “away”: but.