THE END OF PHILOSOPHY


unity is principium internum. Leibniz calls the principle of beings as such: vis, la force, force. The essence of force is not determined by the retroactive generalization of something effecting which we experience somewhere, but the other way around: the essence of force is the original essence of the beingness of beings.

What truly is shows itself in the light of the truth which has become certainty, as the cogitare of the ego cogito. The essence of force is defined in reflection upon the Being of what truly is. It is only from this essence of force that individual forces receive the character of their dependent (derivative) essence. The first version of section 12 of the Monadology says this clearly: " Et generalement on peut dire que la force n 'est autre chose que le principe du changement ."19 "Change" does not mean here any kind of becoming-different in general, but rather the transitional essence of striving representation in accordance with whose manner every being is, insofar as it is. Force, the fundamental characteristic of simple unifying unity, is thus also adequately called vis primitiva activa because it rules pure effecting in its essence in a simple and original way. It is the subiectum and the basis (Monadologie, section 48), the underlying supporting constant in whose effecting the constancy of beings have their closest origination, although not a radically producing origination (originatio radicalis).

Every subiectum is determined in its esse by vis (perceptio-appetitus). Every substantia is monad. Thus the essence of the reality of the res cogitans developing in the light of truth as certainty attains its scope in which it rules everything real. Together with the universality of the representational essence of reality, the fundamental characteristic of representing, striving, reveals itself so that unity as the essence of beingness first gains its full character from the essence of vis. Thus the new essence of reality begins to permeate everywhere and explicitly the totality of beings. In such a manner,


19. "And one can say generally that force is nothing other than the principle of change."


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Martin Heidegger (GA 6-2) The End of Philosophy