§ 30. Freedom as the Condition of the Possibility of the Manifestness of the Being of Beings, i.e. of the Understanding of Being
The questionworthiness of the two ways and their unity is obscured by the fact that in both cases the problem is considered in terms of the category of causality, but without making causality itself problematic through a radical discussion of the ontological problem it involves. What would have to occur for causality (still in the Kantian sense at first) to become a problem? For Kant, causality is a character of the objectivity of objects. Objects are the beings as accessible through the theoretical experience of finite human nature. The categories are determinations of the being of such beings, determinations which allow them to show themselves in their being. But beings can only show themselves as objects if the appearance of beings, and that which at bottom makes this possible, i.e. the understanding of being, has the character of letting-stand-over-against. Letting something stand-over-against as something given, basically the manifestness of beings in the binding character of their so- and that-being, is only possible where the comportment to beings, whether in theoretical or practical knowledge, already acknowledges this binding character. But the latter amounts to an originary self-binding, or, in Kantian terms, the giving of a law unto oneself. The letting-be-encountered of beings, comportment to beings in each and every mode of manifestness, is only possible where freedom exists. Freedom is the condition of the possibility of the manifestness of the being of beings, of the understanding of being.
Causality, however, is one ontological determination of beings among others. Causality is grounded in freedom. The problem of causality is a problem of freedom and not vice versa. The question concerning the essence of freedom is the fundamental problem of philosophy, even if the leading question thereof consists in the question of being.
This fundamental thesis and its proof is not the concern of a theoretical scientific discussion, but of a grasping which always and necessarily includes the one who does the grasping, claiming him in the root of his existence, and so that he may become essential in the actual willing of his ownmost essence.
If actual being-free and willing from the ground of essence determines the fundamental philosophical stance, and thus the content of philosophy, this confirms Kant's statement on philosophy in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals: 'Here we see philosophy brought to what is, in fact, a precarious position, which should be made fast even though it is supported by nothing in either heaven or earth. Here philosophy must
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