manner that disregards what comprises its essence (namely, ἁρμονία). Because φύσις is ἁρμονία, self-concealing is named within it as essentially equal. But then we could say τὸ δῦνόν instead of φύσις, and thereby make it manifest that this submerging, as a going into concealing, is always already at the same time an emerging. Only the sun that, in emerging, both unfolds into its emergence and abandons that emergence, can submerge. Certainly—the sun involves both emerging as well as submerging, and we mean the latter as well as the former when we refer to the sun. The sun is so-named neither solely in relation to emerging nor solely in relation to submerging. [155] In the name φύσις, on the other hand, emerging has priority; but what this name names is essentially equally a submerging, and could indeed also be named according to it. If we nevertheless find priority given to the word φύσις, there must be a reason for this. Concerning the priority given to φύσις over κρύπτεσθαι, one can offer the following as a ground of explanation: emerging is the ‘positive’ and submerging the ‘negative.’ Everywhere and always the positive precedes the negative, not only, for example, in the ordering of affirming and denying, but rather in all ‘placements’ generally. Indeed, how could there be a de-nial without something first being placed before it, and thus a positum and a positive that the denial then re-places and dis-places? There is no beginning with dis-placement alone. The prefixes dis-and re-betray all too clearly here that the denial is dependent upon something that is already placed before it, and that it relies upon not only in every particular case, but also essentially. Only what has arrived and emerged can also go away and submerge. Because what displaces is in itself reliant upon something prior, placing-forth and placement, the position and the positive, retain an insuperable priority.

This is all clear enough and cleverly calculated. However, has the issue actually been thought? Is what we put forth concerning the relation and the essential consequences of placing-forth and displacement also valid for emerging and submerging? Placing-forth and displacing are, first of all, only ways that we bring beings before us and remove them. This placing-forth and displacing are the modes in which the action of presenting something, whatever it may be, moves. Placing and placing-forth are ‘actions,’ i.e., acts of thinking in the manner that ‘logic’ grasps and interprets ‘thinking.’ Does what applies to the behavior of human beings toward beings also apply to those beings themselves? Presuming it were indeed to apply to beings, would it therefore also apply to being? φύσις/κρύπτεσθαι are names for being. The persuasive argumentation offered with regard to the priority of positing over negating means nothing for the decision concerning the [156] relation of φύσις and κρύπτεσθαι. We speak while under the bewitchment of the blindly accepted omnipotence of ‘logic’ if we demonstrate the reliance of negation upon positing, and therefore unthinkingly assume that what applies to the ranking of formalized actions of thinking must also hold for the arrangement of beings and, further, for the essential arrangement of being (and this latter, indeed, already in advance). The very minimum that must here be required of a