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must think the concepts new each day. We have, for example, the statement that this glass is full. Something is said, therewith, about what lies before us, but the reference to an I is not thought. When this reference becomes thematic for thinking, for the I, then what lies before us becomes what lies opposite us, that is, it becomes an object. In Greek there are no objects. What does object mean in the Middle Ages? What does it mean literally? {GA 15: 129}
PARTICIPANT: What is thrown up against.
HEIDEGGER: The object is what is thrown up against whom? Can you throw the glass up against yourself? How can I throw something up against myself, without something happening? What does subiectum [substance] mean in the Middle Ages? What does it mean literally?
PARTICIPANT: What is thrown under.
HEIDEGGER: For medieval thinking, the glass is a subiectum, which is the translation ὑποκείμενον. Obiectum [representation], for the Middle Ages, meant, on the contrary, what is represented. A golden mountain is an object. Thus the object here is that which is precisely not objective. It is subjective. I have asked how the Greeks think according to Hegel's interpretation. We have said that in their thinking the reference to the subject does not become thematic. But were the Greeks still thoughtful? For Hegel, nevertheless, their thinking was a turning toward what lies before and what underlies, which Hegel called the thinking of the immediate. The immediate is that between which nothing intervenes. Hegel characterized all of Greek thought as a phase of immediacy. For him, philosophy first reaches solid land with Descartes, by beginning with the I.
PARTICIPANT: But Hegel saw a break already with Socrates, a turning toward subjectivity that goes along with mores, in so far as these become morality.
HEIDEGGER: That Hegel sees a break with Socrates has a still simpler ground. When he characterizes Greek thinking as a whole as a phase of immediacy, he does not level down inner distinctions like that between Anaxagoras and Aristotle. Within the phase of immediacy, he sees a division comprehended by the same three-fold scheme of immediacy-mediation-unity. He does not, thereby, apply an arbitrary scheme; rather, {GA 15: 130} he thinks out of that which is for him the truth in the sense of the absolute certainty of the absolute spirit. Nevertheless, the classification of metaphysics and Greek thinking is not so easy for us, because the question about the determination of Greek thinking is something that we must first put to question and awaken as a question.
The question from the seminar before last, concerning what the speculative means with Hegel, still remains unanswered.
PARTICIPANT: Speculation for Hegel means the view [Anschauung] of eternal truth.
HEIDEGGER: This answer is too general and sounds only approximate.