The powers of poetizing, of thinking, of the creation of the state—especially in eras of developed history—act in both forward and backward directions, and are not at all calculable. They can act in unrecognized ways over a long period of time, alongside one another without bridges and yet to the benefit of one another, in each case in accordance with the different unfolding of power belonging to poetizing, thinking, and the action of statesmanship, and in different degrees of publicness in each case. These three creative forces of historical Dasein act to bring about that to which we can alone attribute greatness.
d) Historical and Historiographical Truth
Everything great is unique, yet this uniqueness has its own manner of steadfastness—that is, of historically transformed and altered return. ‘Unique’ here means: precisely not present at hand on one occasion and then past, but rather, having been and thereby prevailing within the constant possibility of a transformed unfolding of its essence, and accordingly within the propensity to be discovered and to become powerful ever anew and in an inexhaustible manner.
What is small has its steadfastness too: It is the blunt obstinacy of the everyday, of the ever-the-same, which is steadfast only because it closes itself off and must close itself off against all transformation. The uniformity of the everyday is as necessary as the uniqueness of essential saying, thinking, and acting. If, however, we take the measures for historical beyng and knowing from the everyday alone, then we must constantly reside in a realm that is completely out of joint. In that case, we never comprehend that Sophocles, for example, can, and indeed must, one day also be interpreted otherwise; that Kant can, and indeed must, be comprehended otherwise; that Frederick the Great can and must one day be portrayed otherwise. Everyday opinion thinks that there must be a Sophocles in himself, a Kant in himself, a Frederick the Great in himself, in the same way as the desk here is a desk and the chalk, chalk. Supposing that there were, for example, an interpretation and depiction of Sophocles’ poetizing in itself, and suppose this interpretation could be seen by Sophocles: Then he would have to and indeed would find this interpretation boring in the highest degree. For he did not poetize so that some inconsequential, world-poor imitation could be erected somewhere.
Is there, then, no historiographical truth? This conclusion is premature. There is historiographical truth. Yet in order to comprehend it as such, those who seek to do so must themselves first stand within the power of history. Then they know that a historiographical truth ‘in itself’—in the superficial, everyday sense of the correctness of