twofold character, both ontological and theological, of Aristotle’s metaphysics, without assuming that a word for word confrontation with the theology of the prophets would be possible.88
On September 2nd, after another very technical clarification concerning Kant (to reassert that the thing in itself, even if not scientifically knowable, is an object of representation), Heidegger approached Hegel through some apparently elementary observations: Wissenschaft (science) is synonymous with philosophy or metaphysics. And what does Begriff mean? Not a representation in the Kantian sense, but the free development of the absolute idea, that is to say, of being. What about God himself? His coming into being is not to be understood as if he went from nonexistence to existence, but as the auto-revelation of what was concealed in him. Why all those clarifications? To introduce the explanation of the “speculative proposition” in Hegel and more particularly in the preface of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Was it with the intention of “restoring calm”?89 Heidegger proceeded in this way mostly to keep on course and to highlight his method in reading fundamental philosophical texts. The method would surprise specialists, for when Heidegger asserted that “the speculative proposition is itself being,” he seemed (or wanted to seem) to ignore that for Hegel being is “in fact nothing,”90 the most abstract and vacuous notion. However, Heidegger insisted on remaining literally faithful to Hegel’s thought by contrasting term for term—and in a very academic manner—the usual form of judgment and the speculative form. He recalled that in the ordinary predicative proposition (for example, “this tree is green”), the predicate qualifies the subject, without having any substantial meaning. Reconsidering on the contrary the very example Hegel gave of a speculative proposition, “God is being,” Heidegger underlined that “being” cannot be reduced to a simple predicate, but becomes in turn, subject. Hence a “counter-thrust” [Gegenstoss] undergone by thought, as Hegel indicated in a key sentence cited by Heidegger: “Formally, what has been said can be expressed thus: the general nature of the judgment or proposition, which involves the distinction of subject and predicate, is destroyed by the speculative proposition, and the proposition of identity which the former becomes contains the counter-thrust against that subject-predicate relationship.”91 Thus, as Heidegger explained, “God abides in the essence of being, and being is not a predicate of God.” Only two brief exchanges with Jeanne Hersch and Father Fessard departed from the doctoral style of the session on Hegel’s “correct doctrine” in speculative matters.
The session of Saturday, September 3rd, departed from this austere style. Those ten days concluded on a high note with the reading and commentary by Beda Allemann of Hölderlin’s hymn “Celebration of Peace” (Friedensfeier), which was discovered in its entirety in London in 1954. Composed after the treaty of Lunéville in February 1801, the poem enthusiastically celebrated the Prince of