OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

condition of beings as particular beings, but rather the truth in which the condition-setting will to power essences as such a will. This oneness in which it essences, its essential unity, concerns the will to power itself.

Of what nature is this truth of the being of beings? It can be determined only from that of which it is the truth. But within modem metaphysics the being of beings has been detennined as will and thereby as self-willing; however, self-willing is intrinsically already self-knowing-itself; therefore, beings, the ὑποκείμενον, the subiectum, are essentially in the mode of self-knowing-itself. Beings (subiectum) present [präsentiert] themselves, in fact they present themselves to themselves, in the mode of the ego cogito. This self-presenting, the re-presenting [Re-präsentation] (representation [Vor-stellung]), is the being of beings qua subiectum. Self-knowing-itself becomes the quintessential subject. In self-knowing-itself all knowledge and all that knowledge can know is gathered. It is a gathering of knowledge, like the mountain range [Gebirge] is a gathering of mountains [Berge]. The subjectivity of the subject, as a gathering of this sort, is the co-agitatio (cogitatio), the conscientia, Ge-wissen, conscience.⁵ The co-agitatio, however, is intrinsically already velle, to will. With the subjectity of the subject, will comes to light as the essence of that subjectity. Modem metaphysics, as the metaphysics of subjectivity, thinks the being of beings in the sense of will.

As the primary determination of its essence, subjectity requires that the representing subject assures itself of itself, which means that it also constantly assures itself of what it has represented as a particular something. In keeping with that assurance, the truth of beings as certainty [Gewissheit] has the character of security [Sicherheit] (certitudo). Self-knowing-itself (the place of certainty as such) is for its part a variant of the former essence of truth, namely the correctness (rectitudo) of representation. However, what is correct now no longer consists of an adequation to what presences unthought in its presence. Correctness now consists in adjusting all that is to be represented to the standard that is set in the knowledge-claim of the res cogitans sive mens. This claim appeals to the security that consists in the fact that representation and everything to be represented are driven together and gathered into the clarity and distinctness of the mathematical idea. The ens is the ens co-agitatum perceptionis. Representation, now, is correct if it does justice to this claim to security. Demonstrated as correct [richtig] in this way, representation, as made right [recht gefertigt] and at our disposal, is justified [gerecht-fertigt] . As security (certitudo ), the truth of beings in the sense of the self-certainty of subjectity is fundamentally the justification [Recht-fertigen] of representation and what it represents before the brightness proper to

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Nietzsche's Word: “God Is Dead”