tends to the hardness of the concept and thereby administers the space-time of free poetizing in the empowerment of the essence toward the grounding of humans in soil—work—struggle and downgoing.
199
Questioning is more provocative and harder than all the empty sharpness of “thinking”; it is more thrilling and attuning than all sentiments lashed down to make them secure.
200
The image of the effectiveness of philosophy in general has been formed on the basis of the historical “effect” of Plato and Aristotle on the Christian West. But what if here the opposite of philosophical effectiveness existed; indeed what if there were no such thing as philosophical “effectiveness”?
Philosophy cannot be effective—as little as can a way or a track—; it can only open up and keep sharp the need and risk of having an effect.
What results from this for an “appointed teacher of philosophy”? He cannot communicate philosophy through instruction; still less may he, by playing with philosophy, “existentielly exhort”; still less may he belabor philosophical cognitions; on the contrary, he must gather himself up and: philosophize—come what may.
In philosophizing, however, he must be in genuine dialogue with philosophers—of his choice. And what then finds expression in words is always only the—to be sure, necessary—superficies. (Cf. p. 93, 123 bottom.)
201
The animal and the human being. Animals do not know, provided the disclosability of beings pertains to knowledge. Because no truth, so also no need to question which “world” of individual animal or of species is “truer” than the others among themselves or in relation to humans.
Yet the animal is indeed sentiently “related to . . .”—not only in the so-called sense-organs—but in and as an entire corporeality—a surrounding field thus in a certain way “open”—scent and color, e.g., for bees—but we do not know what is open here and how it is so—; we speak and question even here on the basis of our own world—except that we do not meditate on how unavoidably this unspoken point of departure requires a clarification and a securing—apart from the category