Where, then,
according
to Plato, does art stand in relation to truth (aletheia)?
Heidegger - Nietzsche - v1-2
A worker is one who fetches the outward appearance of something into the presence of sensuous visibility.
That seems to delineate sufficiently what, and how, it is that the craftsman properly makes, and what he cannot make.
Every one of these pro-ducers of serviceable and useful implements and items keeps to the realm of the one "Idea" that guides him: the tablemaker looks to the Idea of table, the shoemaker to that of shoe.
Each is proficient to the extent that he limits himself purely to his own field.
Else he botches the job.
But how would it be if there were a man, hos panta poiei, hosaper heis hekastos ton cheirotechnon (596 c), "who pro-duced everything that every single other craftsman" is able to make? That would be a man of enormous powers, uncanny and astonishing. In fact there is such a man: hapanta ergadzetai, "he produces anything and every- thing. " He can produce not only implements, alla kai ta ek tes ges phuomena hapanta poiei kai zoia panta ergadzetai, "but also what comes forth from the earth, producing plants and animals and every- thing else"; kai heauton, "indeed, himself too," and besides that, earth and sky, kai theous, "even the gods," and everything in the heavens and in the underworld. But such a producer, standing above all beings and even above the gods, would be a sheer wonderworker! Yet there is such a demiourgos, and he is nothing unusual; each of us is capable of achieving such production. It is all a matter of observing tini tropoi poiei, "in what way he produces. "
While meditating on what is produced, and on production, we must pay heed to the tropos. We are accustomed to translating that Greek
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word, correctly but inadequately, as "way" and "manner. " Tropos means how one is turned, in what direction he turns, in what he maintains himself, to what he applies himself, where he turns to and remains tied, and with what intention he does so. What does that suggest for the realm of pro-duction? One may say that the way the shoemaker proceeds is different from that in which the tablemaker goes to work. Certainly, but the difference here is defined by what in each case is to be produced, by the requisite materials, and by the kind of refinements or operations such materials demand. Nevertheless, the same tropos prevails in all these ways of producing. How so? This query is to be answered by that part of the discussion we shall now follow.
Kai tis ho tropos houtos; "And what tropos is that," which makes possible a production that is capable of producing hapanta, "anything and everything," to the extent designated, which is in no way limited? Such a tropos presents no difficulties: by means of it one can go ahead and produce things everywhere and without delay. Tachista de pou, ei
'theleis laban katoptron peripherein pantachei (596 d), "but you can do it quickest if you just take a mirror and point it around in all directions. "
Tachy men helion poieseis kai ta en toi ouranoi, tachy de gen, tachy de sauton te kai talla zoia kai skeue kai phyta kai panta hosa nynde elegeto. "That way you will quickly produce the sun and what is in the heavens; quickly too the earth; and quickly also you yourself and all other living creatures and implements and plants and everything else we mentioned just now. "
With this turn of the conversation we see how essential it is to think of poiein-"making"-as pro-ducing in the Greek sense. A mirror accomplishes such production of outward appearance; it allows all beings to become present just as they outwardly appear.
But at the same time, this is the very place to elaborate an important distinction in the tropos of production. It will enable us for the first time to attain a clearer concept of the demiourgos and thereby also of mimesis, "copying. " Were we to understand poiein-"making"-in some indefinite sense of manufacturing, then the example of the mirror would have no effect, since the mirror does not manufacture the sun.
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But if we understand pro-duction in a Greek manner, in the sense of bringing forth the Idea (bringing the outward appearance of something into something else, no matter in what way), then the mirror does in this particular sense pro-duce the sun.
With regard to "pointing the mirror in all directions," and to its mirroring, Glaucon must therefore agree immediately: Nai, "Cer- tainly," that is a producing of "beings"; but he adds, phainomena, ou mentoi onta ge pou tei aletheiai. But what shows itself in the mirror "only looks like, but all the same is not, something present in uncon- cealment," which is to say, undistorted by the "merely outwardly appearing as," i. e. , undistorted by semblance. Socrates supports him: kalos, . . . kai eis dean erchei toi logoi. "Fine, and by saying that you go to the heart of what is proper (to the matter). " Mirroring does produce beings, indeed as self-showing, but not as beings in un-con- cealment or nondistortion. Juxtaposed to one another here are on phainomenon and on tei aletheiai, being as self-showing and being as undistorted; by no means phainomenon as "semblance" and "the merely apparent," on the one hand, and on tei aletheiai as "Being," on the other; in each case it is a matter of on-"what is present"-but in different ways of presencing. But is that not the same, the self-showing and the undistorted? Yes and no. Same with respect to what becomes present (house), same to the extent that in each case it is a presencing; but in each case the tropos differs. In one case the "house" becomes present by showing itself and appearing in, and by means of, the glittering surface of the mirror; in the other the "house" is present by showing itself in stone and wood. The more firmly we hold on to the selfsameness, the more significant the distinction must become. Plato here is wrestling with the conception of the varying tropos, that is, at the same time and above all, with the determination of that "way" in which on itself shows itself most purely, so that it does not portray itself by means of something else but presents itself in such a way that its outward appearance, eidos, constitutes its Being. Such self-showing is the eidos as idea.
Two kinds of presence result: the house (i. e. , the idea) shows itself in the mirror or in the "house" itself at hand. Consequently, two kinds
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of production and producers must be differentiated and clarified. If we call every pro-ducer a demiourgos, then one who mirrors is a particular type of demiourgos. Therefore Socrates continues: ton toiouton gar oimai demiourgon kai ho zographos estin. "For I believe that the painter too belongs to that kind of pro-ducing," which is to say the mirroring kind. The artist lets beings become present, but as phainomena, "showing themselves by appearing through something else. " Ouk alethe . . . poiein ha poiei, "he does not bring forward what he produces as unconcealed. " He does not produce the eidos. Kaitoi tropoi ge tini kai ho zographos klinen poiei. "All the same, the painter too produces [a] bedframe"-tropoi tini, "in a certain way. " Tropos here means the kind of presence of the on (the idea); hence it means that in which and through which on as idea produces itself and brings itself into presence. The tropos is in one case the mirror, in another the painted surface, in another the wood, in all of which the table comes
to presence.
We are quick on the uptake, so we say that some of them produce
"apparent" things, others "real" things. But the question is: what does "real" in this case mean? And is the table manufactured by the carpen- ter the "real" table according to the Greeks; is it in being? To ask it another way: when the carpenter manufactures this or that table, any given table, does he thereby produce the table that is in being; or is manufacturing a kind of bringing forward that will never be able to produce the table "itself"? But we have already heard that there is also something which he does not pro-duce, something which he, as frame- maker, with the means available to him, cannot pro-duce: ou to eidos (ten idean) poiei, "but he does not produce the pure outward appear- ance (of something like a bedframe) in itself. " He presupposes it as already granted to him and thereby brought forth unto and produced for him.
Now, what is the eidos itself? What is it in relation to the individual bedframe that the framemaker produces? To eidos . . . ho de phamen einai ho esti kline, "the outward appearance, of which we say that it is what the bedframe is," and thereby what it is as such: the ho esti, quid est, quidditas, whatness. It is obviously that which is essential in
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beings, by means of which they "first and last are," teleos on (597 a). But if the craftsman does not pro-duce precisely this eidos in itself, but in each case merely looks to it as something already brought to him; and if eidos is what is properly in being among beings; then the craftsman does not produce the Being of beings either. Rather, he always produces this or that being-ouk . . . ho esti kline, alla klinen tina, "not the what-being of the bedframe, but some bedframe or other. "
So it is that the craftsman, who grapples with a reality you can hold in your hands, is not in touch with beings themselves, on tei aletheiai. Therefore, Socrates says, meden ara thaumadzomen ei kai touto (to ergon tou demiourgou) amydron ti tynchanei on pros aletheian. "In no way would it astonish us, therefore, if even this (what is manufac- tured by the craftsman) proves to be something obscure and hazy in relation to unconcealment. " The wood of the bedframe, the amassed stone of the house, in each case bring the idea forth into appearance; yet such pro-duction dulls and darkens the original luster of the idea. Hence the house which we call "real" is in a certain way reduced to the level of an image of the house in a mirror or painting. The Greek word amydron is difficult to translate: for one thing it means the darkening and distorting of what comes to presence. But then such darkening, over against what is undistorted, is something lusterless and feeble; it does not command the inner power of the presencing of beings themselves.
Only now do the speakers attain the position from which Socrates may demand that they try to illuminate the essence of mimesis on the basis of what they have so far discussed. To that end he summarizes and describes in a more pointed way what they have already ascertained.
The approach to their considerations established that there are, for example, many individual bedframes set up in houses. Such a "many" is easy to see, even when we look around us in a lackadaisical sort of way. Therefore, Socrates (Plato) says at the beginning of the discussion, with a very profound, ironic reference to what is to follow and which we are now on the verge of reaching (596 a), pol/a toi oxyteron blepon- ton amblyteron horontes proteroi eidon. "A variety and multiplicity is
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what those who look with dull eyes see, rather than those who examine things more keenly. " Those who examine things more keenly see fewer things, but for that reason they see what is essential and simple. They do not lose themselves in a sheer variety that has no essence. Dull eyes see an incalculable multiplicity of sundry particular bedframes. Keen eyes see something else, even-and especially-when they linger upon one single bedframe at hand. For dull eyes the many always amounts to "a whole bunch," understood as "quite a lot," hence as abundance. In contrast, for keen eyes the simple is simplified. In such simplifica- tion, essential plurality originates. That means: the first (one), pro- duced by the god, (the pure) one-and-the-same outward appearance, the Idea; the second, what is manufactured by the carpenter; the third, what the painter conjures in images. What is simple is named in the word kline. But trittai tines klinai hautai gignontai (597 b). W e must translate: "In a certain way, a first, a second, and a third bedframe have resulted here. " Mia men he en tei physei ousa, "for what is being in nature is one. " We notice that the translation does not succeed. What is physis, "nature," supposed to mean here? No bedframes appear in nature; they do not grow as trees and bushes do. Surely physis still means emergence for Plato, as it does primarily for the first beginnings of Greek philosophy, emergence in the way a rose emerges, unfolding itself and showing itself out of itself. But what we call "nature," the countryside, nature out-of-doors, is only a specially delineated sector of nature or physis in the essential sense: that which of itself unfolds itself in presencing. Physis is the primordial Greek grounding word for Being itself, in the sense of the presence that emerges of itself and so holds sway.
He en tei physei ousa, the bedframe "which is in nature," means that what is essential in pure Being, as present of itself, in other words, what emerges by itself, stands in opposition to what is pro-duced only by· something else. He physei kline: what pro-duces itself as such, without mediation, by itself, in its pure outward appearance. What presences in this way is the purely, straightforwardly envisioned eidos, which is not seen by virtue of any medium, hence the idea. That such a thing lights up, emerges, phyei, no man can bring about. Man cannot pro-
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duce the idea; he can only be stationed before it. For that reason, of the physei kline Socrates says: hen phaimen an, has egoimai, theon ergasasthai, "of which we may well say, as I believe, that a god pro- duced it and brought it forth. "
Mia de ge hen ho tekton. "But it is a different bedframe which the craftsman manufactures. " Mia de hen ho zographos. "And again an- other which the painter brings about. "
The threefold character of the one bedframe, and so naturally of every particular being that is at hand, is captured in the following statement (597 b): Zographos de, klinopoios, theos, treis houtoi epi- statai trisin eidesi klinon. "Thus the painter, the framemaker, the god-these three are epistatai, those who dedicate themselves to, or preside over, three types of outward appearance of the bedframe. " Each presides over a distinct type of self-showing, which each sees to in his own way; he is the overseer for that type, watching over and mastering the self-showing. If we translate eidos here simply as "type," three types of bedframes, we obfuscate what is decisive. For Plato's thought is here moving in the direction of visualizing how the selfsame shows itself in various ways: three ways of self-showing; hence, of presence; hence, three metamorphoses of Being itself. What matters is the unity of the basic character that prevails throughout self-showing in spite of all difference: appearing in this or that fashion and becoming present in outward appearance.
Let us also observe something else that accompanied us everywhere in our previous considerations: whenever we mentioned genuine being we also spoke of on tei aletheia1~ being "in truth. " Grasped in a Greek manner, however, "truth" means nondistortion, openness, namely for the self-showing itself.
The interpretation of Being as eidos, presencing in outward appear- ance, presupposes the interpretation of truth as aletheia, nondistor- tion. We must heed that if we wish to grasp the relation of art (mimesis) and truth in Plato's conception correctly, which is to say, in a Greek manner. Only in such a realm do Plato's questions unfold. From it they derive the possibility of receiving answers. Here at the peak of the Platonic interpretation of the Being of beings as idea, the
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question arises as to why the god allowed only one idea to go forth for each realm of individual things, for example, bedframes. Eite ouk ebouleto, eite tis ananke epen m e pleon e mian en tei physei apergasas- thai auton klinen (597 c). "Either he desired, or a certain necessity compelled him, not to permit more than one bedframe to emerge in outward appearance. " Dyo de toiautai e pleious oute ephuteuthesan hypo tou theou oute me phyosin. "Two or more such Ideas neither were brought forward by the god, nor will they ever come forth. " What is the reason for that? Why is there always only one Idea for one thing?
Let us illustrate briefly Plato's answer, with a glance back to the essence of the true, which we discussed earlier, the true in its singularity and immutability.
What would happen if the god were to allow several Ideas to emerge for one thing and its manifold nature-"house" and houses, "tree" and trees, "animal" and animals? The answer: ei dyo monas poieseien, palin an mia anaphaneie hes ekeinai an au amphoterai to eidos echoien, kai eie an ho estin kline ekeine all' oukh hai dyo. "If instead of the single 'Idea' house he were to allow more to emerge, even if only two, then one of them would have to appear with an outward appearance that both would have to have as their own; and the what-being of the bedframe or the house would be that one, whereas both could not be. " Hence unity and singularity are proper to the essence of the idea. Now, according to Plato, where does the ground for the singularity of each of the Ideas (essences) lie? It does not rest in the fact that when two Ideas are posited the one allows the other to proceed to a higher level; it rests in the fact that the god, who knew of the ascent of representa- tion from a manifold to a unity, boulomenos einai ontos klines poietes ontos ouses, alla m e klines tinos mede klinopoios tis, mian physei auten ephysen (597 d), "wanted to be the essential producer of the essential thing, not of any given particular thing, and not like some sort of framemaker. " Because the god wanted to be such a god, he allowed such things-for example, bedframes-"to come forth in the unity and singularity of their essence. " In what, then, is the essence of the Idea, and thereby of Being, ultimately grounded for Plato? In the initiating action of a creator whose essentiality appears to be saved only when
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what he creates is in each case something singular, a one; and also there where allowance is made in the representation of a manifold for an ascent to the representation of its one.
The grounding of this interpretation of Being goes back to the initiating action of a creator and to the presupposition of a one which in each case unifies a manifold. For us a question lies concealed here. How does Being, as presencing and letting come to presence, cohere with the one, as unifying? Does the reversion to a creator contain an answer to the question, or does the question remain unasked, since Being as presencing is not thought through, and the unifying of the one not defined with reference to Being as presencing?
Every single being, which we today take to be the particular item which is "properly real," manifests itself in three modes of outward appearance. Accordingly, it can be traced back to three ways of self- showing or being pro-duced. Hence there are three kinds of producers.
First, the god who lets the essence emerge-physin phyei. He is therefore called phytourgos, the one who takes care of and holds in readiness the emergence of pure outward appearance, so that man can discern it. *
Second, the craftsman who is the demiourgos klines. He produces a bed according to its essence, but lets it appear in wood, that is, in the kind of thing where the bedframe stands as this particular item at our disposal for everyday use.
Third, the painter who brings the bedframe to show itself in his picture. May he therefore be called a demiourgos? Does he work for the demos, participating in the public uses of things and in communal life? No! For neither does he have disposition over the pure essence, as the god does (he rather darkens it in the stuff of colors and surfaces), nor does he have disposition over and use of what he brings about with respect to what it is. The painter is not demiourgos but mimetes hou ekeinoi demiourgoi, "a copier of the things of which those others are
*Schleiermacher translates phytou1gos (Republic, 597 d 5) as Wesensbildne1, "shaper of essences"; the word literally means gardener, "worker with plants. " Aeschylus' suppliant maidens use the word as an epithet of Zeus the Father (Supp. 592).
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h roducers for the public. " What, consequently, is the mimetes? ~epcopieris ho tou tritou gennematos apo tes physeos (597 e); he is epistates; "he presides and rules over" one way in which Being, the "dea is brought to outward appearance, eidos. What he manufactures ~thepainting-is to triton gennema, "the third kind of bringing- forth," third apo tes physeos, "reckoned in terms of the pure emer- gence of the idea, which is first. " In the pictured table, "table" is somehow manifest in general, showing its idea in some way; and the table in the picture also manifests a particular wooden frame, and thus is somehow what the craftsman properly makes: but the pictured table shows both of them in something else, in shades of color, in some third thing. Neither can a usable table come forward in such a medium, nor can the outward appearance show itself purely as such. The way the painter pro-duces a "table" into visibility is even farther removed from the Idea, the Being of the being, than the way the carpenter produces it.
The distance from Being and its pure visibility is definitive for the definition of the essence of the mimetes. What is decisive for the Greek-Platonic concept of mimesis or imitation is not reproduction or portraiture, not the fact that the painter provides us with the same thing once again; what is decisive is that this is precisely what he cannot do, that he is even less capable than the craftsman of duplicating the same thing. It is therefore wrongheaded to apply to mimesis notions of "naturalistic" or "primitivistic" copying and reproducing. Imitation is subordinate pro-duction. The mimetes is defined in essence by his position of distance; such distance results from the hierarchy estab- lished with regard to ways of production and in the light of pure outward appearance, Being.
But the subordinate position of the mimetes and of mimesis has not yet been sufficiently delineated. We need to clarify in what way the painter is subordinate to the carpenter as well. A particular "real" table offers different aspects when viewed from different sides. But when the table is in use such aspects are indifferent; what matters is the particular table, which is one and the same. Me ti diapherei aute heautes (598 a), "it is distinguished (in spite of its various aspects) in no way from
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itself. " Such a single, particular, and selfsame thing the carpenter can manufacture. In contrast, the painter can bring the table into view only from one particular angle. What he pro-duces is consequently but one aspect, one way in which the table appears. If he depicts the table from the front, he cannot paint the rear of it. He produces the table always in only one view or phantasma (598 b). What defines the character of the painter as mimetes is not only that he cannot at all produce any particular usable table, but also that he cannot even bring that one particular table fully to the fore.
But mimesis is the essence of all art. Hence a position of distance with respect to Being, to immediate and undistorted outward appear- ance, to the idea, is proper to art. In regard to the opening up of Being, that is, to the display of Being in the unconcealed, aletheia, art is subordinate.
Where, then, according to Plato, does art stand in relation to truth (aletheia)? The answer (598 b): Porroara pou tou alethous hemimetike estin. "So, then, art stands far removed from truth. " What art pro- duces is not the eidos as idea (physis,) but touto eidolon, which is but the semblance of pure outward appearance. Eidolon means a little eidos, but not just in the sense of stature. In the way it shows and appears, the eidolon is something slight. It is a mere residue of the genuine self-showing of beings, and even then in an alien domain, for example, color or some other material of portraiture. Such diminution of the way of pro-ducing is a darkening and distorting. Tout' ara estai kai ho tragoidopoios, eiper mimetes esti, tritos tis apo basileos kai tes aletheias pephykos, kai pantes hoi alloi mimetai (597 e). "Now, the tragedian will also be of such kind, if he is an 'artist,' removed three times, as it were, from the master who rules over the emergence of pure Being; according to his essence he will be reduced to third place with regard to truth (and to the grasp of it in pure discernment); and of such kind are the other 'artists' as well. "
A statement by Erasmus which has been handed down to us is supposed to characterize the art of the painter Albrecht Diirer. The statement expresses a thought that obviously grew out of a personal conversation which that learned man had with the artist. The statement
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runs: ex situ rei unius, non unam speciem sese oculis offerentem ex- primit: by showing a particular thing from any given angle, he, Durer the painter, brings to the fore not only one single isolated view which offers itself to the eye. Rather-we may complete the thought in the following way-by showing any given individual thing as this particular thing, in its singularity, he makes Being itself visible: in a particular hare, the Being of the hare; in a particular animal, the animality. It is clear that Erasmus here is speaking against Plato. We may presume that the humanist Erasmus knew the dialogue we have been discussing and its passages on art. That Erasmus and Diirer could speak in such a fashion presupposes that a transformation of the understanding of Being was taking place. *
In the sequence of sundry ways taken by the presence of beings, hence by the Being of beings, art stands far below truth in Plato's metaphysics. W e encounter here a distance. Yet distance is not discord- ance, especially not if art-as Plato would have it-is placed under the guidance of philosophy as knowledge of the essence of beings. To pursue Plato's thoughts in that direction, and so to examine the further contents of Book Ten, is not germane to our present effort.
*Compare to the above Heidegger's reference to Albrecht Diirer in Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, Reclam edition, p. 80; "The Origin of the Work of Art," in Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 70.
23. Plato's Phaedrus: Beauty and Truth in Felicitous Discordance
Our point of departure was the question as to the nature of the discord- ance between art and truth in Nietzsche's view. The discordance must loom before him on the basis of the way he grasps art and truth philosophically. According to his own words, Nietzsche's philosophy is inverted Platonism. If we grant that there is in Platonism a discordance between art and truth, it follows that such discordance would in Nietzsche's view have to vanish as a result of the cancellation which overturns Platonism. But we have just seen that there is no discordance in Platonism, merely a distance. Of course, the distance is not simply a quantitative one, but a distance of order and rank. The result is the following proposition, which would apply to Plato, although couched in Nietzsche's manner of speech: truth is worth more than art. Nietz- sche says, on the contrary: art is worth more than truth. Obviously, the discordance lies hidden in these propositions. But if in distinction to Plato the relation of art and truth is reversed within the hierarchy; and if for Nietzsche that relation is a discordance, then it only follows that for Plato too the relation is a discordance, but of a reverse sort. Even though Nietzsche's philosophy may be understood as the reversal of Platonism, that does not mean that through such reversal the discord- ance between art and truth must vanish. We can only say that if there is a discordance between art and truth in Plato's teaching, and if Nietzsche's philosophy represents a reversal of Platonism, then such discordance must come to the fore in Nietzsche's philosophy in the reverse form. Hence Platonism can be for us a directive for the discov-
Plato's Phaedrus 189
ery and location of the discordance in Nietzsche's thought, a directive that would indicate by way of reversal. In that way Nietzsche's knowl- edge of art and truth would finally be brought to its sustaining ground.
What does discordance mean? Discordance is the opening of a gap between two things that are severed. Of course, a mere gap does not yet constitute a discordance. W e do speak of a "split" in relation to the gap that separates two soaring cliffs; yet the cliffs are not in discordance and never could be; to be so would require that they, of themselves, relate to each other. Only two things that are related to one another can be opposed to each other. But such opposition is not yet discord- ance. For it is surely the case that their being opposed to one another presupposes a being drawn toward and related to each other, which is to say, their converging upon and agreeing with one another in one respect. Genuine political opposition-not mere dispute-can arise only where the selfsame political order is willed; only here can ways and goals and basic principles diverge. In every opposition, agreement pre- vails in one respect, whereas in other respects there is variance. But whatever diverges in the same respect in which it agrees slips into discordance. Here the opposition springs from the divergence of what once converged, indeed in such a way that precisely by being apart they enter into the supreme way of belonging together. But from that we also conclude that severance is something different from opposition, that it does not need to be discordance, but may be a concordance. Concordance too requires the twofold character implied in severance.
Thus "discordance" is ambiguous. It may mean, first, a severance which at bottom can be a concordance; second, one which must be a discordance (abscission). For the present we purposely allow the word "discordance" to remain in such ambiguity. For if a discordance pre- vails in Nietzsche's inverted Platonism, and if that is possible only to the extent that there is discordance already in Platonism; and if the discordance is in Nietzsche's view a dreadful one; then for Plato it must be the reverse, that is to say, it must be a severance which nevertheless is concordant. In any case, any two things that are supposed to be able to enter into discordance must be balanced against one another, be of the same immediate origin, of the same necessity and rank. There can
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be an "above" and "below" in cases of mere distance and opposition, but never in the case of discordance, for the former do not share an equivalent standard of measure. The "above" and "below" are funda- mentally different; in the essential respect they do not agree.
Therefore, so long as art in the Republic remains in third position when measured in terms of truth, a distance and a subordination obtain between art and truth-but a discordance is not possible. If such discordance between art and truth is to become possible, art must first of all be elevated to equal rank. But is there as a matter of fact a "discordance" between art and truth? Indeed Plato speaks-in the Republic, no less (607 b)-in a shadowy and suggestive way of the palaia men tis diaphora philosophiai te kai poietikei, "of a certain ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry," which is to say, be- tween knowledge and art, truth and beauty. Yet even if diaphora here is to suggest more than a quarrel-and it is-in this dialogue it is not and cannot be a matter of "discordance. " For if art must become equal in rank with truth, so as to become "discordant" with it, then it becomes necessary to consider art in yet another respect.
That other respect in which art must be viewed can only be the same one in which Plato discusses truth. Only that one and the same respect grants the presupposition for a severance. W e must therefore investi- gate in what other regard-in contrast to the conversation carried on in the Republic-Plato treats the question of art.
If we scrutinize the traditional configuration of Plato's philosophy as a whole we notice that it consists of particular conversations and areas of discussion. Nowhere do we find a "system" in the sense of a unified structure planned and executed with equal compartments for all essential questions and issues. The same is true of Aristotle's philos- ophy and of Greek philosophy in general. Various questions are posed from various points of approach and on various levels, developed and answered to varying extents. Nevertheless, a certain basic way of pro- ceeding prevails in Plato's thought. Everything is gathered into the guiding question of philosophy-the question as to what beings are.
Although the congelation of philosophical inquiry in the doctrines and handbooks of the Schools is prepared in and by the philosophy of
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Plato, we must be chary of thinking about his questions on the guide- lines of particular dogmatic phrases and formulations found in the later philosophical disciplines. Whatever Plato says about truth and knowl- edge, or beauty and art, we may not conceive of it and pigeonhole it according to later epistemology, logic, and aesthetics. Of course that does not preclude our posing the question, in relation to Plato's medita- tion on art, of whether and where the issue of beauty is also treated in his philosophy. Granted that we must allow the whole matter to remain open, we may ask about the nature of the relation between art and beauty-a relation that long ago was accepted as a matter of course.
In his discussions Plato often speaks of "the beautiful" without taking up the question of art. To one of his dialogues the tradition has appended the express subtitle peri tou kalou, "On the Beautiful. " It is that conversation which Plato called Phaedrus, after the youth who serves as the interlocutor in it. But the dialogue has received other subtitles over the centuries: peri psyches, "On the Soul," and peri tou erotos, "On Love. " That alone is enough to produce uncertainty con- cerning the contents of the dialogue. All those things-the beautiful, the soul, and love-are discussed, and not merely incidentally. But the dialogue speaks also of techne, art, in great detail; also of logos, speech and language, with great penetration; of aletheia, truth, in a quite essential way, of mania-madness, rapture, ecstasy-in a most compel- ling manner; and finally, as always, of the ideai and of Being.
Every one of these words could with as much (or as little) right serve as the subtitle. Nevertheless, the content of the dialogue is by no means a jumbled potpourri. Its rich content is shaped so remarkably well that this dialogue must be accounted the most accomplished one in all essential respects. It therefore may not be taken to be the earliest work of Plato, as Schleiermacher believed; just as little does it belong to the final period; it rather belongs to those years which comprise the akmi of Plato's creative life.
Because of the inner greatness of this work of Plato's, we cannot hope to make the whole of it visible at once and in brief; that is even less possible here than it was in the case of the Republic. Our remarks concerning the title suffice to show that the Phaedrus discusses art,
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truth, speech, rapture, and the beautiful. Now we will pursue only what is said concerning the beautiful in relation to the true. We do this in order to estimate whether, to what extent, and in what way, we can speak of a severance of the two.
Decisive for correct understanding of what is said here about the beautiful is knowledge of the context and the scope in which the beautiful comes to language. To begin with a negative determination: the beautiful is discussed neither in the context of the question of art nor in explicit connection with the question of truth. Rather, the beautiful is discussed with the range of the original question of man's relation to beings as such. But precisely because Plato reflects upon the beautiful within the realm of that question, its connection with truth and art comes to the fore. W e can demonstrate that on the basis of the latter half of the dialogue.
W e will first of all select several guiding statements, in order to make visible the scope in which the beautiful is discussed. Second, we will comment upon what is said there about the beautiful, while remaining within the limits of our task. Third, and finally, we will ask about the kind of relation between beauty and truth which confronts us there.
Turning to the first matter, we note that the beautiful is discussed with the scope characteristic of man's relation to beings as such. In that regard we must consider the following statement (249 e): pasa men anthropou psyche physei tetheatai ta onta, e auk an elthen eis tode to zoion. "Every human soul, rising of itself, has already viewed beings in their Being; otherwise it would never have entered into this form of life. " In order for man to be this particular embodying/living man, he must already have viewed Being. Why? What is man, after all? That is not stated in so many words; it remains tacit and presupposed. Man is the essence that comports itself to beings as such. But he could not be such an essence, that is to say, beings could not show themselves to him as beings, if he did not always ahead of time have Being in view by means of "theory. " Man's "soul" must have viewed Being, since Being cannot be grasped by the senses. The soul "nourishes itself," trephetai, upon Being. Being, the discerning relation to Being, guaran- tees man his relation to beings.
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If we did not know what variation and equality were, we could never encounter various things; we could never encounter things at all. If we did not know what sameness and contrariety were, we could never comport ourselves toward ourselves as selfsame in each case; we would never be with ourselves, would never be our selves at all. Nor could we ever experience something that stands over against us, something other than ourselves. If we did not know what order and law, or symmetry and harmonious arrangement were, we could not arrange and construct anything, could not establish and maintain anything in existence. The form of life called man would simply be impossible if the view upon Being did not prevail in it in a fundamental and paramount way.
But now we must catch a glimpse of man's other essential determina- tion. Because the view upon Being is exiled in the body, Being can never be beheld purely in its unclouded brilliance; it can be seen only under the circumstance of our encountering this or that particular being. Therefore the following is generally true of the view upon Being which is proper to man's soul: magis kathorosa ta onta (248 a), "it just barely views being [as such], and only with effort. " For that reason most people find knowledge of Being quite laborious, and consequently ateleis tes tou ontos theas aperchontai (248 b), "the thea, the view upon Being, remains ateles to them, so that it does not achieve its end, does not encompass everything that is proper to Being. " Hence their view of things is but half of what it should be: it is as though they looked cockeyed at things. Most people, the cockeyed ones, give it up. They divert themselves from the effort to gain a pure view upon Being, kai apelthousai trophei doxastei chrontai, "and in turning away are no longer nourished by Being. " Instead, they make use of the trophe doxaste, the nourishment that falls to them thanks to doxa, i. e. , what offers itself in anything they may encounter, some fleeting appearance. which things just happen to have.
But the more the majority of men in the everyday world fall prey to mere appearance and to prevailing opinions concerning beings, and the more comfortable they become with them, feeling themselves con- firmed in them, the more Being "conceals itself" (Janthanei) from man. The consequence for man of the concealment of Being is that he is
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overcome by lethe, that concealment of Being which gives rise to the illusion that there is no such thing as Being. We translate the Greek word lethe as "forgetting," although in such a way that "to forget" is thought in a metaphysical, not a psychological, manner. The majority of men sink into oblivion of Being, although-or precisely because- they constantly have to do solely with the things that are in their vicinity. For such things are not beings; they are only such things ha nyn einai phamen (249 c), "of which we now say that they are. " Whatever matters to us and makes a claim on us here and now, in this or that way, as this or that thing, is-to the extent that it is at all-only a homoioma, an approximation to Being. It is but a fleeting appearance of Being. But those who lapse into oblivion of Being do not even know of the appearance as an appearance. For otherwise they would at the same time have to know of Being, which comes to the fore even in fleeting appearances, although "just barely. " They would then emerge from oblivion of Being. Instead of being slaves to oblivion, they would preserve mneme in recollective thought on Being. Oligai de leipontai hais totes mnemes hikanos parestin (250 a 5): "Only a few remain who have at their disposal the capacity to remember Being. " But even these few are not able without further ado to see the appearance of what they encounter in such a way that the Being in it comes to the fore for them. Particular conditions must be fulfilled. Depending on how Being gives itself, the power of self-showing in the idea becomes proper to it, and therewith the attracting and binding force.
As soon as man lets himself be bound by Being in his view upon it, he is cast beyond himself, so that he is stretched, as it were, between himself and Being and is outside himself. Such elevation beyond oneself and such being drawn toward Being itself is eros. Only to the extent that Being is able to elicit "erotic" power in its relation to man is man capable of thinking about Being and overcoming oblivion of Being.
The proposition with which we began-that the view upon Being is proper to the essence of man, so that he can be as man-can be understood only if we realize that the view upon Being does not enter on the scene as a mere appurtenance of man. It belongs to him as his most intrinsic possession, one which can be quite easily disturbed and
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deformed, and which therefore must always be recovered anew. Hence the need for whatever makes possible such recovery, perpetual renewal, and preservation of the view upon Being. That can only be something which in the immediate, fleeting appearances of things encountered also brings Being, which is utterly remote, to the fore most readily. But that, according to Plato, is the beautiful. When we defined the range and scope in which the beautiful comes to language we were basically already saying what the beautiful is, with regard to the possibility and the preservation of the view upon Being.
We proceed now to the second stage, adducing several statements in order to make the matter clearer. These statements are to establish the essential definition of the beautiful and thereby to prepare the way for the third stage, namely, a discussion of the relation of beauty and truth in Plato. From the metaphysical founding of communal life in Plato's dialogue on the state we know that what properly sets the standard is manifested in dike and dikaiosyne, that is, in the well- wrought jointure of the order of Being. But viewed from the standpoint of the customary oblivion of Being, the supreme and utterly pure essence of Being is what is most remote. And to the extent that the essential order of Being shows itself in "beings," that is to say, in whatever we call "beings," it is here very difficult to discern. Fleeting appearances are inconspicuous; what is essential scarcely obtrudes. In the Phaedrus (250 b) Plato says accordingly: dikaiosynes men oun kai
sophrosynes kai hosa alla timia psychais ouk enesti phengos ouden en tois teide homoiomasin. "In justice and in temperance, and in whatever men ultimately must respect above all else, there dwells no radiance whenever men encounter them as fleeting appearances. " Plato contin- ues: alla di' amydron organon magis auton kai oligoi epi tas eikonas iontes theantai to tou eikasthentos genos. "On the contrary, we grasp Being with blunt instruments, clumsily, scarcely at all; and few of those who approach the appearances in question catch a glimpse of the original source, i. e. , the essential origin, of what offers itself in fleeting appearances. " The train of thought continues as Plato interposes a striking antithesis: kallos de, "With beauty, however," it is different. Nun de kallos monon tauten esche moiran, host' ekphanestaton einai
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kai erasmiotaton (250 d). "But to beauty alone has the role been allotted [i. e. , in the essential order of Being's illumination] to be the most radiant, but also the most enchanting. " The beautiful is what advances most directly upon us and captivates us. While encountering us as a being, however, it at the same time liberates us to the view upon Being. The beautiful is an element which is disparate within itself; it grants entry into immediate sensuous appearances and yet at the same time soars toward Being; it is both captivating and liberating. * Hence it is the beautiful that snatches us from oblivion of Being and grants the view upon Being.
The beautiful is called that which is most radiant, that which shines in the realm of immediate, sensuous, fleeting appearances: kateilepha- men auto dia tes enargestates aistheseos ton hemeteron stilbon enarge- stata. "The beautiful itself is given [to us men, here] by means of the most luminous mode of perception at our disposal, and we possess the beautiful as what most brightly glistens. " Opsis gar hemin oxytate ton dia tou somatos erchetaiaistheseon. "For vision, viewing, is the keenest way we can apprehend things through the body. " But we know that thea, "viewing," is also the supreme apprehending, the grasping of Being. The look reaches as far as the highest and farthest remoteness of Being; simultaneously, it penetrates the nearest and brightest prox- imity of fleeting appearances. The more radiantly and brightly fleeting appearances are apprehended as such, the more brightly does that of which they are the appearances come to the fore-Being. According to its most proper essence, the beautiful is what is most radiant and
*Heidegger translates erasmiotaton as das Entriickendste, modifying it now as das Beriickend-Entriickende. Although both German words could be rendered by the En- glish words "to entrance, charm, enchant," their literal sense is quite different. Riicken suggests sudden ~hangeof place; the prefixes (be-, ent-) both make the verb transitive. But beriicken suggests causing to move toward, entriicken causing to move away. Heidegger thus tries to express the disparate, i. e. , genuinely erotic character of the beautiful, which both captivates and liberates us, by choosing two German words that manifest a kind of felicitous discordance. The same formulation appears in "Wie wenn am Feiertage . . . " (1939-40) in Martin Heidegger, Erlauterungen zu Holder/ins Dich- tung, pp. 53-54.
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sparkling in the sensuous realm, in a way that, as such brilliance, it lets Being scintillate at the same time. Being is that to which man from the outset remains essentially bound; it is in the direction of Being that man is liberated.
Since the beautiful allows Being to scintillate, and since the beautiful itself is what is most attractive, it draws man through and beyond itself to Being as such. W e can scarcely coin an expression that would render what Plato says in such a lucid way about radiance through those two essential words, ekphanestaton kai erasmiotaton.
Even the Latin translation from Renaissance times obscures every- thing here when it says, At vero pulchritudo sola habuit sortem, ut maxime omnium et perspicua sit et amabilis ["But true beauty alone has beendestined to be the most transparent of things and the loveliest of all"]. Plato does not mean that the beautiful itself, as an object, is "perspicuous and lovely. " It is rather what is most luminous and what thereby most draws us on and liberates us.
From what we have presented, the essence of the beautiful has become clear.
But how would it be if there were a man, hos panta poiei, hosaper heis hekastos ton cheirotechnon (596 c), "who pro-duced everything that every single other craftsman" is able to make? That would be a man of enormous powers, uncanny and astonishing. In fact there is such a man: hapanta ergadzetai, "he produces anything and every- thing. " He can produce not only implements, alla kai ta ek tes ges phuomena hapanta poiei kai zoia panta ergadzetai, "but also what comes forth from the earth, producing plants and animals and every- thing else"; kai heauton, "indeed, himself too," and besides that, earth and sky, kai theous, "even the gods," and everything in the heavens and in the underworld. But such a producer, standing above all beings and even above the gods, would be a sheer wonderworker! Yet there is such a demiourgos, and he is nothing unusual; each of us is capable of achieving such production. It is all a matter of observing tini tropoi poiei, "in what way he produces. "
While meditating on what is produced, and on production, we must pay heed to the tropos. We are accustomed to translating that Greek
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word, correctly but inadequately, as "way" and "manner. " Tropos means how one is turned, in what direction he turns, in what he maintains himself, to what he applies himself, where he turns to and remains tied, and with what intention he does so. What does that suggest for the realm of pro-duction? One may say that the way the shoemaker proceeds is different from that in which the tablemaker goes to work. Certainly, but the difference here is defined by what in each case is to be produced, by the requisite materials, and by the kind of refinements or operations such materials demand. Nevertheless, the same tropos prevails in all these ways of producing. How so? This query is to be answered by that part of the discussion we shall now follow.
Kai tis ho tropos houtos; "And what tropos is that," which makes possible a production that is capable of producing hapanta, "anything and everything," to the extent designated, which is in no way limited? Such a tropos presents no difficulties: by means of it one can go ahead and produce things everywhere and without delay. Tachista de pou, ei
'theleis laban katoptron peripherein pantachei (596 d), "but you can do it quickest if you just take a mirror and point it around in all directions. "
Tachy men helion poieseis kai ta en toi ouranoi, tachy de gen, tachy de sauton te kai talla zoia kai skeue kai phyta kai panta hosa nynde elegeto. "That way you will quickly produce the sun and what is in the heavens; quickly too the earth; and quickly also you yourself and all other living creatures and implements and plants and everything else we mentioned just now. "
With this turn of the conversation we see how essential it is to think of poiein-"making"-as pro-ducing in the Greek sense. A mirror accomplishes such production of outward appearance; it allows all beings to become present just as they outwardly appear.
But at the same time, this is the very place to elaborate an important distinction in the tropos of production. It will enable us for the first time to attain a clearer concept of the demiourgos and thereby also of mimesis, "copying. " Were we to understand poiein-"making"-in some indefinite sense of manufacturing, then the example of the mirror would have no effect, since the mirror does not manufacture the sun.
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But if we understand pro-duction in a Greek manner, in the sense of bringing forth the Idea (bringing the outward appearance of something into something else, no matter in what way), then the mirror does in this particular sense pro-duce the sun.
With regard to "pointing the mirror in all directions," and to its mirroring, Glaucon must therefore agree immediately: Nai, "Cer- tainly," that is a producing of "beings"; but he adds, phainomena, ou mentoi onta ge pou tei aletheiai. But what shows itself in the mirror "only looks like, but all the same is not, something present in uncon- cealment," which is to say, undistorted by the "merely outwardly appearing as," i. e. , undistorted by semblance. Socrates supports him: kalos, . . . kai eis dean erchei toi logoi. "Fine, and by saying that you go to the heart of what is proper (to the matter). " Mirroring does produce beings, indeed as self-showing, but not as beings in un-con- cealment or nondistortion. Juxtaposed to one another here are on phainomenon and on tei aletheiai, being as self-showing and being as undistorted; by no means phainomenon as "semblance" and "the merely apparent," on the one hand, and on tei aletheiai as "Being," on the other; in each case it is a matter of on-"what is present"-but in different ways of presencing. But is that not the same, the self-showing and the undistorted? Yes and no. Same with respect to what becomes present (house), same to the extent that in each case it is a presencing; but in each case the tropos differs. In one case the "house" becomes present by showing itself and appearing in, and by means of, the glittering surface of the mirror; in the other the "house" is present by showing itself in stone and wood. The more firmly we hold on to the selfsameness, the more significant the distinction must become. Plato here is wrestling with the conception of the varying tropos, that is, at the same time and above all, with the determination of that "way" in which on itself shows itself most purely, so that it does not portray itself by means of something else but presents itself in such a way that its outward appearance, eidos, constitutes its Being. Such self-showing is the eidos as idea.
Two kinds of presence result: the house (i. e. , the idea) shows itself in the mirror or in the "house" itself at hand. Consequently, two kinds
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of production and producers must be differentiated and clarified. If we call every pro-ducer a demiourgos, then one who mirrors is a particular type of demiourgos. Therefore Socrates continues: ton toiouton gar oimai demiourgon kai ho zographos estin. "For I believe that the painter too belongs to that kind of pro-ducing," which is to say the mirroring kind. The artist lets beings become present, but as phainomena, "showing themselves by appearing through something else. " Ouk alethe . . . poiein ha poiei, "he does not bring forward what he produces as unconcealed. " He does not produce the eidos. Kaitoi tropoi ge tini kai ho zographos klinen poiei. "All the same, the painter too produces [a] bedframe"-tropoi tini, "in a certain way. " Tropos here means the kind of presence of the on (the idea); hence it means that in which and through which on as idea produces itself and brings itself into presence. The tropos is in one case the mirror, in another the painted surface, in another the wood, in all of which the table comes
to presence.
We are quick on the uptake, so we say that some of them produce
"apparent" things, others "real" things. But the question is: what does "real" in this case mean? And is the table manufactured by the carpen- ter the "real" table according to the Greeks; is it in being? To ask it another way: when the carpenter manufactures this or that table, any given table, does he thereby produce the table that is in being; or is manufacturing a kind of bringing forward that will never be able to produce the table "itself"? But we have already heard that there is also something which he does not pro-duce, something which he, as frame- maker, with the means available to him, cannot pro-duce: ou to eidos (ten idean) poiei, "but he does not produce the pure outward appear- ance (of something like a bedframe) in itself. " He presupposes it as already granted to him and thereby brought forth unto and produced for him.
Now, what is the eidos itself? What is it in relation to the individual bedframe that the framemaker produces? To eidos . . . ho de phamen einai ho esti kline, "the outward appearance, of which we say that it is what the bedframe is," and thereby what it is as such: the ho esti, quid est, quidditas, whatness. It is obviously that which is essential in
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beings, by means of which they "first and last are," teleos on (597 a). But if the craftsman does not pro-duce precisely this eidos in itself, but in each case merely looks to it as something already brought to him; and if eidos is what is properly in being among beings; then the craftsman does not produce the Being of beings either. Rather, he always produces this or that being-ouk . . . ho esti kline, alla klinen tina, "not the what-being of the bedframe, but some bedframe or other. "
So it is that the craftsman, who grapples with a reality you can hold in your hands, is not in touch with beings themselves, on tei aletheiai. Therefore, Socrates says, meden ara thaumadzomen ei kai touto (to ergon tou demiourgou) amydron ti tynchanei on pros aletheian. "In no way would it astonish us, therefore, if even this (what is manufac- tured by the craftsman) proves to be something obscure and hazy in relation to unconcealment. " The wood of the bedframe, the amassed stone of the house, in each case bring the idea forth into appearance; yet such pro-duction dulls and darkens the original luster of the idea. Hence the house which we call "real" is in a certain way reduced to the level of an image of the house in a mirror or painting. The Greek word amydron is difficult to translate: for one thing it means the darkening and distorting of what comes to presence. But then such darkening, over against what is undistorted, is something lusterless and feeble; it does not command the inner power of the presencing of beings themselves.
Only now do the speakers attain the position from which Socrates may demand that they try to illuminate the essence of mimesis on the basis of what they have so far discussed. To that end he summarizes and describes in a more pointed way what they have already ascertained.
The approach to their considerations established that there are, for example, many individual bedframes set up in houses. Such a "many" is easy to see, even when we look around us in a lackadaisical sort of way. Therefore, Socrates (Plato) says at the beginning of the discussion, with a very profound, ironic reference to what is to follow and which we are now on the verge of reaching (596 a), pol/a toi oxyteron blepon- ton amblyteron horontes proteroi eidon. "A variety and multiplicity is
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what those who look with dull eyes see, rather than those who examine things more keenly. " Those who examine things more keenly see fewer things, but for that reason they see what is essential and simple. They do not lose themselves in a sheer variety that has no essence. Dull eyes see an incalculable multiplicity of sundry particular bedframes. Keen eyes see something else, even-and especially-when they linger upon one single bedframe at hand. For dull eyes the many always amounts to "a whole bunch," understood as "quite a lot," hence as abundance. In contrast, for keen eyes the simple is simplified. In such simplifica- tion, essential plurality originates. That means: the first (one), pro- duced by the god, (the pure) one-and-the-same outward appearance, the Idea; the second, what is manufactured by the carpenter; the third, what the painter conjures in images. What is simple is named in the word kline. But trittai tines klinai hautai gignontai (597 b). W e must translate: "In a certain way, a first, a second, and a third bedframe have resulted here. " Mia men he en tei physei ousa, "for what is being in nature is one. " We notice that the translation does not succeed. What is physis, "nature," supposed to mean here? No bedframes appear in nature; they do not grow as trees and bushes do. Surely physis still means emergence for Plato, as it does primarily for the first beginnings of Greek philosophy, emergence in the way a rose emerges, unfolding itself and showing itself out of itself. But what we call "nature," the countryside, nature out-of-doors, is only a specially delineated sector of nature or physis in the essential sense: that which of itself unfolds itself in presencing. Physis is the primordial Greek grounding word for Being itself, in the sense of the presence that emerges of itself and so holds sway.
He en tei physei ousa, the bedframe "which is in nature," means that what is essential in pure Being, as present of itself, in other words, what emerges by itself, stands in opposition to what is pro-duced only by· something else. He physei kline: what pro-duces itself as such, without mediation, by itself, in its pure outward appearance. What presences in this way is the purely, straightforwardly envisioned eidos, which is not seen by virtue of any medium, hence the idea. That such a thing lights up, emerges, phyei, no man can bring about. Man cannot pro-
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duce the idea; he can only be stationed before it. For that reason, of the physei kline Socrates says: hen phaimen an, has egoimai, theon ergasasthai, "of which we may well say, as I believe, that a god pro- duced it and brought it forth. "
Mia de ge hen ho tekton. "But it is a different bedframe which the craftsman manufactures. " Mia de hen ho zographos. "And again an- other which the painter brings about. "
The threefold character of the one bedframe, and so naturally of every particular being that is at hand, is captured in the following statement (597 b): Zographos de, klinopoios, theos, treis houtoi epi- statai trisin eidesi klinon. "Thus the painter, the framemaker, the god-these three are epistatai, those who dedicate themselves to, or preside over, three types of outward appearance of the bedframe. " Each presides over a distinct type of self-showing, which each sees to in his own way; he is the overseer for that type, watching over and mastering the self-showing. If we translate eidos here simply as "type," three types of bedframes, we obfuscate what is decisive. For Plato's thought is here moving in the direction of visualizing how the selfsame shows itself in various ways: three ways of self-showing; hence, of presence; hence, three metamorphoses of Being itself. What matters is the unity of the basic character that prevails throughout self-showing in spite of all difference: appearing in this or that fashion and becoming present in outward appearance.
Let us also observe something else that accompanied us everywhere in our previous considerations: whenever we mentioned genuine being we also spoke of on tei aletheia1~ being "in truth. " Grasped in a Greek manner, however, "truth" means nondistortion, openness, namely for the self-showing itself.
The interpretation of Being as eidos, presencing in outward appear- ance, presupposes the interpretation of truth as aletheia, nondistor- tion. We must heed that if we wish to grasp the relation of art (mimesis) and truth in Plato's conception correctly, which is to say, in a Greek manner. Only in such a realm do Plato's questions unfold. From it they derive the possibility of receiving answers. Here at the peak of the Platonic interpretation of the Being of beings as idea, the
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question arises as to why the god allowed only one idea to go forth for each realm of individual things, for example, bedframes. Eite ouk ebouleto, eite tis ananke epen m e pleon e mian en tei physei apergasas- thai auton klinen (597 c). "Either he desired, or a certain necessity compelled him, not to permit more than one bedframe to emerge in outward appearance. " Dyo de toiautai e pleious oute ephuteuthesan hypo tou theou oute me phyosin. "Two or more such Ideas neither were brought forward by the god, nor will they ever come forth. " What is the reason for that? Why is there always only one Idea for one thing?
Let us illustrate briefly Plato's answer, with a glance back to the essence of the true, which we discussed earlier, the true in its singularity and immutability.
What would happen if the god were to allow several Ideas to emerge for one thing and its manifold nature-"house" and houses, "tree" and trees, "animal" and animals? The answer: ei dyo monas poieseien, palin an mia anaphaneie hes ekeinai an au amphoterai to eidos echoien, kai eie an ho estin kline ekeine all' oukh hai dyo. "If instead of the single 'Idea' house he were to allow more to emerge, even if only two, then one of them would have to appear with an outward appearance that both would have to have as their own; and the what-being of the bedframe or the house would be that one, whereas both could not be. " Hence unity and singularity are proper to the essence of the idea. Now, according to Plato, where does the ground for the singularity of each of the Ideas (essences) lie? It does not rest in the fact that when two Ideas are posited the one allows the other to proceed to a higher level; it rests in the fact that the god, who knew of the ascent of representa- tion from a manifold to a unity, boulomenos einai ontos klines poietes ontos ouses, alla m e klines tinos mede klinopoios tis, mian physei auten ephysen (597 d), "wanted to be the essential producer of the essential thing, not of any given particular thing, and not like some sort of framemaker. " Because the god wanted to be such a god, he allowed such things-for example, bedframes-"to come forth in the unity and singularity of their essence. " In what, then, is the essence of the Idea, and thereby of Being, ultimately grounded for Plato? In the initiating action of a creator whose essentiality appears to be saved only when
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what he creates is in each case something singular, a one; and also there where allowance is made in the representation of a manifold for an ascent to the representation of its one.
The grounding of this interpretation of Being goes back to the initiating action of a creator and to the presupposition of a one which in each case unifies a manifold. For us a question lies concealed here. How does Being, as presencing and letting come to presence, cohere with the one, as unifying? Does the reversion to a creator contain an answer to the question, or does the question remain unasked, since Being as presencing is not thought through, and the unifying of the one not defined with reference to Being as presencing?
Every single being, which we today take to be the particular item which is "properly real," manifests itself in three modes of outward appearance. Accordingly, it can be traced back to three ways of self- showing or being pro-duced. Hence there are three kinds of producers.
First, the god who lets the essence emerge-physin phyei. He is therefore called phytourgos, the one who takes care of and holds in readiness the emergence of pure outward appearance, so that man can discern it. *
Second, the craftsman who is the demiourgos klines. He produces a bed according to its essence, but lets it appear in wood, that is, in the kind of thing where the bedframe stands as this particular item at our disposal for everyday use.
Third, the painter who brings the bedframe to show itself in his picture. May he therefore be called a demiourgos? Does he work for the demos, participating in the public uses of things and in communal life? No! For neither does he have disposition over the pure essence, as the god does (he rather darkens it in the stuff of colors and surfaces), nor does he have disposition over and use of what he brings about with respect to what it is. The painter is not demiourgos but mimetes hou ekeinoi demiourgoi, "a copier of the things of which those others are
*Schleiermacher translates phytou1gos (Republic, 597 d 5) as Wesensbildne1, "shaper of essences"; the word literally means gardener, "worker with plants. " Aeschylus' suppliant maidens use the word as an epithet of Zeus the Father (Supp. 592).
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h roducers for the public. " What, consequently, is the mimetes? ~epcopieris ho tou tritou gennematos apo tes physeos (597 e); he is epistates; "he presides and rules over" one way in which Being, the "dea is brought to outward appearance, eidos. What he manufactures ~thepainting-is to triton gennema, "the third kind of bringing- forth," third apo tes physeos, "reckoned in terms of the pure emer- gence of the idea, which is first. " In the pictured table, "table" is somehow manifest in general, showing its idea in some way; and the table in the picture also manifests a particular wooden frame, and thus is somehow what the craftsman properly makes: but the pictured table shows both of them in something else, in shades of color, in some third thing. Neither can a usable table come forward in such a medium, nor can the outward appearance show itself purely as such. The way the painter pro-duces a "table" into visibility is even farther removed from the Idea, the Being of the being, than the way the carpenter produces it.
The distance from Being and its pure visibility is definitive for the definition of the essence of the mimetes. What is decisive for the Greek-Platonic concept of mimesis or imitation is not reproduction or portraiture, not the fact that the painter provides us with the same thing once again; what is decisive is that this is precisely what he cannot do, that he is even less capable than the craftsman of duplicating the same thing. It is therefore wrongheaded to apply to mimesis notions of "naturalistic" or "primitivistic" copying and reproducing. Imitation is subordinate pro-duction. The mimetes is defined in essence by his position of distance; such distance results from the hierarchy estab- lished with regard to ways of production and in the light of pure outward appearance, Being.
But the subordinate position of the mimetes and of mimesis has not yet been sufficiently delineated. We need to clarify in what way the painter is subordinate to the carpenter as well. A particular "real" table offers different aspects when viewed from different sides. But when the table is in use such aspects are indifferent; what matters is the particular table, which is one and the same. Me ti diapherei aute heautes (598 a), "it is distinguished (in spite of its various aspects) in no way from
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itself. " Such a single, particular, and selfsame thing the carpenter can manufacture. In contrast, the painter can bring the table into view only from one particular angle. What he pro-duces is consequently but one aspect, one way in which the table appears. If he depicts the table from the front, he cannot paint the rear of it. He produces the table always in only one view or phantasma (598 b). What defines the character of the painter as mimetes is not only that he cannot at all produce any particular usable table, but also that he cannot even bring that one particular table fully to the fore.
But mimesis is the essence of all art. Hence a position of distance with respect to Being, to immediate and undistorted outward appear- ance, to the idea, is proper to art. In regard to the opening up of Being, that is, to the display of Being in the unconcealed, aletheia, art is subordinate.
Where, then, according to Plato, does art stand in relation to truth (aletheia)? The answer (598 b): Porroara pou tou alethous hemimetike estin. "So, then, art stands far removed from truth. " What art pro- duces is not the eidos as idea (physis,) but touto eidolon, which is but the semblance of pure outward appearance. Eidolon means a little eidos, but not just in the sense of stature. In the way it shows and appears, the eidolon is something slight. It is a mere residue of the genuine self-showing of beings, and even then in an alien domain, for example, color or some other material of portraiture. Such diminution of the way of pro-ducing is a darkening and distorting. Tout' ara estai kai ho tragoidopoios, eiper mimetes esti, tritos tis apo basileos kai tes aletheias pephykos, kai pantes hoi alloi mimetai (597 e). "Now, the tragedian will also be of such kind, if he is an 'artist,' removed three times, as it were, from the master who rules over the emergence of pure Being; according to his essence he will be reduced to third place with regard to truth (and to the grasp of it in pure discernment); and of such kind are the other 'artists' as well. "
A statement by Erasmus which has been handed down to us is supposed to characterize the art of the painter Albrecht Diirer. The statement expresses a thought that obviously grew out of a personal conversation which that learned man had with the artist. The statement
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runs: ex situ rei unius, non unam speciem sese oculis offerentem ex- primit: by showing a particular thing from any given angle, he, Durer the painter, brings to the fore not only one single isolated view which offers itself to the eye. Rather-we may complete the thought in the following way-by showing any given individual thing as this particular thing, in its singularity, he makes Being itself visible: in a particular hare, the Being of the hare; in a particular animal, the animality. It is clear that Erasmus here is speaking against Plato. We may presume that the humanist Erasmus knew the dialogue we have been discussing and its passages on art. That Erasmus and Diirer could speak in such a fashion presupposes that a transformation of the understanding of Being was taking place. *
In the sequence of sundry ways taken by the presence of beings, hence by the Being of beings, art stands far below truth in Plato's metaphysics. W e encounter here a distance. Yet distance is not discord- ance, especially not if art-as Plato would have it-is placed under the guidance of philosophy as knowledge of the essence of beings. To pursue Plato's thoughts in that direction, and so to examine the further contents of Book Ten, is not germane to our present effort.
*Compare to the above Heidegger's reference to Albrecht Diirer in Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, Reclam edition, p. 80; "The Origin of the Work of Art," in Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 70.
23. Plato's Phaedrus: Beauty and Truth in Felicitous Discordance
Our point of departure was the question as to the nature of the discord- ance between art and truth in Nietzsche's view. The discordance must loom before him on the basis of the way he grasps art and truth philosophically. According to his own words, Nietzsche's philosophy is inverted Platonism. If we grant that there is in Platonism a discordance between art and truth, it follows that such discordance would in Nietzsche's view have to vanish as a result of the cancellation which overturns Platonism. But we have just seen that there is no discordance in Platonism, merely a distance. Of course, the distance is not simply a quantitative one, but a distance of order and rank. The result is the following proposition, which would apply to Plato, although couched in Nietzsche's manner of speech: truth is worth more than art. Nietz- sche says, on the contrary: art is worth more than truth. Obviously, the discordance lies hidden in these propositions. But if in distinction to Plato the relation of art and truth is reversed within the hierarchy; and if for Nietzsche that relation is a discordance, then it only follows that for Plato too the relation is a discordance, but of a reverse sort. Even though Nietzsche's philosophy may be understood as the reversal of Platonism, that does not mean that through such reversal the discord- ance between art and truth must vanish. We can only say that if there is a discordance between art and truth in Plato's teaching, and if Nietzsche's philosophy represents a reversal of Platonism, then such discordance must come to the fore in Nietzsche's philosophy in the reverse form. Hence Platonism can be for us a directive for the discov-
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ery and location of the discordance in Nietzsche's thought, a directive that would indicate by way of reversal. In that way Nietzsche's knowl- edge of art and truth would finally be brought to its sustaining ground.
What does discordance mean? Discordance is the opening of a gap between two things that are severed. Of course, a mere gap does not yet constitute a discordance. W e do speak of a "split" in relation to the gap that separates two soaring cliffs; yet the cliffs are not in discordance and never could be; to be so would require that they, of themselves, relate to each other. Only two things that are related to one another can be opposed to each other. But such opposition is not yet discord- ance. For it is surely the case that their being opposed to one another presupposes a being drawn toward and related to each other, which is to say, their converging upon and agreeing with one another in one respect. Genuine political opposition-not mere dispute-can arise only where the selfsame political order is willed; only here can ways and goals and basic principles diverge. In every opposition, agreement pre- vails in one respect, whereas in other respects there is variance. But whatever diverges in the same respect in which it agrees slips into discordance. Here the opposition springs from the divergence of what once converged, indeed in such a way that precisely by being apart they enter into the supreme way of belonging together. But from that we also conclude that severance is something different from opposition, that it does not need to be discordance, but may be a concordance. Concordance too requires the twofold character implied in severance.
Thus "discordance" is ambiguous. It may mean, first, a severance which at bottom can be a concordance; second, one which must be a discordance (abscission). For the present we purposely allow the word "discordance" to remain in such ambiguity. For if a discordance pre- vails in Nietzsche's inverted Platonism, and if that is possible only to the extent that there is discordance already in Platonism; and if the discordance is in Nietzsche's view a dreadful one; then for Plato it must be the reverse, that is to say, it must be a severance which nevertheless is concordant. In any case, any two things that are supposed to be able to enter into discordance must be balanced against one another, be of the same immediate origin, of the same necessity and rank. There can
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be an "above" and "below" in cases of mere distance and opposition, but never in the case of discordance, for the former do not share an equivalent standard of measure. The "above" and "below" are funda- mentally different; in the essential respect they do not agree.
Therefore, so long as art in the Republic remains in third position when measured in terms of truth, a distance and a subordination obtain between art and truth-but a discordance is not possible. If such discordance between art and truth is to become possible, art must first of all be elevated to equal rank. But is there as a matter of fact a "discordance" between art and truth? Indeed Plato speaks-in the Republic, no less (607 b)-in a shadowy and suggestive way of the palaia men tis diaphora philosophiai te kai poietikei, "of a certain ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry," which is to say, be- tween knowledge and art, truth and beauty. Yet even if diaphora here is to suggest more than a quarrel-and it is-in this dialogue it is not and cannot be a matter of "discordance. " For if art must become equal in rank with truth, so as to become "discordant" with it, then it becomes necessary to consider art in yet another respect.
That other respect in which art must be viewed can only be the same one in which Plato discusses truth. Only that one and the same respect grants the presupposition for a severance. W e must therefore investi- gate in what other regard-in contrast to the conversation carried on in the Republic-Plato treats the question of art.
If we scrutinize the traditional configuration of Plato's philosophy as a whole we notice that it consists of particular conversations and areas of discussion. Nowhere do we find a "system" in the sense of a unified structure planned and executed with equal compartments for all essential questions and issues. The same is true of Aristotle's philos- ophy and of Greek philosophy in general. Various questions are posed from various points of approach and on various levels, developed and answered to varying extents. Nevertheless, a certain basic way of pro- ceeding prevails in Plato's thought. Everything is gathered into the guiding question of philosophy-the question as to what beings are.
Although the congelation of philosophical inquiry in the doctrines and handbooks of the Schools is prepared in and by the philosophy of
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Plato, we must be chary of thinking about his questions on the guide- lines of particular dogmatic phrases and formulations found in the later philosophical disciplines. Whatever Plato says about truth and knowl- edge, or beauty and art, we may not conceive of it and pigeonhole it according to later epistemology, logic, and aesthetics. Of course that does not preclude our posing the question, in relation to Plato's medita- tion on art, of whether and where the issue of beauty is also treated in his philosophy. Granted that we must allow the whole matter to remain open, we may ask about the nature of the relation between art and beauty-a relation that long ago was accepted as a matter of course.
In his discussions Plato often speaks of "the beautiful" without taking up the question of art. To one of his dialogues the tradition has appended the express subtitle peri tou kalou, "On the Beautiful. " It is that conversation which Plato called Phaedrus, after the youth who serves as the interlocutor in it. But the dialogue has received other subtitles over the centuries: peri psyches, "On the Soul," and peri tou erotos, "On Love. " That alone is enough to produce uncertainty con- cerning the contents of the dialogue. All those things-the beautiful, the soul, and love-are discussed, and not merely incidentally. But the dialogue speaks also of techne, art, in great detail; also of logos, speech and language, with great penetration; of aletheia, truth, in a quite essential way, of mania-madness, rapture, ecstasy-in a most compel- ling manner; and finally, as always, of the ideai and of Being.
Every one of these words could with as much (or as little) right serve as the subtitle. Nevertheless, the content of the dialogue is by no means a jumbled potpourri. Its rich content is shaped so remarkably well that this dialogue must be accounted the most accomplished one in all essential respects. It therefore may not be taken to be the earliest work of Plato, as Schleiermacher believed; just as little does it belong to the final period; it rather belongs to those years which comprise the akmi of Plato's creative life.
Because of the inner greatness of this work of Plato's, we cannot hope to make the whole of it visible at once and in brief; that is even less possible here than it was in the case of the Republic. Our remarks concerning the title suffice to show that the Phaedrus discusses art,
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truth, speech, rapture, and the beautiful. Now we will pursue only what is said concerning the beautiful in relation to the true. We do this in order to estimate whether, to what extent, and in what way, we can speak of a severance of the two.
Decisive for correct understanding of what is said here about the beautiful is knowledge of the context and the scope in which the beautiful comes to language. To begin with a negative determination: the beautiful is discussed neither in the context of the question of art nor in explicit connection with the question of truth. Rather, the beautiful is discussed with the range of the original question of man's relation to beings as such. But precisely because Plato reflects upon the beautiful within the realm of that question, its connection with truth and art comes to the fore. W e can demonstrate that on the basis of the latter half of the dialogue.
W e will first of all select several guiding statements, in order to make visible the scope in which the beautiful is discussed. Second, we will comment upon what is said there about the beautiful, while remaining within the limits of our task. Third, and finally, we will ask about the kind of relation between beauty and truth which confronts us there.
Turning to the first matter, we note that the beautiful is discussed with the scope characteristic of man's relation to beings as such. In that regard we must consider the following statement (249 e): pasa men anthropou psyche physei tetheatai ta onta, e auk an elthen eis tode to zoion. "Every human soul, rising of itself, has already viewed beings in their Being; otherwise it would never have entered into this form of life. " In order for man to be this particular embodying/living man, he must already have viewed Being. Why? What is man, after all? That is not stated in so many words; it remains tacit and presupposed. Man is the essence that comports itself to beings as such. But he could not be such an essence, that is to say, beings could not show themselves to him as beings, if he did not always ahead of time have Being in view by means of "theory. " Man's "soul" must have viewed Being, since Being cannot be grasped by the senses. The soul "nourishes itself," trephetai, upon Being. Being, the discerning relation to Being, guaran- tees man his relation to beings.
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If we did not know what variation and equality were, we could never encounter various things; we could never encounter things at all. If we did not know what sameness and contrariety were, we could never comport ourselves toward ourselves as selfsame in each case; we would never be with ourselves, would never be our selves at all. Nor could we ever experience something that stands over against us, something other than ourselves. If we did not know what order and law, or symmetry and harmonious arrangement were, we could not arrange and construct anything, could not establish and maintain anything in existence. The form of life called man would simply be impossible if the view upon Being did not prevail in it in a fundamental and paramount way.
But now we must catch a glimpse of man's other essential determina- tion. Because the view upon Being is exiled in the body, Being can never be beheld purely in its unclouded brilliance; it can be seen only under the circumstance of our encountering this or that particular being. Therefore the following is generally true of the view upon Being which is proper to man's soul: magis kathorosa ta onta (248 a), "it just barely views being [as such], and only with effort. " For that reason most people find knowledge of Being quite laborious, and consequently ateleis tes tou ontos theas aperchontai (248 b), "the thea, the view upon Being, remains ateles to them, so that it does not achieve its end, does not encompass everything that is proper to Being. " Hence their view of things is but half of what it should be: it is as though they looked cockeyed at things. Most people, the cockeyed ones, give it up. They divert themselves from the effort to gain a pure view upon Being, kai apelthousai trophei doxastei chrontai, "and in turning away are no longer nourished by Being. " Instead, they make use of the trophe doxaste, the nourishment that falls to them thanks to doxa, i. e. , what offers itself in anything they may encounter, some fleeting appearance. which things just happen to have.
But the more the majority of men in the everyday world fall prey to mere appearance and to prevailing opinions concerning beings, and the more comfortable they become with them, feeling themselves con- firmed in them, the more Being "conceals itself" (Janthanei) from man. The consequence for man of the concealment of Being is that he is
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overcome by lethe, that concealment of Being which gives rise to the illusion that there is no such thing as Being. We translate the Greek word lethe as "forgetting," although in such a way that "to forget" is thought in a metaphysical, not a psychological, manner. The majority of men sink into oblivion of Being, although-or precisely because- they constantly have to do solely with the things that are in their vicinity. For such things are not beings; they are only such things ha nyn einai phamen (249 c), "of which we now say that they are. " Whatever matters to us and makes a claim on us here and now, in this or that way, as this or that thing, is-to the extent that it is at all-only a homoioma, an approximation to Being. It is but a fleeting appearance of Being. But those who lapse into oblivion of Being do not even know of the appearance as an appearance. For otherwise they would at the same time have to know of Being, which comes to the fore even in fleeting appearances, although "just barely. " They would then emerge from oblivion of Being. Instead of being slaves to oblivion, they would preserve mneme in recollective thought on Being. Oligai de leipontai hais totes mnemes hikanos parestin (250 a 5): "Only a few remain who have at their disposal the capacity to remember Being. " But even these few are not able without further ado to see the appearance of what they encounter in such a way that the Being in it comes to the fore for them. Particular conditions must be fulfilled. Depending on how Being gives itself, the power of self-showing in the idea becomes proper to it, and therewith the attracting and binding force.
As soon as man lets himself be bound by Being in his view upon it, he is cast beyond himself, so that he is stretched, as it were, between himself and Being and is outside himself. Such elevation beyond oneself and such being drawn toward Being itself is eros. Only to the extent that Being is able to elicit "erotic" power in its relation to man is man capable of thinking about Being and overcoming oblivion of Being.
The proposition with which we began-that the view upon Being is proper to the essence of man, so that he can be as man-can be understood only if we realize that the view upon Being does not enter on the scene as a mere appurtenance of man. It belongs to him as his most intrinsic possession, one which can be quite easily disturbed and
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deformed, and which therefore must always be recovered anew. Hence the need for whatever makes possible such recovery, perpetual renewal, and preservation of the view upon Being. That can only be something which in the immediate, fleeting appearances of things encountered also brings Being, which is utterly remote, to the fore most readily. But that, according to Plato, is the beautiful. When we defined the range and scope in which the beautiful comes to language we were basically already saying what the beautiful is, with regard to the possibility and the preservation of the view upon Being.
We proceed now to the second stage, adducing several statements in order to make the matter clearer. These statements are to establish the essential definition of the beautiful and thereby to prepare the way for the third stage, namely, a discussion of the relation of beauty and truth in Plato. From the metaphysical founding of communal life in Plato's dialogue on the state we know that what properly sets the standard is manifested in dike and dikaiosyne, that is, in the well- wrought jointure of the order of Being. But viewed from the standpoint of the customary oblivion of Being, the supreme and utterly pure essence of Being is what is most remote. And to the extent that the essential order of Being shows itself in "beings," that is to say, in whatever we call "beings," it is here very difficult to discern. Fleeting appearances are inconspicuous; what is essential scarcely obtrudes. In the Phaedrus (250 b) Plato says accordingly: dikaiosynes men oun kai
sophrosynes kai hosa alla timia psychais ouk enesti phengos ouden en tois teide homoiomasin. "In justice and in temperance, and in whatever men ultimately must respect above all else, there dwells no radiance whenever men encounter them as fleeting appearances. " Plato contin- ues: alla di' amydron organon magis auton kai oligoi epi tas eikonas iontes theantai to tou eikasthentos genos. "On the contrary, we grasp Being with blunt instruments, clumsily, scarcely at all; and few of those who approach the appearances in question catch a glimpse of the original source, i. e. , the essential origin, of what offers itself in fleeting appearances. " The train of thought continues as Plato interposes a striking antithesis: kallos de, "With beauty, however," it is different. Nun de kallos monon tauten esche moiran, host' ekphanestaton einai
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kai erasmiotaton (250 d). "But to beauty alone has the role been allotted [i. e. , in the essential order of Being's illumination] to be the most radiant, but also the most enchanting. " The beautiful is what advances most directly upon us and captivates us. While encountering us as a being, however, it at the same time liberates us to the view upon Being. The beautiful is an element which is disparate within itself; it grants entry into immediate sensuous appearances and yet at the same time soars toward Being; it is both captivating and liberating. * Hence it is the beautiful that snatches us from oblivion of Being and grants the view upon Being.
The beautiful is called that which is most radiant, that which shines in the realm of immediate, sensuous, fleeting appearances: kateilepha- men auto dia tes enargestates aistheseos ton hemeteron stilbon enarge- stata. "The beautiful itself is given [to us men, here] by means of the most luminous mode of perception at our disposal, and we possess the beautiful as what most brightly glistens. " Opsis gar hemin oxytate ton dia tou somatos erchetaiaistheseon. "For vision, viewing, is the keenest way we can apprehend things through the body. " But we know that thea, "viewing," is also the supreme apprehending, the grasping of Being. The look reaches as far as the highest and farthest remoteness of Being; simultaneously, it penetrates the nearest and brightest prox- imity of fleeting appearances. The more radiantly and brightly fleeting appearances are apprehended as such, the more brightly does that of which they are the appearances come to the fore-Being. According to its most proper essence, the beautiful is what is most radiant and
*Heidegger translates erasmiotaton as das Entriickendste, modifying it now as das Beriickend-Entriickende. Although both German words could be rendered by the En- glish words "to entrance, charm, enchant," their literal sense is quite different. Riicken suggests sudden ~hangeof place; the prefixes (be-, ent-) both make the verb transitive. But beriicken suggests causing to move toward, entriicken causing to move away. Heidegger thus tries to express the disparate, i. e. , genuinely erotic character of the beautiful, which both captivates and liberates us, by choosing two German words that manifest a kind of felicitous discordance. The same formulation appears in "Wie wenn am Feiertage . . . " (1939-40) in Martin Heidegger, Erlauterungen zu Holder/ins Dich- tung, pp. 53-54.
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sparkling in the sensuous realm, in a way that, as such brilliance, it lets Being scintillate at the same time. Being is that to which man from the outset remains essentially bound; it is in the direction of Being that man is liberated.
Since the beautiful allows Being to scintillate, and since the beautiful itself is what is most attractive, it draws man through and beyond itself to Being as such. W e can scarcely coin an expression that would render what Plato says in such a lucid way about radiance through those two essential words, ekphanestaton kai erasmiotaton.
Even the Latin translation from Renaissance times obscures every- thing here when it says, At vero pulchritudo sola habuit sortem, ut maxime omnium et perspicua sit et amabilis ["But true beauty alone has beendestined to be the most transparent of things and the loveliest of all"]. Plato does not mean that the beautiful itself, as an object, is "perspicuous and lovely. " It is rather what is most luminous and what thereby most draws us on and liberates us.
From what we have presented, the essence of the beautiful has become clear.
