Philosophy, What Is It?

 

Philosophy, What Is It?

                                                                                                                                   구연상(Gu Yun-Sang)

 

Opening Words

 

                  Heidegger defines the history of the Western philosophy as the ‘history of responses or correspondence (Geschichte des Entsprechens)’ to philosophia. To respond is to react to somebody’s (or something’s) calling. To respond is always a ‘response to a calling.’ There is no response without a calling. When calling takes the form of a question, the type of response for it would be an ‘answer.’ To the structure of question belongs ‘that which is asked (das Gefragte selbst).’[1] This includes the ‘problem’ in general that is formulated in a definite way. In this sense, Heidegger defines ‘the history of philosophy’ as ‘the history of answers to the philosophical questions,’ in other words, ‘the history of philosophizing’ itself. At this point, I am going to clarify this history of responses especially with respect to its beginning (ancient Greek philosophy) and early modern period (Descartes).

                  The ‘structure of calling and response’ is already to be seen in the beginning of the Western philosophy. Aristotle says in Rhetorics that “rhetorics is the counterpart (antistrophos) of dialectics.”[2] “Counterpart” means “something that stands adverse” or “the opposing piece (isostrophos)” but it originally meant contrapuntal procession in music. That is, ‘antistrophos’ means an ‘answering strophe’ in a form of response or correspondence for the preceding ‘strophe (strophē).’ Therefore, we can consider rhetorics as a technique (techne) of argument in response to dialectics, as an answer to dialectics. Heidegger uses this metaphor and defines ‘philosophy’ as a ‘thoughtful response’ to the ‘preceding calling.’

                  The contents of calling can be interpreted in a variety of ways according to the concrete contents of listening. And the types and ways of answering can be drastically different according to the different types of calling. Here, we enumerate only a number of examples.

                  1) the calling of the existence

                  Conscience calls the Dasein in his attunement (mood) of Angst and brings him ‘from inauthenticity into authenticity.’ Response to the call of conscience is resoluteness and the outcome of the resoluteness is ‘the answer to the call of conscience.’ The contents of the answer are the rehabilitation of authenticity. (Heidegger, M. Being and Time. §56-§58)

                  2) the calling of art

                  Works of art invite (call) the appreciator, in the shock of their strangeness, ‘to the disclosedness of truth.’ The appreciator gets absorbed into the world of art by responding to the invitation of the art-work and obtains a new artistic experience. To respond to the calling of the works of art is to experience the world of art disclosed by the art-works as ‘a shocking event.’ (Heidegger, M. “On the Origin of the Works of Art”)

                  3) the calling of technology

                  Modern technology forces (calls) ‘everything there is’ into ‘a technological use’ in the mood of awe and dismay. Modern technology’s ‘En-framing (Ge-stell)’[3] not only ‘pre-sents (Vor-stellen)’ ‘that which has been (das Anwesende)’ before the cognizing subject, but also ‘predetermines (Bestellen)’ this ‘fore-standing object (Gegenstand)’ as a ‘cog (Bestand)’ according to the technological need and order at the moment. Responding to the calling of technology means that we disclose the entire world from the perspective of technology according to the percussion of ‘En-framing.’ (Heidegger, M. Technology and the Kehre)

                  4) the calling of the Western metaphysics

                  The Western metaphysics and knowledge (science) let (call) us investigate, in the fundamental mood of each different epoch, ‘the meaning of Being’ of ‘the totality of everything there is’ including the human being himself. The calling of metaphysics lets us transcend ‘over beyond’ ‘the totality of everything there is’ and grasp the totality — God, man, the world — in a systematic way. Responding to the calling of metaphysics means clarifying ‘the logical Being-God-relationship’ of ‘the totality of everything there is.’ (Heidegger, M. Identity and Difference.)

                  What is peculiar in these examples of ‘calling and responding’ is that, in the actual scenes of calling and responding, certain moods are always already being evoked. Questioning as a way of response to a calling is, unwittingly, modulated by these moods. In other words, we are always affected by these moods whenever we ask questions or try to give answers. Surely, mood affects the direction of questioning and answering; however, we neglect the question concerning the moods themselves. Because we do not pose questions concerning mood, we cannot give answers for them, either. If, according to Heidegger, the mood of ‘Angst for existence’ is not aroused, conscience cannot call Dasein; and, as long as conscience is silent, we can never act resolutely or authentically. However, most of philosophical investigations concerning the problem of conscience do not deal with the problem of mood. As we have seen so far, mood as the primordial horizon of calling is neglected in the occurrences of calling.

                  Knowledge (science) is possible only as a ‘thematized research’ in relation to the primordial calling. Thematization means dissecting the subject-matter of research into all different fields. For example, biology as a ‘science of life’ thematizes life. In other words, biology would not respond to the things that have nothing to do with ‘the living beings.’ What makes such thematization possible is the methodological priority.[4] Husserl referred to the mechanical view of nature Galilei tried to formulate as a “mathematization of nature” in his Krisis. In this case, nature is to be handled as long as it can be constructed in a mathematical language according to the directives of mathematical methodology represented by calculation and measurement. Thematization in knowledge and science restricts the scope of calling only as to whether it can be answered methodologically or not. All that is methodologically not settled is to be discarded in the field of science.

                  “The occurrences of discarding” happen all the time in the sciences such as ‘the discarding of mood’ or ‘discarding through thematization.’ This is none other than the ‘forgetfulness of Being.’ It means that the meaning of Being is not completely disclosed from the original experience of the Being itself (discarding of the existence) and is rather delimited by scientific methodology, structure of the question or linguistic formalism (discarding through thematization). Heidegger once criticized the forgetfulness of Being by clarifying the history of philosophia in his essay Philosophy, What Is It?[5] This is in the same line of argument from his Being and Time that a primordial destruction and reconstruction of phenomenology and hermeneutics can rehabilitate the original region of philosophia. Heidegger recommends us to re-think philosophy from the given word “philosophia” as a way of overcoming the forgetfulness of Being. It would let us experience the primordial response to the calling of philosophy again and, more concretely, enlighten the ‘ways of moods being modulated’ and the ‘unity of the entire region of Being’ so far forgotten.

 

Propounding

 

                  It is quite important, according to Heidegger, to thoroughly listen to the ancient Greek word “philosophia” from its ground in order to understand the history of the Western philosophy.[6] For the history of the Western philosophy is nothing but the history of answers to the question “philosophia, what is it?” We have to keep in mind that not only the word “philosophia” but the ways of questioning itself are thoroughly Greek.

                  The question ‘what is it?’ is ‘τί έστίν’ in Greek. Let’s suppose that when we asked “what is it over there?” somebody answered “it’s a tree.” The answerer is informing the questioner of the name of a certain thing. However, the questioner can go a step further and ask “what is it that we call a ‘tree’?” The form of such a question is exactly the form of questions that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle themselves posed. They all asked ‘beauty, what is it?’ ‘Knowledge, what is it?’ ‘Nature, what is it?’ ‘Movement, what is it?’

                  The questioning ‘what is it?’ is a request of a ‘more exact adumbration,’ that is, a definition of that which is asked by the question. In order to answer this question correctly, we have to understand in advance the meaning [that which is meant] of this ‘what’ which is being questioned in this questioning. People call ‘the what-ness of that which is meant’ the essence (quidditas). The questioning “philosophia, what is it?” is a request to define the essence of philosophy. Plato’s Idea (ίδέα) is a peculiar interpretation, or a peculiar answer, concerning the essence of philosophy. Aristotle, Kant, Hegel interpret the essence of philosophy differently. History of these differences constitutes the history of philosophy.

 

1. όμολογειν: the first answer to philosophia

 

                  Then, who first posed the question “philosophia, what is it?” Or, what were the contents of the original calling that made this question possible? In order to answer this, we need to trace how the word “philosophia” came to be settled. The word philosophia came from philosophos (φίλοσοφος). This word is an adjective like φιλάργυρος (money-loving) and φιλότιμος (fame-loving).[7] ‘Philosophos’ seems to have been made up by Heraclitus.

 

                  “People who love wisdom should be those who make investigations of lots of things.”[8]

                  “People who search after gold dig up a lot of mud and find out a little bit of gold.”[9]

 

                  Heraclitus does not seem to have used the word philosophia. Heidegger does not take the word άνήρ φιλόσοφος as ‘philosophical man,’ but rather interprets it as ‘a man who loves σοφόν (ός φιλεί τό σοφόν).’[10] According to Heidegger, “philosophia” can be understood through the meanings of two discrete words “σοφόν” and “φιλείν.” First, φιλείν means όμολογειν, that is, ‘speaking according as logos would speak’ or ‘acquiescing and corresponding to logos (ent-sprechen: speaking correspondingly).’ Heraclitus argues in many places that “acquiescing and corresponding to logos” is none other than wisdom itself.

 

“Not listening to ourselves, but listening to logos we would agree that ‘all things are one’ and we would be wiser.”[11]

“People do not understand how it is in discord with itself and yet in agreement (homologeei) with itself. It is a harmony pulling in opposite directions like bow and lyre.”[12]

 

                 ‘Acquiescing and corresponding to logos’ is for the sake of άρμονία. Άρμονία means ‘accordance between many different things.’ That which has to achieve harmony through logos is none other than σοφόν. For Heraclitus, σοφόν indicates ‘truth hidden’ as ‘Έν Πάντα’ meaning that ‘everything is one.’ Here, ‘Πάντα’ means ‘Πάντα τά όντα,’ that is, ‘everything that is’ and ‘Έν’ means ‘one.’ ‘Έν Πάντα’ indicates that ‘everything that is’ is one in its being. In other words, ‘everything that is is in its Being [not in Nothingness].’ Anything that is can never get out of the borders of Being. That which is can only ‘be’ when it is within the borders of Being. To describe this succinctly, “that which is grounds in Being.” ‘Έν Πάντα’ indicates the entire domain of Heraclitus’ philosophical investigations.

                  Heraclitus is famous for his argument “everything flows (πάντα ρεί).” However, what surprised him the most was the fact that ‘there is something that governs the flow, penetrating everything within the flow.’ And it was none other than logos. Logos like ‘an ever-living fire’ is the principle governing ‘everything that is.’ A wise man is the one who resembles the logos. Heraclitus’ answer to the question “philosophia, what is it?” would be ‘trying to resemble the logos as Έν Πάντα.’

                  Heraclitus’ answer “one and the entirety” seems quite contradictory at first. Not afraid of logical contradictions, he used ‘adjectival comparison’ in order to climb from the entirety up to one. He tried to grasp a perfect entirety comprising everything there is. This grasping is only possible through comparison and metaphor. And the metaphor cannot be explained, but people should understand it by themselves. Heraclitus says the following.

 

                  “Just as kids are called stupid by adults, adults are called stupid by gods.”[13]

“The wisest among men seems like a monkey when compared with a god. And that in respect of wisdom, beauty, and everything else.”[14]

 

                  We can also rephrase the fragment 61 above into a relational analogy: “the relation of monkey’s beauty to man’s is the same as the relation of man’s beauty to a god’s.” Heraclitus could not help being surprised by the discovery of ‘Έν Πάντα’ that his language at that time could not spell out and he created relational analogy in order to describe this ‘surprising fact.’[15] Surprise is a mood that we get when ‘something unpredicted, unimagined’ shows up all of a sudden. Surprise is only possible when a phenomenon or a result is way beyond someone’s expectation, anticipation or imagination. It can be something beyond our common sense, something very strange or even very excellent. The surprise that Heraclitus experienced when he discovered ‘among all that flow’ logos as the ‘common one’ governing the flow itself would not be so different from the surprise that Newton experienced when he discovered gravity is the principle of ‘all that fall down.’

                  Heraclitus did not run away from this surprising fact but rather was obsessed with it asking himself “what is it?” and giving himself answers. For Heraclitus, “it” is still disclosed and being experienced. There are two evidences for the fact that surprise was the mood that modulated his philosophizing.

 

“This is a philosopher’s pathos (παθος), that is, surprise. For the fundament (άρχή) governing philosophia is nothing but this.”[16]

“In fact, through surprise, man takes the first step to govern philosophizing in the present as well as in the past.”[17]

 

                  Looking at these passages, we can see that surprise is the pathos as άρχή not only for Heraclitus’ philosophy but also for philosophia in general. “άρχή” means provenance or origin, but it is never what stands at the butt-end of the flow but rather what governs the entire flow from the beginning to the end. In other words, surprise as άρχή first ignites the flow and history of philosophia, makes it go on and governs it thoroughly. Heidegger associates pathos generally translated as “emotion,” “passion,” “temper” with πάσχειν. This word is semantically related to “endure,” “endeavor,” “bear,” “persevere,” “be supported by,” “be modulated by,” etc. In this context, Heidegger ventures to translate the word pathos into “mood.”[18]

                  For Heraclitus, surprise (θαυμάζειν) as a mood involves the attitudes of φιλείν and όμολογειν. That is, ‘surprise against σοφόν’ brought about the attitude trying to resemble the love of σοφόν and, therefore, helped to grasp ‘Έν Πάντα’ in its relationship with ‘one’ and the ‘entirety’ thoroughly. Then, Heraclitus could go on to grasp ‘the entire nature and gods’ in analogical comparison to ‘flow and logos’ and could name this relational analogy ‘Έν Πάντα.’

 

2. έπιστήμη θεωρητική: a decisive answer to philosophia

 

                  Plato and Aristotle are the philosophers who overcame the mood of surprise. Here, overcoming means getting out of the bewilderment of surprise and starting to theoretically investigate the objects of surprise. In order to do this, they suppressed the mood of surprise. Then, the mood that led them was curiosity, that is, ‘an instinct to know.’ They deserted their attitude to acquiesce and correspond to σοφόν as the object of surprise and proceeded in the direction of digging up the ground of the σοφόν itself.

                  Heidegger explains this change through the semantic transformations of the word φιλείν. Φιλείν τό σοφόν, that is, the ‘loving of σοφόν’ did not mean ‘άρμονία,’ the ‘harmonizing with σοφόν’ any more; it rather came to mean όρεξις (desire, yearning), that is, ‘striving for σοφόν (Streben nach dem σοφόν).’[19] Now, philosophia become something like the efforts to obtain σοφόν. And we sometimes consider these efforts as Eros for the ‘unchangeable,’ the immortal, Idea or Eidos.

                  Surprise changes into ‘efforts to obtain truth’ and ‘σοφόν (Έν Πάντα),’ that is, ‘logos governing everything in flow as one’ is taken as a matter of course; and the practice to resemble logos disappears. Where practice has disappeared, a new question takes place “what is it that is, as far as it is?” The condition “as far as it is” delimits the investigation of the essences only apropos of ‘that which is.’ In other words, that which is not is discarded from the scope of the investigation.[20] This question makes us forget the fundamental conflicts such as ‘the opposition between being and nothingness’ or ‘the strife between flow and tranquility.’ Concerning this change Aristotle writes the following.

 

“And the question that [philosophia] is always headed for and yet does not find any channels for already early in the past, in the present and in the future always and ever — it is the question of ‘what is it that is? (τί τό όν)’”[21]

 

According to Aristotle, the question “what is it that is?” is identical with the question “what is ούσία?(τούτό έστι τίς ή ούσία)”[22] Ούσία ‘makes that which is be.’ It is the ground for something to be. Philosophia now became the ‘search after the ground of being.’ The ‘history of philosophia’ is transformed into the ‘history of presenting evidences.’[23] Aristotle defines philosophia as digging up evidences like the following.

 

                  “knowledge (έπιστήμη) observing the first άρχαί and αίτίαι”[24]

                 

According to Heidegger, ‘έπιστήμη’ was derived from the participle έπιστάμενος that means ‘a person specialized in something’ or ‘a person having something at his fingers’ ends.’ Having something at one’s fingers’ ends means the state in which somebody has accumulated a good amount of experience in a field and knows enough how things get done in there. Έπιστήμη as having something at one’s fingers’ ends not excluding practice now turned into “a theoretical investigation within the sciences” for Aristotle.[25] Έπιστήμη φύσικη became natural science, έπιστήμη εθίκη became ethics and έπιστήμη λόγικη became logic. Theory retains supremacy over practice in these categories. In this context, philosophia could not help being re-named ‘έπιστήμη τις,’ that is, ‘a science concerning something.’ Finally, philosophia is defined as a kind of έπιστήμη that is able to perform θεωρείν.

                  Θεωρείν is a verb made up of two roots ‘Θέα’ and ‘όράω.’ ‘Θέα’ means ‘the seeing eye’ or ‘the shape being seen’ as in the word “theater.” ‘Όράω’ means ‘looking at something.’ Now, θεωρείν indicates ‘looking at something from a specific sight (perspective).’ Therefore, θεωρείν means looking at something ‘as it originally is,’ before it is cognized or described by somebody else.[26]

‘Θέα’ can also mean a goddess as in Parmenides. The goddess ‘Θέα’ looms out of the state of being hidden, as in Άλήθεια, but it is not the case that she gets out of the darkness completely. Θεωρείν is to look at things without forgetting this original ‘darkness or cover-up.’ Θεωρητική is the capability to look at something from its grounds and not to lose it out of sight. Philosophy is originally ‘έπιστήμη θεωρητική,’ that is, ‘a science that only observes.’

                  Then, what is it that is theoretically observed? It is none other than “πρώται άρχαί καί αίτίαι.” The first origin and [four kinds of] causes are ούσία. Plato called them Idea or Eidos and Aristotle called them ένέργεια. Heidegger interprets ‘ένέργεια’ as ‘sojourning in things completed.’[27] Things completed could be things naturally produced, things artificially brought about, or literally everything that appears to us. In this sense, things completed mean ‘everything produced from certain causes.’ Ένέργεια can be defined as ‘a productive activity that lets everything be.’

                  In the Middle Ages, however, surprise against ‘Έν Πάντα’ was diluted, erased and ένέργεια was replaced by actus. Then, our relationship with the entire nature is understood as ‘operatio.’ Operatio means man’s active working and maneuvering. ‘Everything there is’ is understood as products grasped by man’s activity, that is, grasped from the causes (causa). Now, everything can be explained by the activity of God as the first cause (causa prima). ‘Everything there is’ is divided up into ‘creator (ens infinitum)’ and ‘creatum (ens finitum).’ ‘That which lets something there is be’ comes to mean, in this dichotomy, the actualitas in the sense of ‘the working causes.’[28] For Thomas Aquinas, God as ‘the most active’ should not ‘be derived from something else’ and should be ‘of itself (esse a se)’ and, therefore, should be ‘of necessity (ens necessarium)’ because it works as the cause of everything else.[29]

                  As the history of philosophia ignites with surprise and proceeds through curiosity to the suppression of moods and sublimation of spirits, systematic investigations of man’s intellect were successfully carried out. However, the dividing gulf between man and nature was deepened and the traditional concept of truth as ‘correspondence between intellect and thing’ was greatly disturbed. Descartes was skeptical of the legitimacy of the traditional concept of truth based on the subject-object dichotomy. Descartes doubts whether or not the ‘entire opinions’ he so far took to be true are ‘actually true’ and ‘certain.’ Because everything is a matter of doubt for him, mood of surprise against ‘σοφόν’ falls in complete oblivion. The question of ‘τί τό όν,’ that is, ‘what is it that is, as far as it is?’ is not even raised for Descartes.

                  Obsessed with ‘methodical doubt,’ Descartes asks ‘what it is that truly is’ in the sense of ‘ens certum (things that certainly are)’.[30] The essence of ‘certitudo’ that Descartes speaks of is certainty (Gewißheit) and it is quite different from that of the Middle Age thought. In the Middle Ages, ‘certitudo’ meant essentia, that is, ‘giving solid delimitations to something there is according to its own essence.’ Descartes made an investigation of ‘ens certum’ casting doubts on the legitimate grounds of giving essential delimitations of things. Certitudo is based on ‘cogito ergo sum,’ that is, the undoubted fact that ‘I think therefore I am’ and this certainty is again determined by ‘mens’ itself or ‘ego’ itself.[31]

                  Ego becomes ‘sub-iectum’ par excellence and man’s essence enters the realm of subjectivity (Subjektivität) in the sense of ego-ness (Egoität) for the first time. In the mood attuned by certitude, Descartes discovers ‘clare et distincte percipere’ as a standard of certainty.[32] The reason why this discovery was possible is that the mood of doubt attuning Descartes’ philosophia was not a ‘real mood,’ but a ‘methodical one.’ Methodical doubt does not actually consider whether a given truth is ‘true or not,’ but rather poses a way of thinking that destroys truth traditionally given in order to discover a new standard of truth. The fundamental mood of Descartes’ philosophy was not doubt, but rather a ‘yearning for certainty.’[33]

 

                                                              Closing Words

 

                  The history of philosophy is constituted by the history of answers to the question “philosophy, what is it?” To this question, Heraclitus answered ‘trying to resemble logos.’ His response was not a logical proof concerning logos, but was made in the form of epical narrations. The form of his response could be due to the limitations of his language at that time, but it was rather because he was surprised and attracted by the objects of research (σοφόν, Έν Πάντα) in a more fundamental sense.

                  As soon as the mood of surprise was subdued, the following philosophers like Plato and Aristotle tried to observe those objects of surprise dispassionately ‘as they really are.’ They analyzed them, synthesized them into a systematic whole, and continued to frame metaphysical paradigms. These frames were handed down to the Middle Ages and to the modern times in great development.

                  Even Descartes was not able to get out of these frames completely. Although Descartes seems to start his philosophy from the mood of doubt, not from that of surprise, he was set to obtain certainty through the mood of doubt; and we can not say that Descartes philosophized in a mood totally different from that of surprise. Rather, he was obsessed with the yearnings for mathematical, scientific coldness and for such proof. This kind of mood is not radically different from the ‘yearning for eternity’ that ancient philosophers cherished.

                  Every answer presupposes a question. ‘Question and answer’ are again a reified form of calling and response. If this is truly the case, we have to pay attention to the ‘occurrences of response’ before ‘question and answer.’ Response is given as a concrete experience of a calling. If we can re-interpret the 2500 years of Western philosophy as a ‘history of responses,’ our question “philosophy, what is it?” should also be a calling from the occurrences of philosophy themselves. As the calling echoes, we have to enlighten the basic moods that attune us ourselves fundamentally above all things. For answering is already being directed by these basic moods.[34] Furthermore, we need to discover the ‘σοφόν’ of our time, need to be surprised at it and enlighten its origin and grounds. We need to venture a new odyssey of thinking.[35]

 

 

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[1] Heidegger, M. Being and Time. §2.

[2] Aristotle. Rhetorics. 1354a.

[3] ‘Framing’ is translated into “Mori” in Korean. “Mori” means a type of percussion as in ‘Whimori-percussion’ and ‘Jajinmori-percussion’ as well as a type of hunting as in ‘Tokimori (hare-hunting).’ ‘En-framing’ includes all the attempts in history that importune and frame everything into ‘objects or cogs’ for ‘theoretical cognition’ and ‘technical maneuvering.’

[4] Heidegger, M. “Science and Reflection” 70-73. Modern science can secure its own region of research due to its methodological supremacy and those regions of research make divisions of the sciences. As the research goes on, divisions of the sciences become more sophisticated and the sciences become more specialized. Thematization means specialization.

[5] Heidegger, M. “Philosophy, What Is It?”(lectures in Sept. 1955) in Heidegger, M. Identity and Difference. (Korean trans. Shin Sang-Hee) Seoul: Minum. 2000.

[6] This word lies before us, because it was “always being ‘spoken to us (vorausgesprochen)’ for a long time. on the other hand, the way to listen to this word lies behind us already. For we have been always hearing and speaking this word. So, the Greek word philosophia is a trail where we are always on the way (unterwegs).” Heidegger, M. “Philosophy, What Is It?” 76-77.

[7] Heidegger, M. “Philosophy, What Is It?” 82.

[8] “Heraclitus’ Fragment 41” in Fragments of the pre-Socratic Philosophers. Seoul: Acanet. 2005.

[9] “Heraclitus’ Fragment 43”

[10] Heidegger, M. “Philosophy, What Is It?” 83.

[11] “Heraclitus’ Fragment 48”

[12] “Heraclitus’ Fragment 50”

[13] “Heraclitus’ Fragment 31”

[14] “Heraclitus’ Fragment 61”

[15] S---, B. A Greek Origin of the Western Thought. Rediscovery of the Spirit. (Korean trans. Kim Jae-Hong) Seoul: Kkachi. 1994. 333.

[16] Plato. Theatetus. 155d.

[17] Aristotle. Metaphysics. A2, 982 b12sq.

[18] Heidegger, M. “Philosophy, What Is It?” 97.

[19] Ibid. 85.

[20] The condition “as far as it is” in Heraclitus’ question “what is Έν Πάντα?” transformed philosophy fundamentally and this transformation of philosophy opened up the way to scientific investigation. As regards this, we may consult the following sentence. “Science won’t know anything about Nothingness (das Nichts).” Heidegger, M. “What is Metaphysics?” (Korean trans. Lee Ki-Sang) Seoul: Seokwang. 1995. 67.

[21] Aristotle. Metaphysics. Z1, 1028 b2.

[22] Aristotle calls the investigation of ούσία “πρώτη φίλοσοφία.” And this includes the investigation of everything that is, such as life, soul, creation and destruction, occasions, movement, location, time, space, God. Cf. Heidegger, M. The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. (Korean trans. Lee Ki-Sang) Seoul: Kkachi. 2001. 66-69.

[23] In the history of philosophy, we can enumerate the grounds that let everything there is be, such as the following: Plato’s ίδέα, Aristotle’s ένέργεια, Descartes’ cogito, Kant’s Subjektivität, Hegel’s absolutes Geist, Nietzsche’s ewige Wiederkehr, etc.

[24] Aristotle. Metaphysics. Book I, A2, 982b 9sq. “έπιστήμη τών πρωτων άρχών καί αίτιών Θεωρητική.”

[25] Heidegger, M. The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. (Korean trans. Lee Ki-Sang) Seoul: Kkachi. 2001. 66-67.

[26] Heidegger, M. “Science and Reflection” 62-63. Θεωρείν is translated into “contemplari” in Latin and “contemplari” means “the activity to dissect something and set up demarcations between them.” ‘Templum’ means “a region conspicuously demarcated between the heaven and the earth,” that is, “directions (North-South-East-West) according to the movement of the sun.” ‘Contemplari’ is a kind of bird-divination as the act of observing the traces of a flying bird, its cuckooing sounds and its hunting characteristics in order to make predictions. In other words, this word means an act of observing with a specific purpose. Ibid. 65-66.

[27] Heidegger, M. “Science and Reflection” 58.

[28] Heidegger, M. Nietzsche II. Neske. 1961. 431-2.

[29] Aquinas, T. Summa Theologiae I. 12, 4. Re-quoted from Kim, Jong-Uk. “Formation and Deconstruction of Modern Subjectivity” in Heidegger and Modernity. Seoul: Philosophy & Reality. 1999. 142.

[30] Descartes. Meditations. (Korean trans. Lee Hyun-Bok) Seoul: Munyea. 1997.

[31] Heidegger, M. “Philosophy, What Is It?” 97-98.

[32] Ibid. 98.

[33] Gu, Yun-Sang. “The Cartesian Method of Doubt and Destruction” in Philosophical Research. 64. 2004.

[34] Heidegger once suggested boredom as a type of such mood. Cf. Gu, Yun-Sang. “Boredom in Heidegger” in Dongseo Philosophical Research. 45. 2007. I also suggested ‘regret’ and ‘rue’ as such moods. Concerning ‘regret,’ cf. Gu, Yun-Sang. Regret and Time. Seoul: Seorim M&B. 2004. Concerning ‘rue,’ cf. Gu, Yun-Sang. “Writing and Rue” in The Gratitude of Doing Science in Our Language. Seoul: Chaeryun. 2009.

[35] Gu, Yun-Sang. Philosophy is Wiser-Making. Seoul: Chaeryun. 2009.