The foundation as fire and as logos

pp. 17-32

in: Renato Cristin, Heidegger and Leibniz, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

The silence and the quiet that envelop the Grund are not an ontic limitation nor a sterile shell that blocks the relation between it (Grund) and Being or paralyzes the transformations, the leaps, the various Sprünge of Being that may spring from that Ur-sprung, from that origin. On the contrary, silence, quiet, withdrawal, and absence make possible the fundamental manifestation of the foundation. Certainly, the characteristics of a phenomenon that draws back and manifests itself by concealing itself cannot be analyzed by using the usual, objectivizing tools of scientific research, but are a terrain for investigation where the only thought that can advance is one that grasps its essence, a non-objectivizing thought. Heidegger outlined it, defining it as "meditating thought," grafted onto what he called the other beginning of thought.