The path

from the foundation to the abyss

pp. 43-52

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

Abstract

To proceed along this path, first of all we have to identify the way in which we should set about the task of thinking; then we shall have to focus our gaze on the play of darkness and light in which the principle can show itself in its authentic essence. The way to understand the principle consists in abandoning the logical and grammatical operativity of the principle itself. According to Leibniz, a proposition is true if the predicate belongs to the subject. Praedicatum inest subjecto: i.e., nihil est sine ratione. This twofold theorem of Leibniz's has determined the forms and developments of all modern scientific thought; but in Heidegger's opinion, this influence is nothing but proof of the greatness and functional power of the principle, which still remains unexplored in its ontological content.