not comprehending it. Are we standing at the border of what is comprehensible? Is this difference ultimately the first concept? But then it must at least permit of demonstration and questioning precisely as to how the conceiving, that is, how the concept in its possibility. is determined by this boundary. Yet we ourselves know nothing of this. It has not yet even been questioned. On the contrary, we determine being the other way around-from the viewpoint of concept and assertion. For a long time the erroneous doctrine has existed that being means the same as "is," and that the "is" is said first of all in judgment. It therefore follows that we first understand being through judgment and assertion. While we are fond of appealing to the ancients in this connection (one of whose treatises it is our task to interpret here), I suggest that this errant opinion can appeal to the ancients only with partial legitimacy, which means with no legitimacy whatsoever.
§ 4. The manifoldness and unity of being
It is evident why Aristotle substitutes τὸ ὄν, beings, for εἶναι, being, about which he is inquiring: namely, because it stands for τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὄν, being. And being is one, ἕν. But does Aristotle not say that being is many and multifarious, πολλά and thus πολλαχῶς. And is not this proposition the guiding principle of his entire philosophy? Is he a!so one of those who in the end no longer understand the insight of Parmenides? It would appear so, indeed it not only appears so but must obviously be so if we consider that Aristotle explicitly and in no uncertain terms battles against Parmenides. Aristotle emphasizes at Physics A 3. 186a22tf.: πρὸς Παρμενίδην, in relation to and against Parmenides is to be said ἡ λύσις ... ψευδής, his solution (to the question of ὄν, that is, that ὄν, εἶναι is ἕν) is deceptive, it conceals the true; that is, ᾗ ἀπλῶς λαμβάνει τὸ ὄν λέγεσθαι, λεγομένου πολλαχῶς—Parmenides fails to understand the essence of being in that he assumes that beings are addressed ἀπλῶς, purely and simply as the simple one, whereas they must be understood in manifold ways. As proof of the manifoldness of beings (being), Aristotle mentions the