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feature of a thing, and being, i.e., the position of this relation, is then nothing other than the connecting concept in a judgement."25 What Kant is talking about here is the Aristotelian σύνθεσις in the λόγος. "If we consider not merely this relation, but the matter posited in and of itself, then such being means as much as existence."26 If, therefore, I use the 'is' not in the sense of a copula, but as in the sentence "God is," then it means as much as existence, existing. "This concept is so straightforward that one cannot say anything to unwrap it, other than to take care that it is not confused with the relations that things have to their features. When one perceives that our entire knowledge ultimately ends in concepts that cannot be resolved, then one will also comprehend that there will be a few concepts that are virtually irresolvable, i.e., whose features are scarcely clearer or simpler than the matter itself This is the case with our explanation of existence. I readily concede that it has only clarified the concept it has tried to explain to a very limited extent. However, the nature of the object in relation to the faculty of our understanding allows no greater degree of clarification."27 Clarifying the concept and essence of being must be content to ascertain: being = position, or being in the sense of the 'is' = relation.
What particularly concerns us here, however, and must be striking, is that the structural moment of the λόγος, the 'is', the copula, has—according to Aristotle's interpretation—the character of a σύνθεσις. As we heard earlier, the potential for being true or false (ἀληθεύειν and ψεύδεσθαι), i.e., the fundamental properties of the assertion, go back to a σύνθεσις. The question arises of whether this σύνθεσις in which the essence of the copula consists is the same σύνθεσις that grounds the λόγος in general in accordance with its inner possibility. If this is the case, then does διαίρεσις also belong to the σύνθεσις of the copula? If 'being' is connectedness, it also means being taken apart. What, then, does being mean in general, such that determinations like connectedness and being taken apart pertain to it? Where do they spring from? The theory of the λόγος thus leads directly into the most central problems of metaphysics. We are not, however, as Kant thinks, faced with ultimate concepts that resist further analysis.
h) What-being, that-being, and being true as possible
interpretations of the copula. The undifferentiated manifold of
these meanings as the primary essence of the copula.
Despite the fact that precisely the Aristotelian theory of the λόγος ἀποφαντικός became and remained definitive for the ensuing tradition of
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. 77f.