Abstract

In contrast to being, there seems to be nothing to say about nothingness. The impression, however, is deceptive. A shrewd sophist, who greatly annoyed Plato, has left us a dazzling piece of ancient rhetoric that deals only with nothingness. Plato was at least impressed by it to the extent that he gave nothingness a place equal to being (Sophistes). In classical German philosophy, nothingness is encountered in prominent places – a reason to take a closer look. Kant gives a list of the nothings (KrV). Fichte speaks a lot about being. It is for him the ‘dead heel’ of living thought, thought that is the nothing of being insofar as it is characterized by its liveliness and activity. The fixed thinghood of the world is overformed by the dynamics of concept and relation. This is evident not least in Hegel, whose science of logic is often mistakenly called ‘ontotheology’. Here, logic does not speak of, but unfolds nothingness and thereby transforms initial being. Reflection, as a movement from ‘nothing to nothing and thus back to itself’ corrects and criticizes the temporary dominance of being and thus first establishes the conceptual understanding of reality. The idea as absolute concept contains all determinateness in itself, even the poorest determination of being. Thus, philosophy can only be understood as a process of differentiating and forming negativity, i.e. as an unfolding of nothingness.