Ontologia della negazione
In: Negazione. Storia di un concetto XLVI , No. 2 ( 2017 )
Sezione Saggi / Articles
Keywords: denial, being, indeterminate, self-contradiction, difference
Abstract
First and foremost, it is necessary to question the nature of negation. Does negation have an ontological or merely logical nature? The first hypothesis must involve the relationship between Being and Nothing. However, Hegel says that this relationship has no negative character. For Heidegger, it is not even the expression of a difference, because it concerns, rather, the distinction between Being and beings. In any case, if negation is only a logical link between different meanings, then negation is, above all, determination. If this is so, should it not then be primarily a denial of the indeterminate? It seems impossible to conclude otherwise. Such a conclusion can only lead us back to the hypothesis of a negative relationship between being and nothing, in which nothingness is interpreted as absolute indeterminacy or semantic self- contradiction. This contribution attempts to consider and resolve this tangle of meanings and concepts, proceeding through the examination of three distinct themes: a) the ontological negation as an objectless negation; a) the ontic negation as logical / linguistic negation; and c) the relationship between the ontology of negation and the ontological difference. The first of these subjects leads us on the trail of a radically new concept of ‘denial’. This is a concept of ‘denial’ by virtue of which the negation ceases to appear as a relationship and is traced back to its original expression as ‘vector’ of meaning. The second theme confronts us with the fact that what is denied by the denial of something opposed to something else is, in reality, a contradiction in terms and its relativity a mere deceptive semblance that springs from linguistic use. The third theme offers us a situation in which the same difference between Being and beings leads to the alikeness of these two terms. From all this springs the crisis of the concepts of ‘difference’ and ‘relationship’, and therefore to the deadlock of metaphysics.