ΟΝ ΚΑΙ ΧΩΡΑ

SITUATING HEIDEGGER BETWEEN THE SOPHIST AND THE TIMAEUS

Nader EL-BIZRI (University of Cambridge)

Abstract: In attempting to address the heideggerian Seinsfrage, by way of sit- uating it between the platonic conception of ov in the Sophist and of χώρα in the Timaeus, this paper investigates the ontological possibilities that are opened up in terms of rethinking space. Asserting the intrinsic connection between the question of being and that of space, we argue that the maturation of ontology as phenomenology would not unfold in its furthermost potential unless the being of space gets clarified. This state of affairs confronts us with the exacting onto- logical task to found a theory of space that contributes to an explication of the question of being beyond its associated temporocentric determinations. Conse- quently, our line of inquiry endeavours herein to constitute a prolegomenon to the elucidation of the question of the being of space as "ontokhorology."

I. Heidegger and the "Ontological Problem of Space"

Despite a longstanding history of philosophical theories of space, the ontological nature of space remains uncanny and its kind of being is hitherto vexingly unclear. In view of this thought-provoking ontolo- gical problem¹, we shall investigate some of the veiled possibilities that are to be found in Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Plato's Sophist and Timaeus, which may ultimately assist us in our attempt to eluci- date the ontological question of space.

¹ This ontological problem gains its initial significance from the implications it has on the unfolding of Heidegger's fundamental ontology and its elucidation of the ques tion of being. Regarding this ontological endeavour, see: M. HEIDEGGER, Sein und Zeit, Gesamtausgabe Band 2, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977, § 4; M. HEI- DEGGER, Being and Time, English trans. by J. Stambaugh, New York: State Univer- sity of New York Press, 1996, § 4.

If the history of metaphysics has been oblivious of being, it has also been a history that neglected the ontological question of space. This dif-ficult inheritance has ultimately led to a gradual unfurling of a contem- porary wake of a hesitant interest in investigating the ontological en- tailments of Plato's χώρα. If the Sophist has highlighted the primacy of being (ov), the Timaeus did posit space (χώρα) as a challenge to on- tological thinking¹. In view of this, we will attempt to situate our in- quest between the Sophist and the Timaeus, between öv (Sein; being) and χώρα (Raum; space), wherein the thesis that guides this situation- al confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) entails that: an ontological elu- cidation of the question of being progresses by way of elucidating the question of the being of space. Consequently, ontology as phenomenology would not adequately progress unless the question of the being of space is clarified by way of "ontokhorology."

Whilst displaying a great interest in appealing to the Sophist, Hei- degger did not show a comparable enthusiasm in reading the Timaeus. This hermeneutic choice partly explains why the Sophist may have in-

2 In view of the growing contemporary interest in χώρα, 1 refer the reader to: J. DER- RIDA, Positions, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1972; J. DERRIDA, Kbora, Paris: Galilée, 1993; J. DERRIDA, Foi et Savoir, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1996; J. DERRIDA, A. DU- FOURMANTELLE, De l'hospitalité: Anne Dufourmantelle invite Jacques Derrida à répon- dre, Mayenne: Calmann-Lévy, 1997; J. KRISTEVA, "Sémiologie et Grammatologie: Entretien avec Jacques Derrida", in Positions, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1972; J. KRISTEVA, La révolution du langage poétique: l'avant-garde à la fin du XIXe siècle: Lautréamont et Mallarmé, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1974; J. KRISTEVA, Pouvoirs de l'hor- reur: essai sur l'abjection, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1980; J. SALLIS, Chorology: On Be- ginning in Plato's Timaeus, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999;

J. SALLIS, *Platonism at the Limit of Metaphysics", in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Vol. 19, no. 2 Vol. 20, no. 1, 1997, pp. 299-314; J. SALLIS, Spacings Of Reason, Chica- go: University of Chicago, 1987; L. IRIGARAY, "Place, Interval: A Reading of Aristo- tle's Physics IV", in An Ethics of Sexual Difference, English trans. by C. Burke, G. C. Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993; L. IRIGARAY, "Une mère de glace", in Specu lum of the Other Woman, English trans. by G. C. Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985;

E. S. CASEY, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History, Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 1997; A. BENJAMIN, "Distancing and Spacing", in Philosophy and Architecture, ed. A. Benjamin, London: Academy Editions, 1990, pp. 6-11; M. THEO- DOROU, "Space and Experience", in AA Files, Vol. 34, 1997, pp. 45-55; N. El-BIZRI, "Qui êtes-vous, Khöra?": Receiving Plato's Timaeus", in Existentia, Vol. XI, Issue 3-4, 2001, pp. 473-490; N. El-BIZRI, "A Phenomenological Account of the 'Ontological Prob- lem of Space", in Existentia, Vol. XII, Issue 3-4, 2002, pp. 345-364.

Although many philosophers believe that the Sophist is the more mature work of Plato than the Timaeus, and although it has been claimed that the former does not display a "tissue of linguistic confusions" like the latter, nonetheless we are attesting a renewed philosophical interest in the Timaeus. Concerning the allusion to the re- ception of Plato's Timaeus during the wake of the anti-metaphysical turn of Logical Positivism, see: PLATO, Timaeus, English trans. by D. J. Zeyl, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000, p. xv.deed pre-set the itinerary of Sein und Zeirt, whilst the relative neglecting of the Timaeus may have undermined the standing of space in Hei- degger's ontological investigations⁵. This state of affairs may have par- tially solicited him to devalue space (Raum) by contrastingly positing time (Zeit) as the structuring horizon (Horizont) against which his in- vestigation of the question of being (Seinsfrage) was conducted. What concerns us herein is medially suggested by what is left unsaid in his laconic confession, in the seminar Zeit und Sein (1962), that the attempt in Sein und Zeit (§70) to derive spatiality from temporality has been "untenable"⁶. In view of this, it may be argued that a closer examina- tion of Plato's account of χώρα in the Timaeus would have ultimately led Heidegger to establish a more informed position that recognizes the axiality of space in this inquiry about being. After all, the ambiguous ontological status of χώρα does resist the derivation from temporality and confronts us from the outset with an ontological challenge that is no less difficult than that of the question of being itself.

II. Sein und Raum in Sein und Zeit

⁴ Regarding the affinity between the Sophist lectures and Sein und Zeit, see: J. TAMINIAUX, Lectures de l'ontologie fondamentale, Grenoble: Millon, 1989, pp. 182- 189. Concerning the intellectual context of the Sopbist lectures and Sein und Zeit, see: R. BRISART, La phénoménologie de Marbourg, ou la résurgence de la métaphysique chez Heidegger à l'époque de Sein und Zeit, Paris: Grasset, 1993.

⁵ It is compelling to notice that whilst appealing many times in Sein und Zeit to the Sophist (242c, 244a, 245c6-246e1), the Timaeus (37d) is mentioned only once in the context of talking about time (Zeit) not space (Raum).

⁶ M. HEIDEGGER, On Time and Being, English trans. by J. Stambaugh, New York: Harper, 1969, p. 23; Zeit und Sein, in M. HEIDEGGER, Zur Sache des Denkens, Tübin- gen: Niemeyer, 1969.

Heidegger proclaims in Sein und Zeit that "the fact that space shows itself in a world does not tell us anything about its kind of being." This is the case given that "the being of space" cannot be conceived as the same kind of being as that of the res extensa or the res cogitans. Con- sequently, space is not simply reducible to a geometrically-determined extensio, as Descartes proclaimed, nor is it an objective absolute, like Newton argued, or relational, as Leibniz conjectured. Moreover, space is not simply reducible to an a priori subjective form of intuition or that of the appearances of outer sense, as Kant held, or to being constitut- ed by transcendental subjectivity as Husserl claimed. Radically dissat- isfied with the way his predecessors addressed the ontological problem of space, Heidegger says:The perplexity still present today, with regard to the interpretation of the being of space is grounded not so much in an inadequate knowledge of the factual constitution of space itself, as in the lack of a fundamental trans- parency of the possibilities of being in general and of their ontologically conceived interpretation. What is decisive for the understanding of the ontological problem of space lies in freeing the question of the being of space from the narrowness of the accidentally available and, moreover, undifferentiated concepts of being, and, with respect to the phenomenon itself, in moving the problematic of the being of space and the various phenomenal spatialities in the direction of clarifying the possibilities of being in general.

Accordingly the question of the being of space may be better un- derstood if the question of being is adequately attended to in accor- dance with the spatiality (Räumlichkeit) of Dasein's being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein). Given that Heidegger holds that temporality pro- vides the meaning of Dasein, he initiates a serious attempt to derive spa- tiality from it. Furthermore, his stress on Dasein's being-in-the-world is itself an eloquent affirmation of the inherence of the "incarnate sub- ject" in the world that points to the originary (originär) character of space as opposed to taking it to be constituted or derived from what is other than itself, be it time, Dasein, or transcendental subjectivity. Having said that, it nonetheless remains to be the case that temporali- ty (Zeitlichkeit) is grasped in Sein und Zeit as being the horizon of the existential analytic of Dasein (existenziale Analytik des Daseins)".

⁷ M. HEIDEGGER, Sein und Zeit, op. cit., § 24.

⁸ M. HEIDEGGER, Sein und Zeit, op. cit., § 70.

⁹ Regarding the axial role assigned to temporality in Heidegger's thinking, see: F. DASTUR, Heidegger et la question du temps, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990. Also refer to Janicaud's line in thinking, which was partly influenced by Hei- degger's thought, in questioning humanism and temporality, see: D. JANICAUD, Chronos: pour l'intelligence du partage temporal, Paris: B. Grasset, 1997.

¹⁰ M. HEIDEGGER, Sein und Zeit, op. cit., §7.

Heidegger affirms that the temporality of the spatiality character- istic of Dasein is unlike that of the objective world-space that is marked by Vorhandenheit, which is itself founded on the functional and tem- poral mode of Dasein's being-in-the-world. In this sense, the phe- nomenological maxim, that calls for "going back to things themselves"¹⁰, is itself manifested in the way Heidegger goes back to space itself in his description of spatial experience without an appeal to the vorhanden world-space. Given Heidegger's belief that the constitution of Dasein is ontologically possible only on the foundational basis of temporali- ty, Dasein's spatiality is itself seen as being grounded in time whilst con- comitantly granting the possibilities of the disclosing of space in the world. However, this state of affairs does not correspond with the claimthat time has an ontic (ontisch) priority over space as it is attested with Kant's account of the forms of intuition in Kritik der reinen Vernunft.

Heidegger does assert that Dasein can be spatial (räumlich) only as care (Sorge). Hence, manifesting a factical (faktisch) mode of being that is not reducible to an objective presence (Vorhandenheit), and whose spatiality is unlike that of other beings, given that Dasein is not posi- tional but rather takes space in by way of making room (Einräumen) for a leeway (Spielraum) and clearing (Lichtung)¹¹. This spatial state of affairs does in itself lay down the conditions that allow a geistig Da- sein to inquire about space, to theorize about it, thematize it, make repre- sentations of it, or attempt to produce it¹². The making room of Dasein's spatiality is herein constituted by directionality (Ausrichtung) and de- distancing (de-severance, Ent-fernung) due to which ready-at-hand use- ful things (zuhanden) and their instrumental groupings are encountered in the surrounding world. By coming across these things and handling them, Dasein already reveals a region (Gegend) that is founded on hand- iness (Zuhandenheit). After all, being-in-the-world is the mode of be- ing of a being that takes care of things, which in doing so becomes directed as well as directing itself. In this sense, the self-directive discovering of a region is itself set against the horizon of a discovered world in which making room is a bringing-near as a de-distancing of handy things, which is grounded by a making-present (Gegenwärtigen) that belongs to the unity of temporality.

¹¹ The verbal räumen is itself indicative of the act of clearing. As for the phenom- enon of clearing qua Lichtung, it is in a more basic sense also conceived as a clearing qua Räumung. In this regard, Raum and Lichtung may be seen as being etymologi- cally entangled.

¹² Most serious architectural endeavours are aimed at producing space, and this is particularly confirmed within the unfurling of 20^th century modernist architecture and is furthermore attested in many cases of avant-garde modern art.

Dasein's making room for space is not reducible to a locational po- sition, but is rather a leeway or clearing of the opened up range of use- ful present things that are encountered and moved around in a directional de-distancing. The making-present of these things lets space presence by way of making room for it as leeway or clearing. However, this mak- ing-present is absorbed in the nearness of what the directional de-dis- tancing brings near, which makes the handling of things possible. This involving state of affairs, which is restricted to what is made-present, does allow Heidegger to proclaim that only on the basis of temporali- ty would it be possible for Dasein to break into space through a self-di- rective de-distancing that discloses a region in the world. However, Heidegger does also concede that, although space is founded on tem-porality, Dasein would nevertheless reveal a "dependency" upon space, which is made manifest in the articulation of signification and repre-sentation, and is itself intelligible from the standpoint of the self-interpretation of Dasein, wherein the priority of the spatial is grounded in the kind of being of that being. Temporality may itself be understood here from the standpoint of the spatial relations that making-present finds in what is present-at-hand or in what is objectively-present. So, if temporality does indeed depend on spatiality, would it then be the case that space is readily derivable from time?

Although it is said that Dasein as care is spatial due to a circumspect directionality and de-distancing, the space that is discovered in the re-sultant phenomenon of a region may still be seen as being merely a context to which handy and present things belong. However, making room, as a mode of giving space (Raum-geben), frees things from their entrapping positional locality and lets them be encountered as innerworldly (innerweltlich) beings. Space is itself disclosed originarily within this absorption with things by way of making room for them. It is from the grounds of this constitutive directed de-distancing that space becomes accessible to cognition as what is found in the world by way of Dasein's being-in-the-world that discloses it. It is in this sense that one may understand Heidegger's proclamation that space is neither in the subject nor is the world in space, and that it is rather the case that Dasein is spatial in a primordial sense, and that space is discovered in the world whilst showing itself as being a priori; namely as being encountered in a discovered region.

On this view, Heidegger is not advocating the existence of an absolute and objective space that belongs to a subjectless world, nor is he claiming that space exists in a radical transcendental sense as what belongs a priori to a supposedly wordless subject. The spatiality of the totality of innerworldly things at hand loses its sense of circumspect relevance in thematization. Spatiality thus turns into an object of research and study, and the places of things at hand are thus turned into a multiplicity of random or ordered positions.

In this sense, the surrounding world is itself neutralized to pure measurable positional dimensions by way of being construed as a homogeneous natural world-space that warrants the connections that exist between extended objectively present beings. However, whether in showing itself in the world through a region that is disclosed by directionality and de-distancing, or whether being disclosed as the totality of extended objectively present beings, the kind of being of space remains obscure and its ontological problem persists. For, the kind of being of space is unlike that of useful things-at-hand, unlike that of objectively present things, and unlike the kind of being of Dasein. But if these are the onlykinds of being that are discoverable in the world, then, from the stand- point of being-in-the-world, what would the kind of being of space be if space does show itself in the world? The confusion that we face in our investigation of the being of space may indeed be attributed to the ontological lack of a fundamental transparency of the possibilities of being and its interpretation. So, what is decisive for the understanding of the ontological problem of space depends on the priority (Vorrang) of attending to the question of being.

¹³ M. HEIDEGGER, The Concept of Time, English trans. by W. McNeill, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, p. 20. Der Begriff der Zeit, Gesamtausgabe Band 64.

¹⁴ M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, op. cit., § 46. We have also discussed this matter elsewhere in: N. EL-BIZRI, The Phenomenological Quest Between Avicenna and Hei- degger, Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications SUNY, 2000, pp. 63-69.

¹⁵ This temporocentrism arises also in Der Begriff der Zeit and in Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, Gesamtausgabe Band 20, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994.

The phenomenon of space can only be understood by going back to the world and by being founded on the essential spatiality of Da- sein. This insight is derived from the interpretation of Dasein as time as it is early-on set in Der Begriff der Zeit. Therein, it is said that Da- sein is not in time but rather that Dasein is temporality13. This view cor- responds with the accounts presented in Sein und Zeit with respect to Dasein's mode of being-ahead-of-itself, wherein its potentiality of be- ing has an unfinished quality and its wholeness (Gänze) is reached only in death (Tod).

For as long as Dasein is, it has not-yet attained its whole- ness14. If the views in Der Begriff der Zeit correspond with the inter- pretation of Dasein against the horizon of temporality in Sein und Zeit, and if it were indeed the case that the spatiality of Dasein is not read- ily derivable from temporality, then re-thinking space becomes neces- sary for the clarification of the question of being. However what might need to be observed in this regard is that the elucidation of the onto- logical problem of space should proceed by way of pondering over the question of the being of space away from setting time as the horizon of such inquiry. We thus ought to avoid Heidegger's persistent tem- porocentrist commitment to the accentuation of the principality of tem- porality over that of spatiality, which has haunted Sein und Zeit15.

For, even towards the end of this treatise, Heidegger does assert that although dated-time is determined numerically in terms of spatial distances and locational changes, by no means does time turn into space. Rather, what is ontologically decisive lies in the specific making-present that renders the measured spatialization of time possible; and this is taken to be ofthe order of the Vorhandenheit16. Nonetheless, and in spite of this inclination in thinking, it is quite fair to say that Heidegger did not dogmatically continue to think that being cannot be conceived but on the basis of time, given that in his Logik, Die Frage nach der Wahrheit17, he speculated about some potential other possibilities to be disclosed. Furthermore, the instrumental and temporocentric interpretation of space in Sein und Zeit, that is mainly mediated by an analysis of Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit, and the issuing directionality, de-distancing, and regionality, was ultimately relinquished in the middle period of his intellectual development. And it is in view of this opening that our inquiry might constitute a humble preparatory step on the way to attending to the question of being on the basis of space.

III. Critical Responses to the Conception of Space in Sein und Zeit

¹⁶ M. HEIDEGGER, Sein und Zeit, op. cit., § 80.

¹⁷ M. HEIDEGGER, Logik, Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, Gesamtausgabe Band 21, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995, p. 267.

¹⁸ D. FRANCK, Heidegger et le problème de l'espace, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1986; M. MERLEAU-PONTY, Le visible et l'invisible, Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1964. We have also addressed this matter in: N. EL-BIZRI, "The Body and Space", in CAST, Vol. III, 2000, pp. 92-95; N. EL-BIZRI, "A Phenomenological Account of the 'Ontological Problem of Space'", art. cit. In view of eschewing any implied confusion, it must be noted herein that, in spite of evident chronological or philosophical gaps that separate philosophers (who found their own traditions in thought) from exegetes, an appeal to figures like Merleau-Ponty and Franck, or, to that effect, to Levinas and Arisaka, does in this context creditably highlight the variegated nature of the responses to the heideggerian Seinsfrage, together with their embedded bearings on explicating the ontological problem of space and addressing its exigencies.

Aided by developments in hermeneutic phenomenology, we could appeal to some unequivocal as well as tacit critical responses to Heidegger's instrumental and temporocentric consideration of space in Sein und Zeit. As Didier Franck eloquently observes, in a manner that is informed by what he encounters with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's conception of "la chair du monde" ("flesh of the world"), the hands and the flesh undermine the positing of temporality as the comprehensive primordial (ursprünglich) horizon for the existential analytic of Dasein¹⁸. This view is confirmed by what is enunciated in Le visible et l'invisible, wherein Merleau-Ponty observes that the experience of one's own flesh is a prototype of being (l'expérience de ma chair comme proto-type de l'être). In this sense, and based on the conception of the Zuhanden-denheit and the Handlichkeit, and from the standpoint of the living body (Leib; le corps vécu) and its Handwerk, space ought to be seen as de-temporalized. This matter is furthermore reflected in Merleau-Ponty's stress on the body-subject's (le corps propre) inherence in the world wherein being is taken to be synonymous with being-situated (l'être est synonyme d'être situé)¹⁹. According to this line in thinking, the on-tological significance of space is tightly linked to the kinaesthetic bod-ily movements of Dasein's engaged corporeal being-in-the-world. This is even accentuated in the phenomenon of dwelling, which is indica-tive of Dasein's inherence in the world²⁰.

It is perhaps worthy stating herein that the question of embodiment, which has generated significant polemics among heideggerian com-mentators, does carry some bearings on endeavours to address the on-tological problem of space. Whilst some exegetes affirm that Dasein's spatiality is characteristic of Leiblichkeit, others maintain that this no-tion does not sufficiently figure in Heidegger's thought, given his seem-ing "unwillingness" to confront it "satisfyingly." It is moreover argued, that whilst Dasein's spatiality might indeed be accounted for in terms of embodiment, Heidegger's own stress on the corporeal mode of be-ing-in-the-world did paradoxically lead him to eschew the use of ap-pellations like "body" and "embodiment"²¹.

¹⁹ M. MERLEAU-PONTY, Phénoménologie de la Perception, Paris: Gallimard, 1945, p. 291.

²⁰ See R. SCHÜRMANN, "Symbolic Praxis", English trans. by Ch. T. Wolfe in Grad-uate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Vol. 19, no. 2 Vol. 20, no. 1, 1997, pp. 54-63.

²¹ In further elucidating the particulars of this controversial account of embodi-ment in Heidegger's thinking, I refer the reader to the following tracts: S. OVERGAARD, "Heidegger on Embodiment", The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2004, pp. 116-131; D. CERBONE, "Heidegger and Dasein's Bodily Na-ture: What is the Hidden Problematic?", in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 8, 2000, pp. 209-230; D. M. LEVIN, in "The Ontological Dimension of Embodiment: Heidegger's Thinking of Being", in The Body: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. D. Welton (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 122-149. A special emphasis would be placed in this regard on the compelling thesis that was lately advanced by Overgaard, in "Hei-degger on Embodiment", which partly builds its case on an appeal to the recently edi-ted volume 18 of the Gesamtausgabe (GA 18), namely: M. Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002.

In another context, and in view of further highlighting the prob-lematic of instrumentalism that surrounds the question concerning space, one could also evoke the poignant critique of the existential analysis that Heidegger offers in Sein und Zeit that Emmanuel Levinas puts for-ward in Le temps et l'autre. Therein, Levinas argues that since Heidegger has written Sein und Zeit, we have been habituated to consider the worldas being a set of tools (ensemble d'outils). Levinas adds that what seems to escape from Heidegger's attention is the fact that before being a sys- tem of tools, the world is rather a set of nutrition and food (le monde est un ensemble de nourritures) that fill us in and sustain our being-in- the-world. Accordingly, we are already in space (dans l'espace) in han- dling and consuming the food that nourishes our being. This view overcomes the self-return of the self to itself and rather opens it to what- ever is necessitated by its existing (exister)²². Levinas thus opposes what he identifies as being a "solitude" that characterizes Heidegger's exis- tential analytic of Dasein wherein even the notion of Miteinandersein, which evokes the reciprocal mode of being-with-one-another (être ré- ciproquement l'un avec l'autre), is seen as being none other than a mere association around a common term or truth (Wahrheit; vérité; ἀλήθεια) rather than being a face-to-face relation with the other (Ce n'est pas la relation du face-à-face). After all, Levinas holds that all the analysis in Sein und Zeit was conducted in view of an impersonal everyday life of a lonely Dasein (un Dasein esseulé)²³.

In a recent reconsideration of Heidegger's "theory of space", Yoko Arisaka offers a critical analysis of his endeavour to derive spatiality from temporality, wherein she argues that the attempt to clarify Die Kehre may require a closer consideration of section 70 of Sein und Zeit. Henceforth, she tries to deconstruct Heidegger's foundational approach to spatiality by way of showing that the relation between space and time is more likely to be equiprimordial (gleichursprunglich) than founda- tional qua fundamental. Accordingly, space and time are not to be dis- tinguished through a hierarchical order of dependency, rather both are to be revealed as being co-dependent in their belonging to a unified whole²⁴.

²² E. LEVINAS, Le temps et l'autre, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991, pp. 45-46.

²³ E. LEVINAS, Le temps et l'autre, op. cit., pp. 17-19. Also refer to N. EL-BIZRI, The Phenomenological Quest Between Avicenna and Heidegger, op. cit., pp. 69-73.

²⁴ Y. ARISAKA, "Spatiality, Temporality, and the Problem of Foundation in Being and Time", in Philosophy Today, Vol. 40, no. 1, 1996, pp. 36-46; Y. ARISAKA, "On Heidegger's Theory of Space: A Critique of Dreyfus", in Inquiry, Vol. 38, no. 4, 1995, pp. 455-467.

Despite what we encounter with these diverse fine critics of Sein und Zeit, be it phenomenologists who stand in their own right or exegetes, it seems that the turn we attest with Heidegger's ontological concern, from focusing on the question of the meaning of being to focusing on the truth and place of being, may have implicitly ushered a new phase in his think-ing about space²⁵. The shift in Heidegger's articulation of the question of being away from a strict adherence to the existential analytic of Da- sein might be traced back to the Kehre, which marked a reversal in his thinking that passes from Dasein to being itself as it is addressed from the standpoint of Wesen, Ursprung, and Ereignis²⁶. One might specu- late herein whether Heidegger's "philosophical angst" might have led him to shrink back from the challenges posited by the ontological prob- lem of space and the uncanny possibilities it opens up, which cannot simply be accounted for in terms of his familiar notions like Zuban- denheit and Vorhandenheit. After all, he might have realized in his lat- er works that the ontological problem of space altogether might have not been possibly accounted for with adequacy if it were set against the horizon of time²⁷, and it is indeed unfortunate if this may have po- tentially destined him on a seeming misleading path within the dense intricacies of Sein und Zeit²⁸.

IV. Reading öv in Platon: Sophistes

Opening Sein und Zeit, Heidegger cites Plato's Sophist:

[...] for manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression "being" (öv). We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed [...] (Sophist, 244a).

²⁵ This shift in Heidegger's ontological concern may have also been accentuated in his investigation of the Topologie des Seins in his account of the Lichtung that makes room for Ereignis. Regarding this matter, refer to: E. S. CASEY, "Proceeding to Place by Indirection", in The Fate of Place, op. cit., pp. 278-279.

²⁴ See: W. RICHARDSON, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, The Hague: Nijhof, 1964, p. 238; Th. SHEEHAN, "Geschichtlichkeit/Ereignis/Kehre", in Ex istentia, Vol. XI, Issue 3/4, 2001, pp. 247-249.

²⁷ This point is analyzed in detail in E. S. CASEY, "Proceeding to Place by Indi- rection", in The Fate of Place, op. cit., pp. 254-255, 258-259.

²⁵ For instance, Dreyfus believed that Heidegger's discussion of spatiality in Sein sund Zeit was "fundamentally confusing". See H. DREYFUS, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division 1, Cambridge, Mass.: M.LT. Press, 1991, p. 129.

This classical and deeply-rooted philosophical perplexity may have posited an ontic-ontological priority to raise anew the question of be- ing, thus calling for the reawakening of an understanding of the mean- ing of this question by way of positing time as its horizon. Given that the classical question of being may have historically sustained the re- search of Plato and Aristotle but thenceforth has ceased to be an axial thematic question of philosophical investigation, Heidegger initiated his monumental attempt to retrieve the question of being from its histo-ry of oblivion in the attempt to reformulate it anew. He thus endeav- oured to investigate the precedence that is partly set in Plato's Sophist in view of achieving this end; and it is in this regard that passage 244a of the Sophist may have acted as the directive motto that sets the tone of Sein und Zeit rather than serving as a mere decoration²⁹. Nonethe- less, it is understandable that such state of affairs does not readily en- tail that Plato's ontology became simply assimilated to the unfurling of Heidegger's elucidation of Seinsfrage.

²⁹ M. HEIDEGGER, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, ed. Richard Taft, Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1990, p. 163; M. HEIDEGGER, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, Gesamtausgabe Band 3, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991.

³⁰ M. HEIDEGGER, Platon: Sophistes, Gesamtausgabe Band 19, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992; M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, English trans. by R. Ro- jcewicz and A. Schuwer, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. For a consid- eration of the historical context of Heidegger's Sophist lectures, see: M. J. BRACH, Heidegger, Platon: vom Neukantianismus zur existentiellen Interpretation des Sophis- tes, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1996.

³¹ Regarding Heidegger's thinking during that period, see R. BRISART, La phénom enologie de Marbourg, op. cit.

³² M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, op. cit., § 63, p. 303 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 438-439).

³³ M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, op. cit., § 64, p. 307 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 443-444).

Heidegger's reading of Plato's Sophist, which appeared in German under the title Platon: Sophistes30, was a reconstruction of a lecture course that he delivered under the same title at the University of Mar- burg in the winter semester of 1924-192531. For the purposes of our in- quiry, we shall primarily restrict our focus on the second chapter of the second section of this text (principally §§ 63-71 on passages 242b- 250e of the Sophist) that is dedicated to the discussion of the ancient (pre-Platonic) and contemporary (contemporaries of Plato) doctrines of öv. In view of this, and from the standpoint of the consideration of the question of being, one could say in general, and in a manner that is akin to what we encounter with Aristotle, that metaphysics inquires about being qua being (ὄν ἤ ὄν). As for Plato's original venture in this regard, it consisted of carrying the ontological (ontologisch) explication of being over and against the ontic (ontisch) description of beings32; thus showing early-on that there exists an ontological difference between being and beings.

For, Plato presented a general characterization of the first ontological attempts to put forward some theses about öv in op- position to those who merely say that being is many or that being is one (Sophist, 242c-243d). He thus initially advanced a position by virtue of which being, which is one (ἕν), is also said to be manifold33. He thenoffered a critical consideration of theses that hold that beings are man- ifold versus those that hold that beings are one or that being is both many and one (Sophist, 243d-245c). According to Heidegger, Plato's aim was not like what the traditional scholarly commentators on Pla- tonism might have implied, namely to generate a "monism" by accen- tuating the ἓν as ὄν, rather Plato's pondering over the expression λέγειν τὰ ὄντα was meant to show that in all speaking about beings something else is said, namely being itself.

This is ultimately seen as being a rad- ical turn in philosophical thinking which suggestively anticipates the preparation of an ontological ground for addressing the question of be- ing. However, Heidegger's own insistence on the priority of the ques- tion of being is illustrated in his construal of the principal task of ontology as being that of preparing the ground for questioning the mean- ing of being. In this regard, the question of the meaning of being stands at the beginning of any inquiry rather than being the derivative of on- tology or its end-result, wherein questioning (Fragen) as the "piety of thought"35 would be understood as being an interrogating (Befragen).

³⁴ Herein, Heidegger opposes the readings offered by Platonist commentators like Zeller and Bonitz. See: E. ZELLER, Die Philosophie der Griechen, Leipzig, 1922, pp. 648-649; H. BONITZ, Platonische Studien, 3, Berlin, 1886, pp. 161-164.

³⁵ M. HEIDEGGER, "The Question Concerning Technology", in Basic Writings, Op. Cit., p. 317.

³⁶ M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, Op. Cit., § 65, p. 310 (Platon: Sophistes, Op. Cit., pp. 448-449); M. HEIDEGGER, Wegmarken, Gesamtausgabe Band 9 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996).

³⁷ M. HEIDEGGER, "On the Essence of Ground", English trans. by W. McNeill, in Pathmarks (Wegmarken), ed. William McNeill, Cambridge: Cambridge Universi- ty Press, 1998, p. 104.

Heidegger claims that ontology is guided in its account of the ques- tion of being by the λόγος and thus moves in the λέγειν (addressing)³⁶. In Wegmarken, he tells us that the λόγος of the ov means the λέγειν of beings as beings, which designates "that with respect to which" beings are addressed (λεγόμενον)³⁷. Now, if those who hold that being is man- ifold face many difficulties, what could then be said with regard to those who assert that being is one? For if we consider the position of those who say, after Parmenides, that being is one, what they maintain is none other than the claim that there are two names, ἓν and ὄν, that are used for one thing. Furthermore, such consideration is not yet clear in terms of whether what it designates is being as such, or whether it is merely a being or beings. The thesis that: being is one, or that beings are one, is made significant by saying: "being is one", or "beings are one". Yet, in already being said, as λέγειν, something else is said along with thisassertion, namely being itself. A similar difficulty does also arise with the thesis that: ov (being) is a ὅλον (whole); for, if ὅλον is posited as something that is itself other than öv, then this may entail that neither is as such,

³⁸ This reflects the ontological difficulty that confronts any thinking that ponders over the relation between something and its attributes. This issue is further accentu- ated in the case of mediaeval accounts of divinity, wherein the divine attributes might be said to be other than the divine essence whilst being inseparable from it. This state of affairs cannot be accounted for adequately from the standpoint of a thinking that is polarized by the binary logic of non-contradiction of either/or, true or false, this or that. For the particulars of my investigation of this matter, see: N. EL-BIZRI, "God's Essence and Attributes", in The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology, ed. T. Winter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

³⁹ M. HEIDEGGER, Aristotle's Metaphysics, Θ 1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, English trans. by W. Brogan and P. Warneck, Bloomington & Indianapolis: In- diana University Press, 1995, p. 2; M. HEIDEGGER, Aristoteles, Metaphysik Θ 1-3: Von Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Kraft, Gesamtausgabe Band 33, Frankfurt am Main: Vit- torio Klostermann, 1981. Regarding Aristotle's Metaphysics, see the revised Greek text with introduction and commentary by W. D. Ross, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

⁴⁰ M. HEIDEGGER, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), Gesamtausgabe Band 65, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989, § 157.

Being guided by λόγος, Plato's ontology is dialectic. A similar strain is also attested in Aristotle's Metaphysics, book Θ. Therein, it is men- tioned that the dealing with "beings in the primary sense" leads any inquiry to what "all other beings are referred back to;" namely οὐσία (substance)39. Based on this reading, everything that is, namely all the categories (other than οὐσία), must carry the saying of οὐσία. More- over, it is said that the "first being" and what "is" in the primary sense is οὐσία, which is said to be originary in definition, knowledge, and time.

The longstanding metaphysical question: "what is that which is?" (namely "what is being?") is hence reducible to the question: "what is substance?" (Metaphysics Z, 1, 10286 2-4, τι τὸ ὅν, τοῦτό ἐστι τις ἡ οὐσία). In this regard, Aristotle's doctrine of being, which is reduced into a doctrine of substance, will likewise have the two determinations: τί ἐστι and τόδε τι; whereby it answers the question about the essence of some- thing whilst also simply being an individual (Metaphysics Z, 1, 1028a 10).

In addition, Aristotle believes that being has many meanings that are related to sub-stantia (standing-under), which acts as some sort of ὑποκείμενον; namely as what always already lies present at the basis of all the meanings of being (Metaphysics Z, 1, 1003a 33). Referring to the first sentences of Θ 1, one reads that "the sustaining and leading funda- mental meaning of being, to which all the other categories are carried back" is οὐσία. As noted in the Beiträge zur Philosophie40, this [ousiological]interpretation belongs to the first beginning (Der erste Anfang) insofar that öv as φύσις is related to οὐσία by the movement of thought as μεταβολή. We are also told in Wegmarken, that φύσις (natura) is οὐσία insofar that it is the beingness (Seiendheit) of a being, which, as Vor-liegen (lying-present) and Vorliegendes (something that lie present), lets something originate from itself41. After all, in the doctrinal dispute among Plato's contemporaries over öv, which is described in evocative terms as being a battle of the giants over being: γιγαντομαχία περί τῆς οὐσίας (Sophist 246a4), one already notices the linguistic interchangeability of öv with οὐσία as designators of being.

In elucidating the ontological dispute of his contemporaries, Plato holds that one group reduces being to a body or to becoming (Sophist 246e-248a), by holding that οὐσία = σώμα (body), or οὐσία = γένεσις (becoming), whilst the other faction reduces being to a form, by holding that οὐσία = είδος (qua form or outer look; Sophist 248a-250e). Plato's interest in the γιγαντομαχία περί τῆς οὐσίας (Sophist 246a4) is manifested in his attempt to elucidate the meaning of οὐσία in view of positing the question of being anew.

According to him, the Greeks do not take the question of the meaning of οὐσία as being an ontological theme as such, but they rather demonstrate it by way of producing the beings which satisfy the meaning of being42. Based on Heidegger's reading, this process is oriented by the temporal grasping of being as presence (παρουσία; Anwesenheit); namely as that which is already there from the outset along with beings. Given this interpretation, the battle of the giants is over the meaning of presence, while being as such guided by αἴσθησις (sense-perception) or λόγος. In view of this, it is more likely that Plato would side with those directed by the latter rather than the former, given the difficulty he faces in siding with those who deny the existence of anything that is invisible (qua non-sensible). After all, the faction that rigidly holds that οὐσία = σώμα (Sophist 246a-248a) does refute λόγος (ratio, intellectus) on the basis of denying ἀσώματον (the non-bodily).

⁴¹ M. HEIDEGGER, "On the Essence and Concept of φύσις in Aristotle's Physics B, I", English trans. by Th. Sheehan, in Pathmarks, op. cit., p. 104.

⁴² M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, op. cit., § 67, p. 323 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 466-467).

Turning to those who say that οὐσία = εἶδος, it is believed that they also hold that σώμα, which is marked by γένεσις (generation qua becoming), is a μὴ ὄν (Nichtsein; non-being), given that it is by way of λογισμός that we keep with οὐσία as εἶδος. However, one could still ultimately say that Plato would conceive οὐσία as ἰδέα, and ultimately asbeing-present43, and that this gets set against the context of the veiling of being, wherein being remains absent in an uncanny way by main- taining itself in concealment. However, it is in such concealing that lies the essence of the forgetfulness (Vergessenheit) of being as experienced by the Greeks44.

After all, in commenting on Hegel's reading of clas- sical Greek philosophy, Heidegger holds that the terms ëv of Parmenides, λόγος of Heraclitus, ἰδέα of Plato, and ἐνέργεια of Aristotle (possibly along with οὐσία), are all understood within the horizon of being45. What this amounted to within the history of metaphysics is none other than the reduction of being into something that is other than itself, thus let- ting the question of the meaning of being fall into oblivion. In this con- text, the thinking attempted in Sein und Zeit sets out to overcome metaphysics by way of recalling being to itself, and retrieving it from its history of forgetfulness. After all, Heidegger believes that metaphysics is founded upon that which remains concealed in the öv, wherein the retrieval of the öv for thinking would not thus reproduce Plato's and Aristotle's ontological efforts46.

V. Between öv of the Sophist and χώρα of the Timaeus

⁴³ M. HEIDEGGER, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth", English trans. by Th. Sheehan, in Pathmarks, op. cit., p. 179.

⁴⁴ M. HEIDEGGER, "On the Question of Being", English trans. by W. McNeill, in Pathmarks, op. cit., p. 313.

⁴⁵ M. HEIDEGGER, "Hegel and the Greeks", English trans. by R. Metcalf, in Path- marks, op. cit., pp. 328, 331.

⁴⁶ M. HEIDEGGER, "Introduction to 'What is Metaphysics'?", English trans. by W. Kaufmann, in Pathmarks, op. cit., p. 288.

⁴⁷ M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, op. cit., § 70, p. 337 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 487-488).

The formula οὐσία = εἶδος excludes γένεσις and κίνησις from öv qua being, whilst the formula οὐσία = σώμα excludes στάσις from öv qua being. The former implies that all is at rest, whilst the latter entails that all is in motion, and both hence deny the possibility of knowing being and consequently undermine νοῦς and νοεῖν47. As a living disclosure, νοῦς should be marked by both κίνησις (Heraclitus') and στάσις (Par- menides') wherein both are construed as ὄντα (beings).

However, one wonders whether a τρίτον (third) is already posited besides κίνησις and στάσις. For when it is said that κίνησις is, and that στάσις is, it is this "is" qua öv which is posited as a τρίτον. Yet, a similar state of affairs is attested with χώρα which is also an in-between τρίτον γένος. For χώρα is neither in motion nor at rest, and it is neither sensible nor intelligi-ble (Timaeus, 48e, 52a-52b). If χώρα itself is posited as a τρίτον in-between κίνησις and στάσις, would we not then say that the "is" which marks these three kinds is itself to be posited as a fourth? And given this, would we not question Heidegger's leap in positing this "is" as "third" as being indicative of a bypassing of the platonic τρίτον of the Timaeus, namely χώρα? So, in view of this, are we not facing a problematic ontological lacuna?

And what would the consequences be in this regard if we address the dialogues of the Timaeus and the Sophist in a gathered togetherness in view of preparing the groundwork for asking the question of the meaning of being by evoking what self-announces itself through and through, namely χώρα? After all, such a move seems to have eluded Heidegger's reading of the Sophist; and we conjecture in this regard that if he has ever ardently grappled with this ontological assay, perhaps the course of development of Sein und Zeit and what emanated from it would have itself been partially altered. We thus may need to re-highlight the entailments of Plato's extraction of ov as τρίτον in the Sophist from the pre-given κίνησις and στάσις, and to do this from the standpoint of presence.

This is reflected in the weighty question for the Greeks, as reconstructed by Heidegger, namely the one that is set by way of asking: "how can there be something which is neither at motion nor at rest, and yet nonetheless is, given that beings are either moved or are at rest?" However, although there seems to be something that resides beyond mere rest or motion, which nevertheless is, it is nonetheless the case that such mode of being is not solely reserved to ov as set in the Sophist, but we argue that it is also attested with the case of χώρα in the Timaeus.

⁴⁸ At least this is what we attest in the contemporary reception of Plato's Timaeus by thinkers like Derrida, Kristeva, Irigaray, Sallis, and Casey.

Whilst öv as τρίτον constitutes proper being (Sein) in the Sophist, χώρα as τρίτον in the Timaeus is posited as a difficult and hard to grasp perplexing matter for ontology that itself re-posits the question of the meaning of being anew. Perhaps this matter renders Heidegger's ontological task more difficult, given that χώρα remains to be exemplary of whatever is resistant to thinking48. It may well be the case that this matter is itself reflected in Heidegger's highlighting of the difficulties that face attempts to elucidate öv through its positing as τρίτον alongside κίνησις and στάσις whilst also encompassing them as ev. In this, being (in the Sophist) announces itself as a third kind, and this is itself akin to what we encounter with the manner χώρα lets itself be seen in the Timaeus. Both being (öv; Sein; être) and space (χώρα; Raum; espace) appear as what is other than what is either moved or at rest.

In this sense, öv andχώρα, as both occupying the baffling place of the τρίτον, are thus an ἕτερον (other) over and against κίνησις and στάσις which do not render being intelligible. In this, Plato's ontology un-grounds itself by way of high-lighting the question concerning the meaning of being within the bi-nary system that distinguishes motion from rest. This double-fold logical/onto-logical model of sensible versus intelligible, motion versus rest, does not only fail to elucidate the meaning of ον (as Heidegger ob-serves), but it also fails to elucidate the meaning of χώρα (as Heideg-ger does not observe)49. In this regard, öv and χώρα, as both being a τρίτον qua ἕτερον, are "the most impossible of all" to understand and clarify.

⁴⁹ Refer to J. DERRIDA's interpretations in Positions, Khora, Foi et Savoir, and De l'hospitalité (Ut supra note 2).

⁵⁰ M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, op. cit., § 68, p. 329 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 475-476).

⁵¹ This is particularly the case with Heidegger's reading of book IV of Aristotle's Physics, wherein it is claimed that place has a certain power. See: M. HEIDEGGER, Pla-to's Sophist, op. cit., § 15, p. 73 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 105-107); ARISTOTLE, Physics, ed. W. D. Ross, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936, IV. 1, 208a27-209a30.

⁵² As J. Sallis also says, the One and khôra are beyond being and beings. See J. SAL-LIS, Chorology, op. cit., pp. 113-124.

Heidegger holds that Plato's determination of ov as δύναμις (potentiality or possibility) is revealed as being an ἕτερον (other)50. Thus, οὐσία is posited separately cum differently as χωρίς, wherein χώρα is a way of affecting a χωρίζει (separating) by way of placing a χωρισμός (separa-tion). After all, Heidegger concedes elsewhere that place constitutes the possibility of the proper presence of beings51. This state of affairs might itself point to an axial claim held by him regarding the ontological dif-ference between being and beings. For, he tells us that this difference remained un-thought in the history of metaphysics, given that the dif-fering dimension, that allows for this ontological difference to take place, was itself left un-thought. Yet, if this differing determines and delim-its the ontological difference between being and beings, whilst at the same time overcoming it, then would it not be the case that this very differing is of the workings of χώρα?

After all, χώρα does determine and delimit the ontological difference between being and becoming, be-tween the intelligible and the sensible, between rest and motion, whilst, at the same time, and as a τρίτον γένος, it overcomes it52. So, would it not then be the case, that in the context of Heidegger's examination of the Sophist, and in view of our reading of the Timaeus, the ontologi-cal difference between being and beings would remain un-thought un-less it passes by way of thinking about χώρα? And would it not be the case that the clarification of the question of being has to pass by wayof elucidating the ontological problem posited by what falls under the appellation χώρα? Plato must have indeed experienced the distinction between being and beings or else he would not have been able to think the χωρισμός between them. In considering Was heißt Denken? Hei- degger observes that what prevails between being and beings is the χωρισμός (namely the posited χώρα as locus, site, and place?). Being and beings are thus in different places; they are located with differences. Given that their ontological difference is that of emplacement, would it not then be the case that thinking about that difference is a "khoro- logical" undertaking that attends to being by way of thinking about the χωρισμός οἱ χώρα?

⁵³ See: W. MARX, Heidegger and the Tradition, Evanston: Northwestern Univer- sity Press, 1971, p. 128.

⁵⁴ M. HEIDEGGER, Was beifßt Denken?, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1954, p. 135, Gesamtausgabe Band 8, 2002; M. HEIDEGGER, What is Called Thinking?, Eng- lish trans. by J. G. Gray, New York: Harper & Row, 1968, p. 227.

⁵⁵ I have also discussed this matter in N. EL-BIZRI, "Qui êtes-vous, Khora?": Re- ceiving Plato's Timaeus", op. cit., pp. 473-490.

⁵⁶ It is also the stranger who inquires about the provenance of measure in Plato's Laws (NOMOI), namely whether the legal measure is of a divine origin or of a hu man making. See: PLATO, Laws I, ed. R. G. Bury, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1952, book I, 624a. I have addressed the ethical-political horizon of the question of the stranger in: N. EL-BIZRI, "Religion and Measure", in Phenomenolog- ical Inquiry, Vol. 27, 2003, pp. 128-155.

⁵⁷ J. DERRIDA, De l'hospitalité, op. cit., pp. 11-15.

Like the öv of the Sophist, the χώρα of the Timaeus is a τρίτον γένος qua ἕτερον that cannot be accounted for from the standpoint of logos nor muthos, hence requiring a "third genre of discourse"55. After all, χώρα, which pertains to the question of the stranger (la question de l'étranger), remains resistant to metaphysical thinking. However, as Derrida reminds us, the stranger herein is also the interlocutor in Plato's dialogues, name- ly the one who asks the critical questions, and who lies between the fac- tions that are in dispute over the question of being. This emplacement is itself affirmed in the Sophist, wherein the stranger asks the intolera- ble question that defies the principal thesis of Parmenides56; namely by daring to posit μὴ ὄν (non-being; non-être; Nichtsein) as itself "being", thus polemically implying that öv (being; être; Sein) is not (n'est pas).

The question of the stranger is itself taken to be the question of hos- pitality (la question de l'hospitalité) which evokes the unconditional re- ceptivity of χώρα57. So, do we not herein attest the veiled sense of a possible ontological entanglement between öv and χώρα that points to the spatial signification (Raumbedeutungen) of the question of being? This observation may be accentuated by the positioning of Plato him-self in the μέσον (Mitte), namely in the space between the opponents of the raging battle over being, which itself hints to the workings of χώρα as what determines the μέσον, the middle in-between, the neither/nor.

Drawing on the affinity between the difficulties faced in elucidat- ing öv and µὴ öv, it might indeed be the case that if we succeed in bring- ing one of them to show itself in a more clear way, then by that very token the other becomes visible and shows itself58; and perhaps this may well apply to what we are attempting to do with regard to χώρα. The ontological transition affected by Plato, and picked-up by Heidegger, shows that the challenges posited up and against thinking are still wor- thy being pursued even if we are not yet well prepared to deal with them. It is in this sense that we could grasp Sein und Zeit as being a prepara- tory work that lays down the grounds for the consideration of the ques- tion of being. However, if Heidegger's ontological preparation was set in view of facing the difficulties posited by thinking about öv and μὴ öv, it may still be the case that his Ontologie arguably remained in- complete in scope given its polemical seeming exclusion of χώρα from such undertaking.

VI. Χώρα in the Timaeus

To recapitulate some of what we have highlighted above, and based on what is relegated to us on the authority of the Pythagorean as- tronomer Timaeus of Locri, we learn that χώρα (space), as a δεχόμενον (recipient or receptacle) and μήτηρ (mother), is a τρίτον γένος (third genus) that is neither sensible nor intelligible (Timaeus, 48c, 52a-52b)⁵⁹. In spite of being phenomenally invisible and unshaped, χώρα is never- theless said to be apprehensible by a kind of bastard reasoning (λογισ- μός τινι νόθῳ) by the aid of non-sensation, and is barely an object of belief (Timaeus, 52a-52b). Always receiving all things without ever tak- ing on the character of what enters it, χώρα is amorphous and free from all characters (Timaeus, 50b–51a). Like εἶδος (form), it is an everlast- ing (άίδιος) place that admits not of destruction (Timaeus, 52a-52b). Accordingly, it constitutes an originary depth (βάθος), that is like the boundless ἀπείρον⁶⁰, whilst even being akin to χάος.

⁵⁸ Alluding to the Sophist 250e8 and 251a1 in: M. HEIDEGGER, Plato's Sophist, op. cit., §71, p. 344 (Platon: Sophistes, op. cit., pp. 497-498).

⁵⁹ PLATO, Timaeus, English trans. by R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical Library, Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999, 8^th reprint.

⁶⁰ If χωρισμός, which is determined by χώρα, allows for the occurrence of bound- aries, whilst being beyond them, then it is possible to say that χώρα is akin to ἀπείρον.

Regarding this point see: Ch. H. KHAN, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cos- mology, New York: Columbia University Press, 1960, appendix 2; P. Seligman, The Apeiron of Anaximander: A Study in the Origin and Function of Metaphysical Ideas, London: Athlone Press, 1962; N. EL-Bizri, "Qui êtes-vous, Khora?": Receiving Pla- to's Timaeus", op. cit., pp. 482-486.

⁶¹ See G. TRAKL, "Ein Winterabend", in Die Dichtungen. Gesamtausgabe mit einem Anbang: Zeugnisse und Erinnerungen, edited by K. Horwitz, Zürich: Arche Verlag, 1946. M. HEIDEGGER, "Die Sprache", in Unterwegs zur Sprache, Pfullingen: Neske, 1959, Gesamtausgabe Band 12; M. HEIDEGGER, "Language", in Poetry, Language, Thought, English trans. by A. Hofstadter, New York: Harper & Row, 1975; here- inafter "Language."

⁴² M. HEIDEGGER, "Language", op. cit., pp. 196, 203-205.

⁴³ M. HEIDEGGER, "Language", op. cit., pp. 204-205.

Thinking about this χώρα, in view of the spatial significance of the question of being, leads us to the poetic turn in Heidegger's later think- ing in the 1950's from the other side of Die Kehre. In quest of hearing the speaking of language, some aspects of the topological account of be- ing get pronounced in Heidegger's reading of Georg Trakl's "Ein Win- terabend" ("A Winter Evening") as set in Die Sprache. What interests us in this poem is the verse: "Pain has turned the threshold to stone "62. As Heidegger explains, the "startling" words in this saying name some- thing that has persisted and continues to persist. It is only by turning into stone that the threshold (Limen) qua ground-beam persists as what sustains the middle and bears the in-between, in which the outside and the inside co-penetrate each other, without itself yielding either way. What persists as such is hardened by a petrifying pain that "rends"63, This pain is the rift (Riss) that separates yet at the same time that gath- ers back into itself what it rends. It thus joins in separating, and rends while drawing what it disperses back to itself. As a separating that gath- ers, pain is the joining of what is held apart by the rift. It is a thresh- old that settles the liminal self-opened middle in-between and gathers difference.

Pain is ultimately the difference itself as the separation of the between and the gathering of the middle that self-shows itself as a recollected presence. The rift of difference is a primal calling of the world and things into their intimacy, wherein the seam that binds their be- ing toward one another is pain. This primal calling, which bids the in- timacy of world and things by way of bidding them to come to the between of difference, occurs in the poem as the speaking of language which commits the bidden to the bidding of difference that stills the thing into the world. For, in stillness, world and thing never escape the work- ings of difference, which commands their gathering into the oneness of the pain of intimacy. In this, language speaks as the command of the dif- ference, and takes place as the occurring of a difference between beingand beings that challenges us to think about the differing that is at work in this difference64. After all, and as indicated in Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie65, phenomenology is grounded on the ontological distinction (Unterscheiden) that splits being apart from beings.

⁶⁴ M. HEIDEGGER, “Language”, op. cit., pp. 205-207. I have also argued elsewhere that even the movement of Derrida’s différance does itself manifest veiled khôric traits, see N. EL-Bizri, “"Qui êtes-vous, Khôra?”: Receiving Plato’s Timaeus”, op. cit.

⁶⁵ M. HEIDEGGER, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, Gesamtausgabe Band 24, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997; M. Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, English trans. by A. Hofstadter, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.

⁶⁶ M. HEIDEGGER, “The Origin of the Work of Art”, op. cit., pp. 188-189.

In Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, Heidegger also pictures the strife between clearing and concealing, in the opposition of world and earth, as a rift that is not merely a cleft ripped open, but that is also an intimacy within which the opponents belong to each other. This rift carries the opponents into the provenance of their unity by virtue of their common ground; thus not letting what it separates break apart. In this, the rift is a “drawing together into unity” of design and common outline. Truth establishes itself here as a strife that opens up within a being and brings that being forth by bringing it into the rift that sets itself back into the heaviness of stone, the mute hardness of wood, or the dark glow of colors. What emerges from this bringing forth and setting back is the generation of a work wherein truth gets fixed in a Gestalt qua figure or shape (μορφή), namely as a structure in whose shape the rift composes itself.

The Riss, as a cleft, tear, crack, and laceration, is also what releases a design, plan, sketch, blueprint or profile. Insofar that it is a strife, it designs, outlines and configures. The Gestalt that surges from this Riss is to be thought in terms of a particular Stellen (placing) qua θέσις, and as a Ge-Stell (en-framing or framework) that occurs as a work that places itself up and sets itself forth. In this, the earth is used in “the fixing in place of truth in the figure.” In the creation of a work (ἔργov), the strife, as rift, must be set back into the earth, and the earth must itself be set forth and put to use66. The fixing in place of truth in the figure, entails that a thesis is posited in outlining by way of which presencing occurs, wherein something is admitted into a boundary (πέρας). The limit of something is thus not fixed as something motionless, for the limit of something is not where that thing ends but is rather where that thing shines and presences. By its contour, a thing stands in repose in the fullness of motion. Thus a being comes forth into the rift-design as bounding outline. This bringing forth of something, either occurs out of itself being brought into the open, or is brought forth byDasein who performs this bringing that lets what is present come to presence67.

⁶⁷ Refer to the addendum of 1956, which was added to the German text of the Reclam edition and translated into English in Basic Writings: M. HEIDEGGER, Ad- dendum to "The Origin of the Work of Art", op. cit., pp. 208-209.

⁴³ M. HEIDEGGER, Einführung in die Metaphysik, Gesamtausgabe Band 40, Frank- furt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983; M. HEIDEGGER, An Introduction to Meta- physics, English trans. by R. Manheim, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959, p. 205.

⁶⁹ M. HEIDEGGER, "The Origin of the Work of Art", in Poetry, Language, Thought, English trans. by A. Hofstadter, New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Regarding Hei- degger's investigation of the role of space in plastic arts, see M. HEIDEGGER, "Die Kun- st und der Raum" (1969), in Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens, Gesamtausgabe Band 13, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983; M. HEIDEGGER, "Art and Space", English trans. by Ch. H. Seibert, Man and World, Vol. 6, no. 1, 1973, pp. 3-5.

⁷⁰ M. HEIDEGGER, "Bauen Wohnen Denken", in Vorträge und Aufsätze, Pfullin- gen: Günther Neske Verlag, 1954, pp. 145-162 [Gesamtausgabe Band 7, 2000); M. Hei- degger, "Building Dwelling Thinking", in Basic Writtings, ed. D. F. Krell, 2^nd ed., New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993, p. 356.

⁷¹ The term "en-owning" was coined by P. Emad and K. Maly as a rendition of "Ereignis", which was usually translated as "event", "appropriation", "event of ap- propriation", and "befitting." For further particulars refer to the "Translators' Fore- word" in M. HEIDEGGER, Contributions to Philosophy (From En-owning), English trans. by P. Emad and K. Maly, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. xix-xxii. Also see M. HEIDEGGER, Beiträge zur Philosophie, op. cit., particularly §$ 127, 156- 159 on Die Zerklüftung (cleavage).

⁷² See M. HEIDEGGER, "Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes", in Holzwege, Gesam- tausgabe Band 5, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977; M. HEIDEGGER, "The Origin of the Work of Art", English trans. by A. Hofstadter, in Basic Writings, op. cit., pp. 143-203; esp. pp. 198-199.

In Einführung in die Metaphysik, as well as the Beiträge zur Philoso- phie and Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, we notice that Dasein is con- strued in rather metaphorical terms as being the Stätte (site) of the strife (Streitraum) between earth and world, which Sein requires in order to disclose itself. Therein, Heidegger breaks away from the hegemony of Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit⁶⁹. Moreover, in Bauen Wohnen Denken, he argues that the thinging (dingen) things act as the Ort (lo- cus) for the gathering (versammeln) of the fourfold (das Geviert) by making room for the bringing together of earth, heaven, mortals, and divinities⁷⁰. This is also confirmed in his consideration of the role of language in building, plastic creation, and place-making. For, in Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, he asserts that place-making always hap- pens already in the open that guides the saying and naming and acts as the clearing of truth that makes room for Ereignis (disclosing event of appropriation or "en-owning")⁷¹, by gathering the fourfold and allowing them to come to light; hence, letting the authentic mode of being-in- the-world as dwelling occur, wherein the meaning of being is sheltered⁷².After all, and as Heidegger notes in the Beiträge zur Philosophie, Da-sein is itself to be grasped as being the self-opening middle (die sich öff-nende Mitte) and between (Zwischen) as the occurrence of the Erklüftung as Er-eignung that grounds the Zeit-Raum relation".

⁷³ M. HEIDEGGER, Beiträge zur Philosophie, op. cit., §§ 190, 191.

⁷⁴ See E. STROKER, Investigations in Philosophy of Space, English trans. by A. Mick-unas, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1987, pp. 13-170; R. FRODEMAN, "Being and Space: A Re-reading of Existential Spatiality in Being and Time", in Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 23, no. 1, 1992, pp. 33-41; G. SEFFER, "Hei-degger's Philosophy of Space", in Philosophy Today, Vol. 17, 1973, pp. 246-254; Μ. D. VILLELAPETIT, "Space According to Heidegger Some Guidelines", in Etudes Philosophiques, Vol. 2, 1981, pp. 189-210; P. FAVARON, "The Problem of Space in Hei-degger", in Verifiche, Vol. 29, 2000, pp. 229-270; S. ELDEN, "Heidegger's Hölderlin and the Importance of Place", in Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, vol. 30, по. 3 (1999), pp. 258-274; Vide supra notes 2, 18, 24.

⁷⁵ M. HEIDEGGER, An Introduction to Metaphysics, op. cit., pp. 65-66.

⁷⁶ I have argued elsewhere that the most evident shift in the conception of spa-tiality, from a focus on topos to a construal of a notion of extensio, is attested early-on in the geometrization of place as demonstrated in the Treatise of Place (Qawl fi'l-makan) of the 10th century polymath, Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham, ca. 965 CE Basra

Taking these developments into account, one wonders why Hei-degger did not give χώρα the attention it deserves in his attempt to elucidate the question of being. This matter remains puzzling when we find that the workings of χώρα seem to be akin to what we attest with the rift, gap, threshold, middle, open, cleavage, in-between, which we par-ticularly encounter in Die Sprache, Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, and Beiträge zur Philosophie. One senses in these instances the hint of a wake of a significant interest in space that lets itself surface from the depth of Heidegger's thought. Perhaps this rather un-thought phenomenon reflects an anticipatory philosophical state of affairs that is gradually manifesting itself in the post-humous unfolding of his thought74. For, it is indeed confounding that the (khôric) observations that Heidegger makes in this regard are ultimately missing from his most direct con-sideration of χώρα as set in his reading of passage 50e of the Timaeus in Einführung in die Metaphysiks75.

For, χώρα is taken therein to be the medium in which the thing that is in process of becoming forms itself and out of which it emerges once it becomes. However, Heidegger draws a careful distinction between what we, as moderns, call "space" (Raum; espace) and what the Greeks refer to as χώρα and as τόπος. In this regard, he aptly observes that the Greeks did not have a word for space (Raum; espace) as such, given that they experienced the spatial on the basis of τόπος rather than extensio76. It could therefore initially be said that the Greeks experienced the spatial as χώρα; insofar that χώρα is akinτο τόπος and not to extensio. Nonetheless, and as Heidegger interest- ingly adds, χώρα is simply neither space nor place. Rather χώρα is "that which is occupied by what stands there."

In interpreting Aristotle's Physics (Book B), we learn from Heidegger that φύσις ας οὐσία is the ἀρχή of the κίνησις of what moves of itself77. Herein, the essence of οὐσία is said to be understood by the Greeks as being a stable presencing (Anwesung) that is a mode of coming forth into the unhidden (παρουσία) that is not a mere presenteness as Anwe- senheit nor an objective presence as Vorhandenheit, which is also grasped as Raum geben78. The λόγος, which belongs to the λέγειν, also con- tributes to the gathering into the unhidden of presencing as παρουσία by letting beings be unconcealed in their self-showing79.

The question of presencing is ultimately revealed as being a topological/khorological question concerning the locus-character of being. The τόπος thus be- longs to the thing itself, and all that becomes is received within χώρα and presences from it. This reading is further confirmed by Reiner Schür- mann who remarked that in moving from the Sinn of being to the ἀλήθεια of being to the topology of being, we are brought closer and nearer to the appropriate starting point in Heidegger's thinking. Accordingly, the question of the meaning of being construes the manifold as regions: en- tities ready for handling, entities given as objects, being-there (Da-sein). The question of the truth of being approaches the manifold as epochs: Greek, Latin, Modern, Technological. The question of the place of be- ing, construes the manifold as neither being regions nor epochs but as rather acting as "a-coming-to-presence". It is thus an event (Ereignis) of multiple origination which renders the spatial, temporal, linguistic, and cultural loci possible80. We would add that this "coming-to-pres- ence", as a coming forth into the unhidden, that orients the elucidation of the question concerning the place of being, happens by way of what presences in the "standing there" that occupies χώρα.

-1039 CE Cairo). See N. EL-BIZRI, "La perception de la profondeur: Alhazen, Berke- ley et Merleau-Ponty", in Oriens-Occidens, Cahiers du centre d'histoire des sciences et des philosophies arabes et médiévales, CNRS, Vol. V, forthcoming 2004.

⁷⁷ M. HEIDEGGER, "On the Essence and Concept of φύσις in Aristotle's Physics B, 1", op. cit., p. 203.

⁷⁸ M. HEIDEGGER, "On the Essence and Concept of φύσις in Aristotle's Physics B, 1", op. cit., pp. 206-208; M. HEIDEGGER, Beiträge zur Philosophie, op. cit., § 150.

M. HEIDEGGER, "On the Essence and Concept of φύσις in Aristotle's Physics B, 1", op. cit., pp. 213-215.

⁸⁰ R. SCHÜRMANN, "How to Read Heidegger", Graduate Faculty Philosophy Jour- nal, Vol. 19, No. 2 Vol. 20, No. 1 (1997), pp. 3-6.

To reconsider the pathways that we have traversed so far, it seems that what is lost in our transformed modern conception of space as ex-tensio is that the barely apprehended essence of χώρα gets overlooked. Hence, the ontological problem of space has fallen into a historical oblivion that may have even been initiated by Plato's reduction of being to the order of idea. Free from all modes of appearance, and in relation to the way being is set between appearing and the phenomenon of permanence, χώρα is abstracted from every particular, yet not as what withdraws. Χώρα admits all beings and makes room for them as what stands in being, whilst itself being resistant to thinking and hardly itself attested in sense-perception. What we have advanced in this initiatory inquiry and preparatory questioning shows us that space remains unheimlich and its ontological status continues to be resolutely problematic and unclear. This faces us with the formidable ontological challenge to establish a "the- ory of space" whose absence so far has impeded, if not even interdict- ed, the significant progress to be made in our strenuous attempts to clarify the exacting question of being. Based on our endeavour to situate Hei- degger's thought between the Sophist and the Timaeus, we draw the in- eluctable conclusion that we ought to elucidate the question of the being of space in anticipation of a future unfolding of an ontological clarifi- cation of the question of being, and that our inquiry herein may act as a prolegomenon to a future "ontokhorology."