is without reason’” (GA 10, 75/PR, 50). This last expression contains a double negation, which Heidegger understands as concealing an affirmation regarding the meaning of being: “What immediately strikes us about this formulation of the principle of reason is that it contains two negations: Nihil-sine; nothing-without. The double negation yields an affirmation: nothing that in any manner is, is without a reason. This means that everything that is, every being whatsoever, has a reason” (GA 10, 6/PR, 5, emphasis mine). There must be a reason why there is something rather than nothing. “There is a reason in the nature of things why something exists rather than nothing” (GA 10, 42/PR, 27). The principle of reason demands that everything that happens be founded in reason. This principle is first of all a request, a demand, a claim and a command (Anspruch), a call to render reasons, the call of the ratio reddenda: that everything, every being, shows or reveals its reason or foundation. The principle of reason is a demand for foundation, for an ultimate Grund. The rendering of reason is a response to a demand, the demand to establish a sufficient foundation for all that is. “Sufficient” here means, as Heidegger states in the Address, the “completeness of a foundation” (GA 10, 177/PR, 121). The rendering of reason amounts to a rendering of grounds. “Accordingly, the strict formulation of the principium rationis as the principium reddendae rationis contains a very specific and decisive explanation of what the unrestricted principle of reason says: nothing is without reason. This now says: something ‘is,’ which means, can be identified as being a being, only if it is stated in a sentence that satisfies the fundamental principle of reason as the fundamental principle of founding” (GA 10, 36/PR, 23, emphasis mine). The call for foundation is the true calling of the principle of reason. This is indeed why the principle of reason has an ontotheological structure as it refers to an unconditioned and ultimate foundation for all beings or nature, namely God. Heidegger clarifies that for Leibniz the principle of reason participates to the ontotheological structure of metaphysics, which posits a supreme being at the foundation of all beings and accounts for beings by appealing to yet another being: “However, because Leibniz and all metaphysics come to a halt with the principle of reason as a fundamental principle about beings, metaphysical thinking requires, according to the fundamental principle, a first reason for being: in a being, and indeed the being that is most of all” (GA 10, 184/PR, 125). As Heidegger explains, for Leibniz there is in the nature of things “a reason why something is rather than nothing. As the first existing cause of all beings, God is called reason” (GA 10, 42/PR, 27). Thus, “what is to be posited as the ultima ratio of Natura, as the furthest, highest—and that means the first—existing reason for the nature of things, is what one usually calls God” (GA 10, 42/PR, 27). At the same time, this ontotheological structure of the principle opens onto a circle: “So the principle of reason holds only insofar as God exists. But God exists only insofar as the principle of reason holds. Such thinking moves in a circle” (GA 10, 43/R, 28).
Heidegger makes a further—and decisive—claim: the principle of reason can be taken as a statement on beings, or else as it pertains to being as such. He writes: “We can hear the principle of reason in a twofold manner: on the one hand, as a supreme fundamental principle about beings, and, on the other hand, as a principle of being” (GA 10, 100/PR, 68). First, Heidegger begins by insisting on the ontological (rather than epistemological or metalinguistic) scope of the principle of reason. The principle of reason is a statement about being, not about reason or language: “What the principle of reason says does not come to language, namely, not to that language that corresponds to that about which the principle of reason speaks. The principle of reason is an uttering of being [ein Sagen vom Sein]. It is this, but in a concealed manner. What remains concealed is not only what it says; what also remains concealed is that it speaks of being” (GA 10, 73/PR, 49). Heidegger removes reason from the area of logic and language in order to situate it within the scope of being as such. “‘Nihil est sine ratione’: ‘Nothing is without reason.’ Every being has a reason. The subject of the principle of reason is not reason, rather: ‘Every being’; this is predicated as having a reason. The principle of reason is, according to the ordinary way of understanding it, not a statement about reason, but about beings, insofar as there are beings” (GA 10, 66/PR, 44, emphasis in the original). Referring to his earlier essay “On the Essence of Ground” (Vom Wesen des Grundes), Heidegger insists that the same thought was at play in that earlier text: “We can now apply what was briefly said about seeing, bringing into view, and overlooking to the case of the article entitled ‘On the Essence of Reasons.’ For in this article, it is plain as day that the principle ‘nothing is without reason’ says something about beings and doesn’t shed the slightest bit of light on what ‘reason’ means” (GA 10, 68–69/PR, 46). Thus, he concludes, “The principle of reason is a statement about beings. Accordingly, it gives us no information about the essence of reason” (GA 10, 69/PR, 46).
The principle of reason is a statement about beings. To that extent, it is also a statement about being itself, if it is the case that “the shining of being is in play in the appearing of beings” (GA 10, 81/PR, 54). If the principle of reason is at first heard as a statement about beings, it then resonates as a statement about being. For to state that every being has a reason implies a prior implicit reference to being: one cannot make any determination with respect to a being without having first decided about the being of that being. “The fundamental principle of reason says: every being has a reason. The principle is a statement about beings. But we experience a being as a being only when we attend to the fact that and how it is. Hence, in order to really hear the principle about beings we must become aware that the ‘is’ in the principle ‘nothing is without reason’ sets the pitch that tunes everything” (GA 10, 183/PR, 125). The principle of reason, even when heard ontically, is already harboring an ontological scope. The determining factor in the principle of reason is not ontical, but ontological. This is what allows Heidegger to evoke the other tonality of the principle of reason, the other way of hearing what the principle states, one that indicates the passage (the “leap”: Satz) from the ontical to the ontological scope of the principle of reason: “When we listen to it, that is, when we open ourselves to what really speaks in the principle, the principle suddenly intones differently. No longer ‘nothing is without reason,’ rather, ‘nothing is without reason’” (GA 10, 183/PR, 125). When heard in that way, that is, by highlighting the “is,” one passes (leaps) from the ontical to the ontological, from beings to being: “Whenever it speaks of beings, the tiny word ‘is’ names the being of beings” (GA 10, 183/PR, 125).
The saying of the principle of reason, Nihil est sine ratione, can thus be heard in two ways: “We can say: ‘Nihil est sine ratione.’ ‘Nothing is without reason.’ In the affirmative form this means: everything has a reason. Yet we can also set the pitch in this way: ‘Nihil est sine ratione.’ ‘Nothing is without reason’” (GA 10, 60/PR, 39–40). Heidegger emphasizes the “is” in the statement, associating the “is” with reason, revealing that Grund, reason/ground, belongs to being as such. “‘Nothing is without reason.’ When one paraphrases this customary formulation of the principle of reason, it reads: ‘Every being has a reason.’ With this, the reason that every being has is itself represented as some being. A reference earlier to a text of Leibniz was supposed to show this. The principle of reason is a statement about beings. In the other tonality, the principle of reason sounds like this: ‘Nothing is without reason.’ When paraphrased, this means ‘ground/reason belongs to being.’ Or ‘being and ground/reason-the same.’ Heard in this way the principle speaks of being” (GA 10, 111/PR, 75). If one hears the statement of the principle of reason as emphasized in this way: “Nothing is without reason,” one detects an affinity between being and reason itself: “The intonation allows us to hear a unison between the ‘is’ and ‘reason,’ est and ratio” (GA 10, 69/PR, 46). Now, Heidegger asks, “What do we bring into view when we think about the principle of reason in the tonality introduced here?” The statement, “Nothing is . . . without reason,” says: “‘Nothing,’ that is, no being whatsoever
