that the statement of the principle of reason addresses beings in their being and is to be heard as an ontological statement. “So the principle of reason, which is offered as a statement about beings, says: to the being of beings there belongs something like ground/reason” (GA 10, 73/PR, 49). The principle of reason must be approached in its ontological (and not simply ontical) scope: “Consequently, the principle of reason proves to be not only a statement about beings; even more, what we bring into view is that the principle of reason speaks of the being of beings” (GA 10, 73/PR, 49). The new emphasis allows one to bring being into view and to reveal the proximity of reason with being: “But finally we heard the principle of reason in a different tonality. Instead of ‘Nothing is without reason,’ it now sounds like this: ‘Nothing is without reason.’ The pitch has shifted from the ‘nothing’ to the ‘is’ and from the ‘without’ to the ‘reason.’ The word ‘is’ in one fashion or another invariably names being. This shift in pitch lets us hear an accord between being and reason” (GA 10, 75–76/PR, 50).
This should be understood in its ontologico-historical significance, Heidegger evoking the “Geschick of being,” the destiny, sending, or dispensation of being, which always happens as a withdrawal: “being proffers itself to us while at the same time withdrawing its essence, concealing this essence in the withdrawal” (GA 10, 91/PR, 62). In such a withdrawal, which leaves reasons, causes, and grounds, being appears as ground. In the thirteenth lecture, Heidegger first recalls what he means by “Geschick of being,” namely that being gives itself as a withdrawal: “When we were led to say more clearly what the talk of the history of being as the Geschick of being is supposed to mean, we referred to the fact that being, in that it proffers, clears and lights itself, at the same time withdraws” (GA 10, 164/PR, 110). He then associates such withdrawal with the identification of being with reason/ground: “Now we can more clearly hear the words about the withdrawal of being. The words say that being conceals itself as being; namely, in its inaugural Geschick as logos being conceals its belonging-together with ground/reason.” The withdrawal of being brings reason and ground to the fore: “But the withdrawing does not exhaust itself in this concealment. Rather, inasmuch as it conceals its essence, being allows something else to come to the fore, namely ground/reason in the shape of archai, aitiai, of rationes, of causae, of Principles, Ursachen [causes] and Rational grounds. In withdrawing being leaves behind these shapes of ground/reason whose provenance goes unrecognized” (GA 10, 164/PR, 110). In its withdrawal, being gives itself as rational ground.
By hearing the principle of reason in its ontological sense, Heidegger is able to stress the affinity between being and reason. Indeed, if beings are said to be founded in reason, and being is that which determines beings as such, then it appears that reason is one possible name in a certain historical configuration for being itself. Now, to state that there is an affinity between being and reason, or that reason “belongs” to being, or even that “being and reason: the same,” cannot mean that being itself has a reason or is grounded in reason. That never is the case. “‘Ground/reason belongs to being’—one might be inclined to understand this in the sense of ‘being has a reason,’ that is, ‘being is grounded.’ The popularly understood and presumably valid principium rationis never speaks of this” (GA 10, 76/PR, 51). Why? Because what is grounded in the principle of reason is never being but instead beings, the ontic itself. “According to the principle of reason, only beings are ever grounded” (GA 10, 76/PR, 51, emphasis mine). What, then, does the statement “reason belongs to being” mean if not that being itself is grounded in reason? Heidegger suggests that, if only beings are grounded, this means that, as being, being grounds so that beings are thus grounded in this way. “‘Ground/reason belongs to being’ is tantamount to saying: being qua being grounds [Sein ist als Sein gründend]. Consequently only beings ever have their grounds” (GA 10, 76/PR, 51). Indeed, if the principle of reason claims that all beings must be grounded in reason, then that means that the being of these beings is understood as reason/ground. “What does the principle say? The principle of reason says: to being there belongs something like ground/reason. Being is akin to grounds, it is ground-like [Das Sein ist grundartig, grundhaft].” This does not mean that being is grounded. “The sentence ‘Being is ground-like’ speaks quite differently than the statement ‘beings have a reason.’ ‘Being is ground-like’ thus in no way means ‘being has a ground’; rather, it says: being in itself essentially comes to be as grounding [Sein west in sich als grundendes]” (GA 10, 73/PR, 49). If beings have a ground, being is a ground.
At this point of the analysis, now that it has been established that the principle of reason is to be heard as a principle of being, what remains to be determined is the relation between being and ground. As stated earlier, only beings are grounded while being is said to belong with ground/reason. “Ground/reason receives its essence from its belonging together with being qua being,” and conversely, “being reigns qua being from out of the essence of ground/reason” (GA 10, 76/PR, 51). Being and reason/ground gather as the same (“Ground/reason and being (‘are’) the same”) since being, as being, grounds. Now, if being is ground/reason, then it cannot in turn be grounded. The ground, as ground, cannot be grounded. Being reveals itself as groundless. “Therefore being can never first have a ground/reason which would supposedly ground it. Accordingly, ground/reason is missing from being. Ground/reason remains at a remove from being” (GA 10, 76/PR, 51). Being is the abyss . . . as ground. “Being ‘is’ the abyss in the sense of such a remaining-apart of reason from being [Im Sinne solchen Ab-bleibens des Grundes vom Sein “ist” das Sein der Ab-grund]. To the extent that being as such grounds, it remains groundless.” Why? Because in fact being “does not fall within the orbit of the principle of reason, rather only, beings do” (GA 10, 77/PR, 51). The foundation, in order to be the foundation that it is, must itself be without foundation: this is how the principle of reason, which states that all events must be grounded, self-deconstructs. The event of being finds itself freed from the request for a foundation and opens onto an abyss. Heidegger insists on the latter point: being is groundless. Being has no ground “because every foundation—even and especially self-founded ones—remain inappropriate to being.” Why? Because grounding only applies to beings: as noted earlier, it is beings that can be grounded. This is why “every founding and even every appearance of foundability has inevitably degraded being to some sort of a being” (GA 10, 166/PR, 111). To consider being as grounded would be to treat it as a being. But, as Heidegger reminds us, it is a matter of “no longer explaining being by way of some sort of being” (GA 10, 100/PR, 68). As a consequence, being as such is groundless: “Being qua Being remains ground-less” (GA 10, 166/PR, 111). Ultimately, the ground “stays off and away” from being, and being remains without ground.
Heidegger is fully aware of the apparent contradiction between those two statements: on the one hand, being is the “same” as reason/ground; on the other, being is the “a-byss.” He for instance asks, somewhat rhetorically: does the claim that being is the “a-byss” “simply stand next to all we said earlier: being and ground/reason: the same? Or does one even exclude the other? In fact, it seems so if we think according to the rules of ordinary logic. According to these ‘being and ground/reason: the same’ amounts to saying: being = ground/reason. Then how could the other one hold: being: the a-byss?” (GA 10, 166/PR, 111). First, to state that being is the same as ground/reason, or that being and reason: the same, does not signify that being is simply equated with reason, cause, principle, or rational ground, but rather, as Heidegger here retrieves the original sense of ratio as Logos, that it is “a letting-lie-present that assembles” (GA 10, 165/PR, 110). This allows him to posit at once the two following propositions: “being and ground/reason: the same. Simultaneously this meant: being: the a-byss [Sein: der Ab-grund]” (GA 10, 165/PR, 110–111). Second, and most important, it is insofar as being is the ground that it has no ground: “This is what shows itself as what is to be thought now, namely, being ‘is’ the a-byss insofar as being and ground/reason: the same. Insofar as being ‘is’ what grounds, and only insofar as it is so, it has no ground/reason” (GA 10, 166/PR, 111). More than an abyss, one should here
