Aquello que no es: filosofía como entrelazamiento entre verdad y negatividad

Abstract

Plato’s dialectic of essence and
appearance is not a two-world metaphysics of
phenomenon and noumenon but a formal dualism
of idea (eidos) and body (soma). This formal
dualism provides the necessary precondition for
materialist monism. By breaking Parmenides’
interdiction on thinking that which is not, Plato
suspends the equation of thinking with being
and winnows substance from idea. Concomitant
with Plato’s metaphysics of negation is a
certain negation of metaphysics understood
as tautological iteration of the equivalence
thinking: being. In acknowledging that what is
not, somehow is, we are also bound to recognize
that what is, somehow is not. Conversely, those
brands of metaphysical materialism that deny
non-being unwittingly consecrate the idealist
fusion of thinking with being. Thus Plato’s
exposure of the entwinement of being and nonbeing
in thinking about what is harbors an
instructive rejoinder to those contemporary
sophists who deny the norm of truth in order to
affirm the immanence of being.