Abstract

The subject of this essay is the thing itself, examined through the fantastic character of phenomenality, that is, through the coming into being or opening up of the world. The world of appearance emerges from a simple, absolute nothing: there is nothing behind or before the world. There are right away many things, a world: one thing implies others, since for one to be it must distinguish itself from another. Thus, if `to be' means `to distinguish,' Being begins with the parting of things that makes their connection possible. Thus the thing in itself is straightaway the undergoing of its own parting; being is a passion. The Imago , then, is not a picture or figure, but the arriving in presence, which imagination elicits or welcomes by advancing in response. Imagination, then, is not first of all open to an image, but to world. It opens itself to the Thing, to the possibility of something, to parting, and in so doing brings itself toward creation