and defined in relation to other generic identities. The unity of being1 is unique in the sense that all names, all concepts and determinate notions, articulate one and the same being1: pure intelligibility as such, identical with itself in the sense that it has no other, is not differentiated from anything and is not distributed into particular beings, but rather constitutes the absolute universal identity of everything. This is the fundamental Parmenidean insight: over against the singular uniqueness of particular beings, being1 is unique as the most universal of all universals. In each instance, it is one and the same. The uniqueness and “selfsameness” of being1 was thus seen already in the first inception; what is at stake for Heidegger is its postmetaphysical reconsideration.
Being3 is a postmetaphysical enlargement of being1 through the inclusion of being2, in the way outlined by Heidegger in Introduction to Metaphysics (see Chapter 3): being1 is enlarged to include the dimension of temporality, materiality, and becoming that its metaphysical delimitation excludes. It follows from this that the uniqueness of beyng (being3) must also be understood in a radically different sense. This uniqueness can be illustrated with the help of Aristotle’s remark in the Physics that the now (nyn), which is related to time as a moving thing (kinoumenon) is related to its movement, is in each instance different in terms of what it is to be a “now” (i.e., in terms of being situated in a constantly different temporal context) but always the same in terms of what there must be in order for there to be a now—i.e., in terms of a present thing, the identity of which is constituted precisely by its whatness, its to ti ēn einai.15 The presence of any real and concrete thing subject to becoming and thus to temporality is, strictly speaking, in each instant “unique” in the sense of being singular and never alike.
Let us take a concrete example. My desk in its particularity and materiality is never exactly the same in two different instants. What does remain identical is its whatness, deskness, or conceptual form; its numerical identity (i.e., its being this selfsame desk) presupposes its generic or specific identity (i.e., its being a desk). In this sense, every being is a singular case of meaningful presence that gains “universal” features only when it is cut out of its particular temporal constellation by being subsumed under a general conceptual identity. Without such identities, the spatiotemporal realm of materiality would be a sheer “Heraclitean flux” of singularities without anything constant and repeatable. The comparison, assimilation, and differentiation—and thus the classification, generalization, and categorization—of beings in relation to other beings is possible only in terms of a purely intelligible conceptual whatness, an idea, or an essentia in the sense of to ti ēn einai.