That the Absolute appear for consciousness does not mean that the absolute would burst into consciousness as into a cage. It appears to consciousness already in relation to the fundamental character of consciousness: with “positing.” The question returns: what sort of positing? This is an important question first for the interpretation of Greek thought. In Greek, positing is said θέσις, and appears in ἀπόθηκη, whose meaning is the same as ἀπόφανσις: to let a matter stand here from itself, as it is, i.e., presences. But the modern “positing” is different; the Latin repraesentatio is the best interpretation of it. “Re-” for the Moderns (Re-praesentatio) refers back to the ego cogito. Re- is here “back to me.” The “I” lets something stand before it, which also means that this something has become an “object.” All this, clear as it is, is nonetheless covered over by the presumptions of idealism.
The question of “representation,” thus taken up, is now the occasion for a sort of exercise in “phenomenological kindergarten,” where everything all of a sudden becomes too difficult because too simple, and where everyone finds themselves extremely “clumsy.” This was a long and useful course of work, the steps of which were the following:
—Repraesentatio, that is, representation [Vorstellung]. For instance: The Louvre in Paris. For us right now it is a “representation.” Where is it? In our heads? How can we then avoid saying, even more scientically: in our brains? The autopsy of the brain does not reveal any “representations.”
—It is then said that it concerns an image. The question thus arises: when we represent the Louvre to ourselves, is it an image that we make present to ourselves? No, it is rather the Louvre itself. Always, and even in the “making present,” even when we relate to something simply in thought, I am in relation with the things themselves, as I am now in relation with this book here that I look at and with which I am concerned. However, despite this immediacy there are differences, and phenomenology must investigate their character. Although the Louvre is now not an image for me, I still cannot enter it through the door, while I can open the book which is here on this table. To the extent that the book is present-at-hand, we must therefore say that it presents [vorstellt] itself to me. “Representation” here means: the book itself “places itself before me.” In opposition to a “making present,” the relation here is that of a “perceiving.”
What is characteristic of perception? A participant says, αἴσθησις, and is then told that “with the Greeks, and precisely in the distinction between αἴσθησις and νόησις, hell has already begun.” What is important is the notion of “corporeality” [Leibhaftigkeit]: in perception what presences is “bodily” [leibhaftig]. This answer is in turn another question: what is that “body” from which the adjective “bodily” is formed? The French translation says, “la chair,” the flesh. But flesh, the body as