sum, nor is the metaphysics of Descartes merely a metaphysics subsequently supplied and therefore externally built onto this freedom, in the sense of an ideology. In the co-agitatio, representing gathers all that is objective into the "all together" of representedness. The ego of the cogitare now finds in the self-securing "together" of representedness, in con-scientia, its essence. Conscientia is the representing setting together of whatever has the character of object, along with representing man, within the sphere of representedness safeguarded by man. Everything that presences receives from out of this representedness the meaning and manner of its presence [Anwesenheit]—namely, the meaning and manner of presence [Praesenz]—in repraesentatio. The con-scientia of the ego as the subiectum of the coagitatio determines, as the subjectivity of the subiectum that is distinctive in this way, the Being of whatever is.
The Meditationes de prima philosophia provide the pattern for an ontology of the subiectum with respect to subjectivity defined as conscientia. Man has become subiectum. Therefore he can determine and realize the essence of subjectivity, always in keeping with the way in which he himself conceives and wills himself. Man as a rational being of the age of the Enlightenment is no less subject than is man who grasps himself as a nation, wills himself as a people, fosters himself as a race, and, finally, empowers himself as lord of the earth. Still, in all these fundamental positions of subjectivity, a different kind of I-ness and egoism is also possible; for man constantly remains determined as I and thou, we and you. Subjective egoism, for which mostly without its knowing it the I is determined beforehand as subject, can be canceled out through the insertion of the I into the we. Through this, subjectivity only gains in power. In the planetary imperialism of technologically organized man, the subjectivism of man attains its acme, from which point it will descend to the level of organized uniformity and there firmly establish itself. This uniformity becomes the surest instrument of total, i.e., technological, rule over the earth.38 The modern freedom of subjectivity
38. The reader will recognize in this passage a dose foreshadowing of Heidegger's later characterization of the modem age as that wherein—under the rule of Enframing as the essence of technology—everything that is, is, through man, being transformed into and set in order as nothing but standing-reserve. Cf. QT 14 ff.