6533b821fe1ef96bd127c350

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Appearance as the Arrival of the Future

subject

description

AMBIGUITIES of language often indicate a problematic subject matter. That is the case with the word "appear" (erscheinen). When I say that an acquaintance (or someone with whom I was previously unacquainted) "appeared" to me, in order to speak with me, the meaning is: he came to me, he showed up in my habitat, perhaps at my home. He did not only seem (scheinen) to be there; he really was there. When something appears to us, it does not only seem to be with us, it actually is present. Appearance and existence are here very closely connected. But on the other hand, my acquaintance still exists even when he does not appear to me. Whether that would still be true if he appeared nowhere whether my acquaintance would then still exist that is, of course, questionable. But that question I will set aside. In any case, the existence of my acquaintance is not the same as his appearing to me. Thus, we differentiate between what something is in and for itself (or also for others) and the way it appears to and for us. This distinction is already present in the word "appear." What appears to me is precisely that which is, in and for itself, something more than it is as it presently appears to me. In this sense, according to Kant, the idea of appearance points back to a being-in-itself which is different from the appearance, since it would be nonsense to say that there is appearance without there being something to appear.' What is meant is not only that appearance has a concrete form. Rather, the concept of appearance implies that in it something manifests itself which is something more than that part of it which appears. The ambiguity of the word appearance is thus based on the relation of appearance to being. On the one hand, appearing and existence mean the same thing. But on the other hand, appearance, taken literally,