From the 1930s onward, Heidegger increasingly refers to the unity of four dimensions of signification which Heidegger names the “gods,” the “mortals,” “world” (or “heaven”) and “earth”. In his famous essay “Das Ding” (1950), Heidegger describes how these four dimensions are to be found in unity, as a “unity of four” or “fourfold” (Geviert), within a simple thing, a Greek pitcher; pouring wine from the pitcher supposedly refers back to the gods, the mortals, heaven and earthThis concept of fourfold has long seemed quite obscure and mysterious for readers of Heidegger. However, in a work on the concept of “fourfold,” Jean-François Mattéi has argued that the fourfold is to be understood precisely as a reinterpretation and reworking of the four Aristotelian grounds. Fully in agreement with Mattéi, I would also like to claim the fourfold to be a rethought version of the threefold division of Dasein’s transcendence toward grounds in “Vom Wesen des Grundes.” “Gods,” in late Heidegger, are the dimension of the ultimate goals, aims and purposes of significance – the Aristotelian “final cause.” “Mortals” are the community of men as interpreters, reshapers and producers of reality – the Aristotelian “efficient cause.” “Earth” names the concrete content, the ground for the material and sensual presence of things in their particularity – the Aristotelian “material cause.” “World” or “heaven” is the dimension of significant, conceptual articulation which grants permanence and generality to particular things – the Aristotelian “formal cause.” All of these mutually opposed dimensions are assembled in the concrete present reality which forms their “in-between” (das Zwischen or Inzwischen) – the thing. Meaningful presence is precisely the “in-between” of these four foundational dimensions. This fourfold dimensionality of sense forms the transcendental context and background in relation to which things become comprehensible and significant for human beings – that is, the fourfold is precisely Being which in withdrawing itself lets beings come forth into presence.

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