Seeming, a variant of being, from Introduction to Metaphysics.

We have now reached our goal. Because Being, phusis, consists in appearing, in the offering of a look and of views, it stands essentially, and thus necessarily and constantly, in the possibility of a look that precisely covers over and conceals what beings are in truth — that is, in unconcealment. This aspect in which beings now come to stand is seeming in the sense of semblance. Wherever there is unconcealment of beings, there is the possibility of seeming, and conversely: wherever beings stand in seeming, and take a prolonged and secure stand there, seeming can break apart and fall away.

P. 110

Seeming in Oedipus.

The connection between us today and everything that Being, truth, and seeming mean has been so confused and groundless and passionless for so long that even in our interpretation and appropriation of Greek poetry, we have an inkling of only a small portion of the power of this poetic saying in Greek Dasein itself. We have Karl Reinhardt to thank for the latest interpretation of Sophocles (1933), which comes essentially closer to Greek Dasein and Being than all previous attempts, because Reinhardt sees and questions tragic happenings according to the fundamental connections among Being, unconcealment and seeming. Even if modem subjectivisms and psychologisms still often interfere, Reinhardt's interpretation of Oedipus Rex as the “tragedy of seeming” is a magnificent achievement.

I will conclude these remarks on the poetic formation of the struggle between Being and seeming among the Greeks by quoting a passage from Sophodes’ Oedipus Rex that gives us the opportunity to establish the relation between our previous characterization of Greek Being as constancy and our new characterization of Being as appearing.

The few verses from the last choral passage of the tragedy (verses 1189 ff.) run as follows:

τίς γὰρ τίς ἀνὴρ πλέον
τᾶς εὐδαιμονίας φέρει
ἢ τοσοῦτον ὅσον δοκεῖν
καὶ δόξαντ᾽ ἀποκλῖναι;

Who then, which man, bears more
controlled and fitting Dasein
than what suffices to stand in seeming
in order then — as one who seems — to decline?
(namely, from standing-there-straight-In-himself)

In clarifying the essence of the infinitive, we spoke of certain words that display an enklisis, a de-clining, falling over (casus). Now we see that seeming, as a variant of Being itself, is the same as falling over. It is a variant of Being in the sense of standing-there-straight-in-itself. Both deviations from Being are determined by Being as the constancy of standing-in-the-light that is, of appearing.

Pp. 113-4

The Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Loeb) translation of those lines is:

What man, what man wins more of happiness than enough to seem, and after seeming to decline?

  ¶ 4:08 AM