Reciprocal determination and the unity of distinct determinations in The Primal Structure of Emanuele Severino

Abstract

The concept of “reciprocal determination” is constituted by two moments: “knownthrough-itself” and “known-not-through-something-else” that are referred to Being and give rise to two judgements in which these two terms are assumed as subject and predicate. These judgments are reciprocal and complementary and show the unity that substantiate them, which is interpreted as a synthesis, so that the identity of distinct determinations counts as identification: duality is not abolished in it. On the contrary, if one claims that a term is essential to the other, as with reciprocal determination, one must acknowledge that the latter constitutes the former, so that each one is in itself the other: each term is its selfcontradicting. To prevent this conclusion, one must acknowledge that the pretended co-essentiality is only apparent and the identity of the distinct determinations is not authentic, for duality has not really been resolved in unity.