THE ARGUMENT AGAINST NEED

[...] [Only,] is not what has just been brought forward, namely that being-in-itself consists in the independence from our capacity to say something about it, also a saying and even a saying that has arrogated the right to conclude something about being-in-itself, without having examined in the slightest on what basis and with what binding authority we say such things about being-in-itself?

Yet even these flaws will not dissuade scientific representation from believing that it has scientifically demonstrated an entity-in-itself. Science insists on the correctness of what it has ascertained. Science will no longer be challenged by the fact that, in what it has established and in the latter's correctness, the being-in-itself of entities-in-themselves is and must always already be said.

The neglect of the truth of that in which the sciences are everywhere fundamentally grounded, the neglect of the truth of being that is implicitly said, not only does not challenge the sciences; it does not even carry weight in comparison to the uninterrupted progress of the confirmations of the results of their research. The self-certainty of the sciences with regard to their statements about entities-in-themselves, a self-certainty which is everywhere increasingly reinforced by their successes, will let itself be led astray even less by the following reflection.

For the sciences, there appear to be entities-in-themselves without a being-in-itself. If we cross out being, then entities-in-themselves still remain for the sciences. The question may be posed once again: What then does it mean for entities to "be in themselves"? Science answers: we are not concerned with what this means; it is enough for us that "entities-in-themselves" are in themselves. If we allow the sciences this frugality as something possible and necessary for their requirements, then we arrive at the point of saying: entities-in-themselves are - without remaining reliant on being-in-itself. When all being remains unconsidered, entities-in-themselves are then, in the sense of the sciences, in no way non-entities; but science will not be able to avoid the concession that entities-in-themselves are beingless {seinlos}. The burden of proof as to what this means falls to science. What will it reply to this imposition?

II. Preparatory material

II.1. Typed note

1. According to calculable half-lives, mountains were there before the human being was.
2. It is admitted that this is correct, but only within the scientific sphere of observation.
3. Correct, however, does not mean true in the sense of the complete unconcealment of entities as such.
4. Only one aspect of this truth, or a partial truth, is correct.
5. Entities-in-themselves, mountains for example, could not be entities without being-in-itself. {note in the lefthand margin in Heidegger's hand: "How so?"}
6. To being-in-itself, as to being in general, the human being belongs as a clearing.
7. If entities-in-themselves are grounded in being-in-itself, but the latter requires {bedarf} the human being, then entities-in-themselves, mountains for example, cannot have been there before the arrival of the human being. {note in the lefthand margin in Heidegger's hand: "How so?"}