Reality and Resistance

The reality of things is only a modification of the presence-at-hand and comprises neither nature as a sphere itself nor all the things present-at-hand in nature. Martin Heidegger’s remarks against critical realism and idealism are also essentially to the point. Concerning critical realism he writes: “Indeed realism tries to explain reality optically by real connections of the interaction between things that are real”. And concerning idealism he correctly says that it neglects to clarify the mode of being of the subject of being-consciousness, the res cogitans. Heidegger goes on to say that resistance is only one character of reality along with others. The being of the world and the being of the self are strictly equiprimordial, and both of them as modes of being arise out of resistance, the cancellation of resistance, and the subsequent view of what has come about.