Weirdness of Being: Heidegger's Unheard Answer to the Seinsfrage 9781844655595

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1 Why being itself and not just being?
1.1 Seinsfrage and Denkweg
1.2 Three meanings of the word Sein
1.3 The ground-theme of Being and Time
1.4 What does Möglichkeit mean?
1.5 Translating Möglichkeit
1.6 The word of the Seinsfrage
2 Owning to the belongingness to being
2.1 Enowned owning and the stress for words
2.2 Translating Seyn
2.3 Translating Geschichte
2.4 Returnership
3 Translation, tradition, and the other onset of thinking
3.1 Onset and Unterschied
3.2 Tradition as translation
3.3 The Denkweg-sense of interpretation
4 Husserl and Heidegger on Dasein
4.1 The word Dasein
4.2 Husserl on Dasein and the scope of transcendental phenomenology
4.3 Heidegger on Da-sein and the scope of the Seinsfrage
4.4 Coining Da-sein in English
5 Minding that “we” cannot ever not think beЗng
5.1 Who is “we”?
5.2 Enowning as the word
5.3 The word-treasure of enowning
5.4 Translating Wesen
5.5 Translating Da-seyn
5.6 Minding the mind
6 The origin of speech
6.1 Da-sein and the de-homination of man
6.2 The temper of silence
Epilogue: Seven questions
Appendix: “Putting in the seed”
Notes
Index

Citation preview

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

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THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING HEIDEGGER’S UNHEARD ANSWER TO THE SEINSFRAGE Ivo De Gennaro

First published 2013 by Acumen Published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© Ivo De Gennaro, 2013 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. ISBN: 978-1-84465-559-5 (hardcover) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in Gentium

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day! —Emily Dickinson

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Preface

ix xi

1 Why being itself and not just being? 1.1 Seinsfrage and Denkweg 1.2 Three meanings of the word Sein 1.3 The ground-theme of Being and Time 1.4 What does Möglichkeit mean? 1.5 Translating Möglichkeit 1.6 The word of the Seinsfrage

1 1 4 8 15 22 27

2 Owning to the belongingness to being 2.1 Enowned owning and the stress for words 2.2 Translating Seyn 2.3 Translating Geschichte 2.4 Returnership

30 31 34 36 43

3 Translation, tradition, and the other onset of thinking 3.1 Onset and Unterschied 3.2 Tradition as translation 3.3 The Denkweg-sense of interpretation

47 47 55 60

4 Husserl and Heidegger on Dasein 4.1 The word Dasein 4.2 Husserl on Dasein and the scope of transcendental phenomenology 4.3 Heidegger on Da-sein and the scope of the Seinsfrage 4.4 Coining Da-sein in English

63 64 65 73 82

vii

CONTENTS

5 Minding that “we” cannot ever not think beǺng 5.1 Who is “we”? 5.2 Enowning as the word 5.3 The word-treasure of enowning 5.4 Translating Wesen 5.5 Translating Da-seyn 5.6 Minding the mind

89 89 93 96 109 112 114

6 The origin of speech 6.1 Da-sein and the de-homination of man 6.2 The temper of silence

116 117 121

viii

Epilogue: Seven questions

129

Appendix: “Putting in the seed” With Parvis Emad

131

Notes Index

153 193

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume collects together Îve essays previously published as journal articles or, in one case, as a contribution to an edited volume, as well as an earlier unpublished conference paper. The appendix contains the text of a conversation with Parvis Emad which has also already appeared in print. Chapter 1 Îrst appeared as “Why Being Itself and Not Just Being?” in The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy Vol. VII (Seattle: Noesis Press, 2008), pp. 159–95. Chapter 2 was Îrst published as “Owning to the Belongingness to Be-ing or Thinking as Surrender: Parvis Emad’s Book on Beiträge and the English Denkweg,” in Heidegger Studies Vol. 25 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2009), pp. 115–41. Chapter 3 Îrst appeared as a part of “Translation, Tradition and the Other Onset of Thinking” (with Frank Schalow), in Heidegger Studies Vol. 26 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2010), pp. 97–124. Chapter 4 was Îrst published as “Husserl and Heidegger on Da-sein: With a Suggestion for its Interlingual Translation,” in Frank Schalow (ed.), Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), pp. 225–52. Chapter 5 was Îrst published as “Minding that ‘We’ Cannot Ever Not Think BeǺng: Enowning and the Treasure of the Onset,” in Heidegger Studies Vol. 27 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2011), pp. 15–43. Chapter 6 appears in print for the Îrst time, but previously formed the keynote lecture at the IVth International Forum on Daseinsanalysis in Prague, 2006. The appendix, “Putting in the seed,” was Îrst published as “‘Putting in the Seed’: ‘Saying Again’ or ‘Approximating’ and Other Questions Concerning the Interlingual Translation of Heidegger’s Keywords” (with Parvis Emad), in Existentia Vol. XIX (Budapest: Societas Philosophia Classica, 2009), pp. 161–92. I would like to thank the publishers and editors of these journals for permission to reproduce these essays here. All texts have been revised for this publication, mainly in order to work in what I consider more suխcient translations of certain key words of Heidegger’s ix

ACK NOWLEDGEMENTS

thinking from my later attempts into earlier ones. The rationale for collecting these essays, which I outline in the Preface, suggests that they should be presented as a unity, and at the most advanced level of what, however, remains a tentative indication toward the preparation of a future path. All bibliographic references are given in notes placed at the end of the book. The abbreviation “HGA,” followed by an Arabic numeral, refers to volumes of Martin Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1975–). I am grateful to Burt Hopkins and Frank Schalow, who have encouraged the publication of the essays and of this book, and have at diլerent stages read one or more of the texts that compose it. Parvis Emad has been prodigal of suggestions and advice and has supported my endeavors throughout. His critical reading has added to the level of clarity these writings may have attained. The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano has provided funds for carrying out this research.

x

PREFACE

We hardly ever have a clear awareness of what it means to think in the enclosure of subjectivity. Subjectivity, in its speciÎcally modern sense, begins with Descartes’ methodical cogitations and Înds its philosophical completion in Nietzsche’s metaphysics of the “will to power.” This completion is the extreme where the thinking of subjectivity must attempt to Înally assure itself its own ancestry up to what stirred the Greek onset of thinking, in order to assure itself over against this ancestry. This completion must seek the exclusiveness and absoluteness that is attained only when the very unmindfulness of this ancestry constitutes itself as the self-assured universal subject. What comes after Nietzsche in terms of a late “critique” of the subject only attests to and exploits this assurance, thus catering to the meanwhile operatively implemented regime of subjectivity, that is, the “will to will.” To think in the enclosure of subjectivity means: to leave out what is ownmost to man; to leave out what is ownmost to the world. It means to think in a seclusion from that which wants to be thought as that which, in the Îrst place, has withdrawn from thinking. The enclosure as such rests entirely in the ongoing holding oլ of that which wants to be thought. This holding oլ is the enclosure. That which wants to be thought is: das Sein selbst, that is: being, kept to its selfhood, swaying in itself. The Seinsfrage is a liberating wake-up call for the locked-in humanity or humanness of man. Humanness is locked-in because it is already awakened to itself; because having been awakened to itself in the world constitutes humanness as such; because, thus awakened, it is nevertheless excluded from that which nourishes its wakefulness. In the tradition to which we belong, the Îrst and decisive wake-up call for the already awakened humanity of man is what gives rise to this tradition in the Îrst place, namely, the onset of thinking in Greece. That wake-up call, however, does not entirely liberate the already awakened humanity of man. Subjectivity is a free consequence of this xi

PREFACE

insuխcient liberation. The more humanness gets caught up in subjectivity, the more it is cut oլ from the liberating word that is ensconced in that call. The Seinsfrage, on the other hand, is the abrupt outspokenness of this liberating word in an interrogating answer to that call, which is now heard anew and in a diլerent tone. What does Seinsfrage mean? From within the enclosure of subjectivity, it means (and can only mean): “the question of being,” that is, one of the possible questions the reÏecting mind may ask; one of the “speculative” problems the reÏecting mind may engage itself in. However, in the enclosure of subjectivity there is no Seinsfrage. The fact that, within this domain and its set of perspectives, there is much talk of and debate about the Seinsfrage; the fact that the Seinsfrage is already historically appraised, assessed, and evaluated—all this does not disprove the diagnosis that the thinking of subjectivity only deals with a simulacrum of the Seinsfrage. The fact is that the Seinsfrage as such cannot be dealt with subjectively, for the Seinsfrage is that enclosure abruptly collapsing unto the word and way of a likely liberation of the humanity of man. Seinsfrage means: das Sein als Frage, that is, being itself, kept to its selfhood— as a quære. This is to say: being itself now breaks open as an interrogative stress, whose openness (or truth) wants to be borne as such in an interrogating stance, in an asking bearance. The stress is interrogative in that it interrogates man as to his capacity for being in keeping with being itself, which, on the other hand, has as its constitutive trait—and therefore not as a quality, such as a thing may have—that of withdrawing. Of this withdrawing we must, in turn, mind the most initial and initiating character, namely, the fact that it withdraws into itself as a parting or, more precisely, as a breaking oլ or oլbreaking,1 so that the full name of being’s constitutive trait is “the withdrawing (into) oլ-breaking.” This trait sets the tone for the wanting that modulates being’s openness. The interrogative stress, in its open wantingness of an interrogating bearance, is the native element of a being that awakens to itself in having been called unto such bearing from within that wanting openness. This openness, in so far as it is borne in an interrogating that is native of the openness itself and belongs to its wanting, may be called Da-sein. Therefore we can say: the Seinsfrage—being itself as the quære—breaks open as Da-sein. Da-sein is what the being that awakens unto the Seinsfrage Înds itself to have to “interpret,” that is, to carry out and heed in a thinking. This being, which is now to be called “man,” obtains its being only through the interrogative relation of being itself to it. In other words, being itself, through Da-sein, draws man into the reference to itself, and thus, in the Îrst place, enables him to his own, or rather ownable, being. Now we understand why Being and Time begins with an “analytic of Da-sein.” We understand why this analytic, and the entire Denkweg thereafter, stress the need die Seinsfrage zu fragen, that is, to heed the quære that being itself is in xii

PREFACE

an asking which is tempered by its (i.e. being’s own) wanting openness. Such asking is the most original manner of being, in that it surrenders to the trait of withdrawing (into) oլ-breaking while bearing the Da-sein that awakes in it, so that man’s selfhood may, in turn, arise from within the Da-sein. Because such surrendering acknowledges that the oլ-breaking keeps to itself the onset whence springs the tuning of man’s being as this being; because it acknowledges that therefore being itself, via Da-sein, keeps to itself the ownhood of man’s being; because such acknowledging amounts to bearing the Îniteness of being; because, Înally, only through such bearing man is cast into his nativity, that is, into his being native of the freedom or clearance of the withheld onset—because of all this Being and Time, as an answer to the wake-up call that is the Seinsfrage, must treat “being toward death”: das Sein zum Tode. The call of the Seinsfrage awakens man as such by claiming his being for the bearing of being’s truth or openness. This claim tunes man unto his belongingness to the truth. This tuning is the word. Being itself, keeping to its selfhood, swaying as itself in its borne openness, is the word. Not a word, but the soundless tune in answer to which the tuned words of our languages resound. What else should our languages be than the resounding of man’s silently tuned bearing of Da-sein? What could they be if not the outspoken heeding of the liberating withdrawal that keeps the openness of the world? What could be the meaning of our languages’ being mother-languages, if not that the sense of their speaking is to heed, in their sounds, the mother of languages—the soundless word—thus grounding man’s being into the vigilance of the wanting truth of being? The fact that language appears to “us” as a capacity, or competence, of contingent man, that is, as an implement by which “we” format and organize a given stock of “beings,” including ourselves, as assets of lifeenhancement, does not contradict this. It merely attests to a thinking secluded in the enclosure of subjectivity. Language is today the medium of subjectivity, and therefore itself subjective. It is excluded from the word and relegated to a seeming self-suխciency that in truth only bespeaks of its subjective deathlessness, which in its turn is mirrored and enhanced by the lifeless objectivity of informational values of which it appears to consist. As long as languages are relegated to the enclosure of objectifying subjectivity, they are secluded from each other. Their “communication” is a wordless trading of pieces of eլective information. Never have languages been so indiլerent to and deaf for each other’s saying as in our being- and wordless epoch with its bustling business of translation. The word of the Seinsfrage has found its answer in Heidegger’s Denkweg. This means now that the German language is openly broken to its ownmost word. The ownmost word is the silent tune that tunes a language as an answer to the word, thus originally ennobling its speaking. The ownmost word is a language’s ground-trait in so far as it is a mother-language—and not merely the chief linguistic competence of subjects without ancestry and progeniture. xiii

PREFACE

Heidegger’s Denkweg builds an answer in the German language to the word of being’s sway. The Denkweg is itself an answer that liberates (or translates) the language it speaks unto its ownmost word. The answer of the Denkweg is unheard in two senses. In a Îrst sense it is unheard, because in this answer becomes outspoken the hitherto unheard Seinsfrage—the quære inscribed, as its keeping onset, in the humanity of man, whose Îrst call inaugurates Greek thinking. It is unheard in a second sense, because this answer remains unhearable for a thinking shut away in subjectivity, whose ear is deaf to the only call. Listening to the Denkweg means, in any language, becoming mindful of the word, and eventually attempting to build an outspoken answer that ensconces this word, while at the same time restoring man unto his free birth. Has such minding, has an answer to the word taken place in English? Has the English language been restored, that is, translated into its ownmost and earliest word, the word in which it answers the other onset of thinking? “Earliest,” here, does not mean: Îrst in time, but rather: pertaining to the genesis of time—being this genesis. Being—keeping to itself in its wanting openness; the word—keeping to itself in its ancestral stillness; the onset—keeping to itself in its oլ-breaking fairness: all this is the same. The same, das Selbe, frees, awakens, and regenerates man unto the provenance that has already tuned his being to the only onset. Such restoring unto the intraneousness and belongingness to the original, extraneous tune is the sense of the English verb “to weird.” “Weird” is an old English word for fate and destiny. The openness, stillness, and fairness, which awakens man to his humanness, is therefore: the weirdness of being. As long as man is enclosed in the sphere of subjectivity, he is secluded from the call that weirds him unto his ownmost being. He is refused a human world. He does not belong, yet is insensitive to the weird homeliness of his only belonging. The attempts that form the following chapters in this volume, while minding that unheard answer to the Seinsfrage, do not intend to establish a “line of interpretation,” or even elements of a new English “terminology” for Heidegger’s Denkweg. Indeed, their language is weird, and often unwieldy when Îrst heard. Not though because of imperfections in diction, of which they are certainly not free. Nor because of shortcomings in the idiomatic quality of formulations, which no doubt they present. Least of all because of the use of uncommon words or signs, which nevertheless might oլend the subjective ear. But because these attempts speak from the weirdness of the word that belongs to no language, in that any mother-language owns this word as such—and because these attempts from there try to let the weirdness of being resound in English. Thus describing the attempt, I must add that what is said in these chapters is undoubtedly not weird enough, but, on the contrary, by far insuխcient in restoring the English idiom unto its native weirdness—as a word of thinking. Is our hearing open for the word of the Seinsfrage? An old English saying goes like this: “after word comes weird.” xiv

CHAPTER 1

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING?

1.1 SEINSFRAGE AND DENKWEG

No doubt the dominant philosophical fact of the past thirty-Îve years has been and is the appearing—with a frequency of two volumes per year—of Martin Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe. It has been rightly observed that, thanks to this edition, in the place of what has long appeared as an archipelago of scattered endeavors (roughly divided into, on the one hand, Being and Time and what belongs to it, and, on the other, the so-called late philosophy), a whole continent has begun to emerge. Of this continent, however, we are as yet hardly able to make out the shape—not to speak of the top to which it towers and the depth to which goes. Once all 102 volumes of the planned edition (which, we are told, make only half of the existing handwritten material) have been published, the whole of Heidegger’s attempt may Înally, for a long moment, Ïash in its irreducible weirdness.1 Meanwhile, the dominant role of the appearing of the Gesamtausgabe shows mainly in the marked reservation that is maintained vis-à-vis the Seinsfrage and the numerous critical questions it implies. Is Da-sein the element in which the stance of homo humanus may Înally be grounded—or is it not? Is Ge-stell a suխcient determination of that which is and thus of the universal trait of sense of our epoch—or is it not? Is Lichtung, as grounded in thinking, the dimension for the likely coming of a world (the mirror-play of earth and sky, divine and mortals)—or is it not? Is the form of interrogating by which our manhood has hitherto attempted to ground its dwelling, namely philosophy, at an end—or is it not? Is this end occupied by a mere dialectic of contingency that leaves our manhood in the incapacity of assuming in an interrogation its provenance and future—or is it not? Is, therefore, a preparatory thinking of the sense of this provenance and future, a thinking that cannot any more be philosophical, the urgency of our time—or is it not? Much of current Heidegger scholarship 1

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

seems not so much to have postponed these and other questions but indeed to be this very postponement. In fact, any approach to the Seinsfrage that does not assume, in its own manner, the unique form of this Frage, redounds to historicizing it. Historicizing means: explicitly committing that which asks for interrogating das Sein selbst to the past of what is seemingly already known—seemingly, because what appears to be known is in truth merely seized and assured as an operative assumption or format.2 One of the primary conceptual implements that sustain this eլort of historicizing is the aforesaid partition of Heidegger’s Denkweg into, on the one hand, the earlier complex of Being and Time (with its “transcendentalistic,” “subjectivistic,” “phenomenological,” “hermeneutical,” “ontological,” “existentialistic,” “anthropological,” and other inÏuences and implications), and, on the other hand, the later, scarcely coherent palette of diverse recurrent themes (“poetry,” “technology,” “language,” etc.), which show as a common trait the somehow emphatic style of a supposed “post-turn thinking.” However, the proven routine of historicizing the Denkweg was, so to speak, caught red-handed when, in 1989, the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) were published, followed in later years by Besinnung (1997) and, more recently, by Über den Anfang (2006) and Das Ereignis (2009).3 In fact, these writings—which constitute the Îrst four of a complex of Îve treatises, the so-called “pentalogy”4—show, in an unexpected manner, a ground-tone and ground-sense (i.e. a tuned directionality), and thus nothing less than the truth of what up to that point had mostly been taken as a peasant-style image for a philosophical attempt in the age of the end of metaphysical systems: namely, the groundtone and ground-sense, and thus the truth, of the Denkweg as such and in the whole. Despite the aloofness of these texts—or rather: precisely because of the unswerving manner in which they keep near the wind of that which wants to be thought—a peculiar fact (one that a historical time would rather keep at bay) emerges with an uncanny likelihood, to wit, the fact that the talk of the “end of metaphysics” and the need for “another thinking” that thinks “being itself,” and so on, has in view a very concrete, simple, and unique issue,5 and that Denkweg therefore means: approaching and seconding this issue, grounding it in a saying—and nothing else.6 In other words: the said treatises forthrightly witness that, in a manner of speaking, “it” has happened. What, however, is “it”? “It” is this: the gaping weirdness of the only undisclaimable issue (the issue we can turn away but never retreat from, Heraclitus would say) has again, but otherwise, and now outspokenly taken its abode in the midst of our manhood—and it has done so in the only likely manner, namely, by availing itself of a thinking. This leads us by direct implication to what these treatises bring forward in the second place: since the abode of the only issue and of its thinking is language (i.e. the saying of our mother-languages as the homesteads of being), the Denkweg is neither a philosophical attempt that “uses” an unfamiliar and 2

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

at times “awkward” language, nor, in some of its most signiÎcant parts, a “reÏection on language”; rather, what announces itself in the Denkweg—and thus makes the weirdness of its manner of saying—is a necessary and fundamental transformation in our relation to language itself. This is why the thinking of the Denkweg is, in an unprecedented manner, essentially a work of translation, namely, of a language translating itself into the word of that issue. And again: this is why, in turn, the eլort of historicizing becomes, in a new sense, a matter of translation. In fact, in idioms other than their own, the historical seizure of the treatises must occur—in the Îrst place and critically—by way of translation. The reason for this is simple: whether or not there is an issue, and whether or not it becomes the source for the transformation of a manhood unto itself, depends on whether or not, in turn, the manner of speaking seconds that claimed transformation in the manner of dwelling in language. From the point of view of thinking, seconding this transformation is the same as letting the issue avail itself of the ground-stance from which the being of homo humanus may obtain its truth, namely, Da-sein. Thus, in determining what is factually “there” as “Heidegger’s texts,” translation has already decided for sustaining the issue in its very own abode or, on the contrary, for impairing it. With one more treatise of the “pentalogy” and several important volumes of notes yet to be published, the coming decades will presumably stand under the either-or rule of translation: either a true translating—and thus a truly English thinking of the issue—accrues, or “translation” becomes a privileged, and indeed the decisive venue for historicizing for good what not only can, but needs to be said in our languages.7 In other words: translation becomes the dimension for the either-or of homo humanus, on the one hand, and homo animalis or, which is the same, homo historicus, on the other. If it is true that Seinsfrage means, in the elucidated sense, that “it” has happened, and that “it” is a matter of language and our relation to it, it is not surprising that the appearing of Beiträge zur Philosophie and the publication of the Gesamtausgabe as a whole have brought to the fore an attunement that, in fact, underlies the “dominant role” we have been referring to. This attunement is precisely the fear that the Denkweg (Da-sein—Lichtung—Ereignis) could actually be what it does not cease to show and declare: a Îrst, preparatory response to the claim for an unprecedented transformation of thinking—a response to the other onset of thinking that has already become. This fear, however, cannot be the product of the thinking against which it comes to the surface. Indeed, it must necessarily be what already rules our manhood independently of any concrete endeavor of thinking, which can only be an occasion for this fear to become explicit. The fear that is already ruling our manhood, however, is the fear vis-à-vis the anguish of thinking—a fear paired with the most widely shared (because literally concerning each human being as such) and yet least owned awareness, namely, the awareness of the enigmatic character of that which is. 3

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

This awareness, however, is the same as that of the enigmatic character of the only issue of thinking.8 Thus, the unavowed dominant role of the Denkweg, as the latter takes shape with the proceeding of the Gesamtausgabe, is based on the ruling of this anguish and on the fear of it—in other words: it is based on the fact that the Denkweg appears more and more as a unique stance taken within this anguish and thus as the attempt to assume the unknown and that which, at its heart, wants to be borne in thinking. Since the fear of thinking is thus, more fundamentally, the fear vis-à-vis the anguish of thinking, that fear (the one of the Denkweg and thus of the Seinsfrage) marks not only the whole of philosophy (including its so-called analytic tradition) but equally today’s science (as the accomplishment of philosophy) and public opinion at large (in so far as its provenance, too, is philosophical). This fear is at the basis of the tacit and explicit refusal that is opposed to the Seinsfrage by that which the Letter on Humanism calls “the dictatorship of the public realm.”9 But what, precisely, does Seinsfrage10 mean? In fact, this title can legitimately be taken to refer to the Denkweg as a whole—even if at some point Sein ceases to be the ground-word of this attempt. What follows is intended to give, on the one hand (§§1.2 and 1.3), a formal indication of the sense and scope of the Seinsfrage as it is Îrst exposed in Being and Time; on the other hand (§§1.4 and 1.5), it attempts to elucidate this sense with reference to Möglichkeit as a name of the only issue of the Denkweg—not merely in its later stations, but already in Being and Time. The sense of this elucidation is that of showing precisely how thinking not only includes but consists in a new relation to language as the word of being itself, and not any more—metaphysically—as the word of beings. A concise conclusion (§1.6) will sum up the most signiÎcant points argued in this chapter. 1.2 THREE MEANINGS OF THE WORD SEIN

Who can deny that Seinsfrage means: the question of being?11 However, the mere fact that we speak of something like a “question of being” only after and thanks to Being and Time should advise us to be more cautious in our understanding as well as in the translation of this title. In fact, Seinsfrage simultaneously says at least two intertwined things: in the Îrst place, it says the irruption (or the breaking) of Sein as a Frage, of the Frage “Sein”—the enigma of the ground of beings as such and in the whole. This enigma not only concerns and claims our general capacity for “thinking” as “one of the big questions” or even “the biggest question” of “humanity”: it claims that which the enigma itself tunes as a thinking, and it does so as the one interrogative dimension in which, in the Îrst place, the institution of the world and thus of the humanity of man is at stake. Again, it claims thinking in such a way that the breaking of this dimension already implies a hidden decision and an initial tuning of the 4

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

likely manner of grounding it in answer to its (i.e. this dimension’s) own want for such a grounding. In the second place, then, the title Seinsfrage indicates the entirety of the thus claimed and tuned thinking in so far as it is, precisely, ein Fragen nach dem Sein, that is, an asking or interrogating that interrogates nach, that is, after being.12 Again, this interrogating “after” being has the twofold sense that, on the one hand, it comes second and, in coming second, seconds what it interrogates, and, on the other hand, in such seconding it maintains and grounds the nearness of being, namely, the nearness that being itself is. Thus, a provisional determination of the Seinsfrage could sound: the breaking of the claim of all claims, the issue of all issues, named Sein, which, in remaining unknown, claims to be explicitly seconded and grounded in a thinking that interrogates in a manner tuned to the dimensional ground-tone of that breaking. Why is what has thus been roughly outlined diլerent from simply saying: Seinsfrage—that is, the “question of being”? It is diլerent, because it reminds us that it is not thinking per se, or even a given manhood, somehow endowed with reason, that may Înd itself in the situation of questioning (or of having to question) something like “being.” A more careful understanding and translation of the title Seinsfrage makes sure that we pay attention, in the Îrst place, to the primacy of that which, in breaking as an enigma, asks for a peculiar stance (a stance commensurate to it and in tune with it) in order to be sustained and warded, and to the fact that this stance is not at all taken “by man”; rather, this stance is what, originated by Sein itself as a stance of thinking, is taken on (or not) by a unique who that Înds his being and his own self beheld by (or: caught in the claiming sight of) the wanting instant of such originating; as to this who, however, his being is decided precisely in whether or not—and how—he takes on the stance that suլers the Frage that Sein itself is.13 Now, as we know, in Being and Time this peculiar, unique, and unprecedented stance is called Da-sein, that is, the manner of being that “we, those who interrogate” are (i.e. take on, bear), in so far as and when we interrogate nach dem Sein and its truth, thus oլering our being to this stance and carrying it through—in one word: the manner of being that “we” are in so far as and when we ek-sist.14 Thus, the enigmatic element that here is called Sein originates the likely grounding being called Da-sein and asks for this being to be explicitly assumed and borne by thinking man in an asking tuned to the claim of that initial enigma. Having put the matter in these terms allows us to adequately appreciate the following point: if, on the one hand, Sein itself originates Da-sein as its likely grounding, on the other hand, the unknown, ever again aporetical element that the Greeks call Ѷ̩ (on) and ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ (ousia), which breaks as the question ̛̯ ̯Ң Ѷ̩; (ti to on?), that is, ̛̯̭ ѓ ̫Ѿ̛̮̝; (tis hõ ousia?),15 does not at all originate, as the stance for this element’s grounding, that which Being and Time calls Dasein: in fact, the manner of being wanted in the Greek onset (i.e. in the onset 5

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

as ̸̱̮̥̭ [physis] and ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ [alõtheia]) is the theoretical ̷̧̟̫̭ (logos) that a peculiar contingent being (̢ԗ̫̩ [zĮon]), tuned to ̫Ѿ̛̮̝—that is, to pure being (Ѵ̩ з½̧Ԗ̭ [on haplĮs])—in the attunement and temper of ̨̢̡̤̝̰̘̥̩ (thaumazein, “astoundment”), Înds itself endowed with. In other words, when reading the initial quotation from the Sophist that is meant to set the tone for the interrogation of Being and Time, we ought to let this quotation tune us to the enigmatic element Sein that concerns us, namely, those who are—or are on the verge of being—awoken to its claim; at the same time, however, we ought to withstand the temptation of taking this quotation as a sign that, in what follows (i.e. in the attempt Being and Time), yet another and diլerent eլort is made to “answer” the historically well-known question ̛̯ ̯Ң Ѷ̩;. In fact, if, on the one hand, ̛̯ ̯Ң Ѷ̩; is a likely question (i.e. a question that obtains a stress that interrogates us) only within the scope of the Seinsfrage, on the other hand, the likelihood of that question for the Greeks consists precisely in the forgottenness of that which eventually breaks as the Seinsfrage. The latter, says Heidegger, has never been attempted, which is the same as saying that the being that “we, those who interrogate, ourselves are,”16 namely Da-sein,17 has never emerged in the tradition of thinking.18 Thus, we may well speak of a sameness of the Seinsfrage and the Ѷ̩-Frage (or, as we may also say, the ̫Ѿ̛̮̝Frage); however, this sameness is both the element in which Sein, as intended in Being and Time, remains withdrawn and forgotten (thus giving rise to beingoblivious metaphysical thinking), and the element in which this forgottenness turns into the Frage nach dem Sein as the interrogation of precisely this sameness, which, being nothing but being itself, remains necessarily unaskable within the metaphysical Ѷ̩-Frage as Frage after that which is, in a primary and proper sense, (a) being (½̴̬̹̯̭ Ѷ̩ [prĮtĮs on]). Once it has become suխciently clear how decisive it is that we do not, to begin with, on the quiet subsume the theme of Being and Time under the historical heading “Ѷ̩-Frage” (the Frage that encompasses the tradition of thinking from Parmenides to Nietzsche), we are more prepared to let us be concerned by the sense of Sein as the theme of Heidegger’s path-breaking text. Before trying to shed some light on this matter, it may help our orientation if we indicate from the very beginning—thus in part anticipating what the following sections of this chapter are meant to show—the diլerent meanings that the word Sein assumes within the Denkweg. In fact, we can distinguish at least three such meanings:19 (1) Sein, that is: das Sein (or die Seiendheit) des Seienden, that is, being in its metaphysical sense as the being (or beingness) of beings, where the genitive “of beings” is a subjective genitive; this implies: being, here, is the a priori ground of beings, but in such a way that being is (as this a priori ground) already a posteriori with respect to the hidden contraction of the schism or cut (Unterschied),20 which (viz. this contraction) decides in 6

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

advance the abiding (Anwesen) of beings in the sense of an un-open and thus excessive nearness21 that Heidegger calls Vorhandenheit—we say: contingency.22 According to this peculiar a posteriori—a priori structure, being as contingency is, as Heidegger says, merely an emanation or a supplement of beings, in the sense that it comes after and for their having already been established, by way of that hidden contraction, in a cut-less and nearness-less stability. The thus constituted dimension of sense is the sphere of “ontological diլerence,” which, in turn, entirely deÎnes the scope of metaphysical interrogation (the Ѷ̩-Frage) as such; this difference, however, is merely a “diլerence,” for that which is supposed to diլer (namely, being on the one hand and beings on the other) is, from the outset, enclosed in the cut-less participle Ѷ̩. We call this sense of the word Sein ‘(metaphysical) being.’23 (2) Sein, that is: das Sein (des Seienden) selbst, that is, again being in the sense of the being of beings, where, however, in what is called “being” is already heard the still unsaid cut of Seyn. That within which the cut is already heard, however, is precisely the breaking of time as the truth of being itself, so that this breaking is the onset not only of Being and Time, but of the entire Seinsfrage and its Denkweg. Being itself is thus cut from beings— not, though, as something that is cut oլ from something else, or even as an “emptiness” between something else. Rather, being is cut from beings as the initial cut (we may also say: as the schismatic openness24) for beings (including being “emptinesses,” etc.). We can in this sense speak of an “ontological diլerence proper,” whose sense implies that the subjective character of the genitive “of beings” is broken in favor of an “objective,” or even a “dative” genitive having the sense of the mentioned “for beings (as such and in the whole)”; “being” therefore means: (cut) being (as the discontingent provenance of the openness) for beings as such in the whole. Hence, we call this sense of the word Sein ‘being (for the whole).’ (3) Sein, that is: das Sein (zum Seienden) als Seyn, that is, being (toward beings) now explicitly as the cut that agrees to letting things abide (anwesen) in agreement with the biding (wesend)25 mirror-play of the world (earth and sky, divine and mortals), with things agreeing to abide as the gathering that keeps and shelters that mirror-play, while the world is the original coming, in that play, of a sooth, tempered measure inclined to bide in aլording such abiding, thus constituting an abode for the dwelling of man. The ontological diլerence is now overcome, the form “toward beings” referring to the world-gathering abiding of things as agreed to and aլorded in the weirdness of Seyn.26 We call this sense of the word Sein ‘being (cut).’27 In this tripartition, ‘(metaphysical) being’ indicates that which is seen as “being” in the tradition of philosophy—a tradition that, within the Denkweg, is 7

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

always already thought as resulting from the forgottenness of Seyn or beǺng.28 Indeed, this constellation—‘(metaphysical) being’ in the Ïashing of forgotten Seyn—deÎnes the hermeneutic space for all of Heidegger’s interpretations of the classical positions of philosophy. On the other hand, ‘being (for the whole)’ characterizes the manner in which being is cast open in Being and Time (and in the writings that remain in the sphere of the ontological diլerence in Heidegger’s sense, e.g., Vom Wesen des Grundes), namely, already in the light of time as the truth of being itself, which, in turn, is a Îrst fore-name of the yet undisplayed Seyn. Finally, ‘being (cut)’ is the same as Seyn, to wit, the Ïashing29 of halting keeping-away,30 in whose grounded biding ‘(metaphysical) being’ is entirely overcome, and this means: freed into the provenance of its having been, and thus both genuinely grounded in its futurity and, as Heidegger says in Beiträge zur Philosophie, unmöglich (“impossible”).31 In the thinking of Seyn (as Er-eignis), the only thought of the Denkweg has found its proper site as a step toward the grounding of the other onset, which, having already begun, claims to be prepared in a tuned bethinking.32 1.3 THE GROUND-THEME OF BEING AND TIME

How does Heidegger indicate the ground-theme of Being and Time? There are indeed many explicative names for this theme, all of which—unsurprisingly— imply the word Sein accompanied by an index marking the diլerence of this theme vis-à-vis the guiding theme of metaphysics. These names include the following: der Sinn von Sein (überhaupt); das Sein selbst; das Sein als solches; Sein überhaupt; das Sein als das transcendens schlechthin. The common understanding of these expressions, or rather of what Heidegger indicates through them, runs more or less as follows: While in traditional (“metaphysical”) thinking being has always remained entangled with beings, and thus has taken diլerent meanings, which, however, all show the common trait indicated as Vorhandenheit (or Anwesenheit), that is, presence, now (i.e. in Being and Time) being is at last to be investigated independently from beings and in its very own character, so to speak in its purity and absoluteness, in such a way as to bring to the light its truly general or universal meaning (which, in the traditional meanings, remains concealed); however, this meaning turns out to be a temporal one—hence the programmatic title Being and Time.33 According to this view, the scope of the Seinsfrage is to elaborate a new meaning of being, which is formally indicated through the expressions “Sinn von,” 8

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

“selbst,” “überhaupt,” “als solches,” and “transcendens schlechthin,” and eventually deformalized—via the preparatory step of ecstatic temporality—as horizontal time (the phenomenological construction of horizontal time having Înally not been worked out due to the interruption of the project of Being and Time). However, in consideration of the question that constitutes the title of this chapter, this (or any essentially analogous) understanding calls for the following critical question: what exactly is meant when we say “a new meaning of being,” that is, what is the sense of the word “being” in this phrase? As long as we do not think and say the word “being” from a stance that has assumed the Seinsfrage (itself understood in the terms outlined above), the word “being” will, in fact, have none of the indicated three senses it can have within the Denkweg. What, then, will be its likely sense? This sense will be that of ‘(metaphysical) being,’ but without the awareness of what ‘(metaphysical) being’ implies in terms of the forgotten cut or Unterschied; in other words, it will be an indeterminate metaphysical sense of being, an unthought sense of Vorhandenheit. As a consequence, the indexes for that which is thematic in the Seinsfrage (i.e. again, “Sinn von,” “selbst,” “überhaupt,” “als solches,” and “transcendens schlechthin”) will necessarily be taken as indicating a certain “new” grasp of (indeterminate metaphysical) being. However, this grasp—analogously to the metaphysical determinations of the being of beings—can never and will never reach into anything other than an emanation or a supplement of the presupposed indeterminate metaphysical being, and therefore will see nothing but a variation on the itself opaque metaphysical theme. In other words, if, on the one hand, the movement of metaphysical thinking is that of transcending beings in the direction of their beingness (the a priori, which, however, is a posteriori with regard to the hidden contraction of the cut), it will now appear that, on the other hand, in Being and Time a kind of doubling of this movement occurs, albeit this time with respect not to “beings,” but to “being.” In fact, • (der) Sinn von (Sein) will be understood as the supposedly Înally unveiled ultimate meaning of (indeterminate metaphysical) being; • (das Sein) selbst will be taken to indicate (indeterminate metaphysical) being in so far as it is identical with itself, that is, “being” in its absolute identity; • (Sein) überhaupt will be interpreted as the elevation of (indeterminate metaphysical) being to a more (or possibly the most) general level and to the meaning that corresponds to that level; • (das Sein) als solches will be opined to mean (indeterminate metaphysical) being independently of any relation to beings, that is, in so far as it maintains itself in an absolute diլerence vis-à-vis beings; • (das Sein als das) transcendens schlechthin will be seen to name the pure and, again, absolute form of the detachment of being with respect to beings (where such “transcendence,” in turn, is that which—in diլerent 9

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

manners—is precisely the point and the problem of all metaphysical determinations of being). However, in this manner an understanding of Being and Time and of the Seinsfrage is barred from the outset. The reason for this is that, in the views that see in the Seinsfrage a “new chapter” (however innovative) within the history of a presumed “question of being,” being (in the sense of Being and Time) remains forgotten throughout. What justiÎes such a clear-cut statement? The justiÎcation indeed requires that the question posed with regard to the communis opinio on Being and Time be now repeated in diլerent terms, namely thus: what exactly is meant when we say “being remains forgotten,” that is, what is the sense of the word “being” in this phrase? Again, this sought-for sense is precisely what the named indexes are intended to indicate, but which they cannot indicate as long as our understanding is stuck with indeterminate metaphysical being. The fundamental trait that the word “being” indicates in the Seinsfrage (as opposed to the “general meaning” of this word) is what the following dictum has in view: “Die Geschichte des Seins beginnt mit der Seinsvergessenheit”34— “The Geschichte of being begins with the obliviousness of being.”35 This trait, however, is said most clearly in the third meaning of the word Sein: ‘being (cut)’; in fact, it is the trait indicated as Unterschied or cut—where, as we recall, the cut is not a cut “of ” or “between” something, but the discontingent original cut (the schism) for the abiding of beings in the whole. Again, it is being in this sense—which does not any more have the character of a supplementing ground of beings—that speaks in the following proposition placed in one of the opening pages of Being and Time (§2): “Wir wissen nicht, was ‘Sein’ besagt”36— “We do not know what ‘being’ indicates.” Finally, it is this unknown trait that is indicated by the title Being and Time and that can be made explicit as follows: being is time in the sense that time is the element that wants to be grounded in thinking for the sake of the biding of ‘being (cut)’—that is, the unknown. How are we to understand this further? Heidegger himself gives a precious hint in the following oral statement reported by Jean Beaufret, which refers to the period leading to the writing of Being and Time: One day, on a walk in the Black Forest, I became aware of the fact that the Platonic and Aristotelian name of being, ousia—which, in common speech, also designates the belongings of a farmer [his possessions and estate]—has, from this point of view, a direct correspondent in the German Anwesen [meaning precisely estate, property]; on the other hand, nothing is, for a German ear, closer to the neuter Anwesen than the female Anwesenheit, whose suխx -heit (which is heard in heiter [fair, bright, serene]) says explicitly, allowing it, so to speak, to shine, that which in Anwesen remains opaque. Thus Anwesenheit says the pure shining of Anwesen, in the very 10

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

same sense in which Wahrheit [truth] says der Glanz des Wahren [the shine or refulgence of the true]. On the other hand, Anwesenheit is a synonym for Gegenwart; as a consequence, Anwesenheit also says that that which shines when the name of being resounds has the distinctive trait of presence. However, “presence” speaks the language of time.37 We need not be afraid that Beaufret’s report could be unfaithful: in fact, this passage merely states in a particularly telling manner what Heidegger himself writes concerning the guiding thought of Being and Time as a Îrst elaboration of the Seinsfrage. Moreover, as we try to display what is said in this quotation, we should from the outset be aware that we are not looking at something like cross-lingual semantic associations generating “chains of thought”: what is said is indeed entirely a phenomenal matter, namely, an awareness breaking within a stance of interrogation. More precisely, this awareness breaks in the space of the dialogue between Greek and German as languages of being. This said, we must renounce, here, to unfold entirely the richness of this passage, and focus on what is decisive for our present purpose. What Heidegger is saying—namely, that the theme of Being and Time is time as the shine or refulgence that in ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ remains opaque (read: contracted in contingency)—elsewhere he also says in the following terms: Seinsfrage means interrogating the truth of being itself (and not of beings). What we learn from Beaufret’s report, is that, “when the name of being resounds,” that which (inconspicuously) shines is Gegenwart. Again: How are we to understand this? What was said above concerning the sense of the Seinsfrage should preserve us from assuming straight away that we are assisting to the discovery of some “time”-character of “being”—where “being” is implicitly understood as indeterminate metaphysical being, and “time,” in turn, as indeterminate metaphysical time, that is, according to a sense of time, which, as all time-concepts of our tradition—both philosophical and, of course, scientiÎc—is in some way derived from and has its basis in the Ѷ̩-Frage, that is, in ̫Ѿ̛̮̝; rather, we are witnessing the breaking of that which in German is called Gegenwart as the Îrst Ïashing of an original, not any more Ѷ̩-based time. This Ïashing implies that which, on the other hand, could never be implied by the mere fact of “realizing” that “presence”—taken as one of the characters of the traditional understanding of time based on the Ѷ̩-Frage—is an implicit trait of ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ or Anwesen, namely, it (viz. that Ïashing) implies the emerging of the unity of the outlined threefold sense of “being,” and thus in the Îrst place of ‘being (cut).’ In other words: Anwesen(heit) now translates ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ into ‘(metaphysical) being,’ while at the same time it becomes itself entirely a matter of Gegenwart, or, as the quotation puts it, it explicitly “speaks the language of time”: Anwesen, being, the “is,” is now transformed, in that it is constituted within the shine of Gegenwart in a manner that does not involve beings (i.e. the “[being] of beings” ceases to 11

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

be a subjective genitive): now a being can be called such (i.e. something that consists in being) in so far as it shelters, in its appearing, the “is” as the shine of Gegenwart. Again, this says that, from the very beginning, ̫Ѿ̛̮̝—now seen as ‘(metaphysical) being’—and thus the Ѷ̩-Frage disappear in this shine that belongs only to the Seinsfrage. Hence, nothing of what is said in Being and Time has any relation whatsoever to the Ѷ̩-Frage and its tradition, except for the fact that this tradition now shows—and is to be explicitly addressed (namely, in that which Heidegger calls “phenomenological destruction”)—in the light of the initial opaqueness of original time in it. The phenomenon of the logos of Being and Time is the cut of the “is” in the Ïashing of its “timely” (i.e. having the character of a newly understood time) openness or truth. At this point, the question becomes: how are we to interpret what has been rather obscurely called “the shine of Gegenwart (for all abiding)” as a Îrst name of the earliest and future phenomenon of thinking? To start with, we need to note the following: in the reported passage, that which Ïashes as Gegenwart does not simply indicate what, in Being and Time, is explicated under that name in terms of ecstatic temporality, and not even that which would have been further elaborated as horizontal time, had the project of the treatise been carried through entirely. Rather, what announces itself in Gegenwart, that is, what is already heard in this word, is the entire phenomenon of original time and thus the entire phenomenon of original space and time—in short: the entirety of that which Beiträge zur Philosophie eventually calls Zeit-Spiel-Raum, namely, the timeplay-space as the breaking of being itself and its truth toward that which, thanks to this breaking, may be called: a being. In fact, we ought to hear the word Gegenwart not as the German equivalent for the “well-known” phenomenon of “presence” (i.e. again, as an indeterminate time character based on indeterminate metaphysical being); indeed, if Gegenwart is the word in which the original time Ïashes, we ought to hear this word in the manner in which it speaks within the Seinsfrage, and this means: according to how it speaks for an interrogating that stands in the other breaking of the initially broken enigma Sein. Put diլerently: we need to hear Gegenwart according to the manner in which this word speaks within and from Da-sein. On the other hand, it is clear that, as long as we content ourselves with taking note of the fact that, for Heidegger, “̫Ѿ̛̮̝ means presence,” we are not only disregarding the scope of the Seinsfrage; we are at the same time attributing to this thinking what is strictly speaking a fallacy, namely, that of determining as a constitutive trait of ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ a concept of time that is itself based on—and therefore a consequence of—this sense of being. How can we understand Gegenwart in such a manner that it becomes plausible that, to the thinking of the Seinsfrage, it could suddenly appear that the sought-for sense of being is “a matter of time”? How can we understand it, knowing that the word “time,” in this very appearing, instantly assumes an unprecedented sense (a “cut-sense”)? Provided that we are guided by these questions, a closer look at the word Gegenwart may help.38 12

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

The word Gegenwart is formed by the preposition gegen, meaning “against,” and the component -wart, meaning “(turned) toward.”39 Thus, a literal translation of Gegenwart sounds: “against-(turned-)toward,” where, however, neither the “against” nor the “(turned-)toward” are to be related to “us,” if “us” means “man” as a positioned and positioning (i.e. in some way representing) subject. In fact, in Gegen-wart Heidegger hears the (etymologically akin) verb warten, “to wait, to bide,”40 so that Gegenwart says: “that which bides-against,” that is to say, that which bides in want of a thinking that already belongs to its word, and thus bides as a claim that ever comes against the “we ourselves” of interrogation. At this point, having in view the unknown Sein, we can, albeit in still insufÎcient (because grammatically biased) terms,41 state the following: Gegenwart (the word) indicates the broken42 coming (i.e. the advent) of become becomingness, in one word, the towardness43 of pure broken be-coming. We shall indicate the unitary phenomenon of the broken coming of become becomingness with the formulaic word “becom(e)ingness.”44 As the word of biding becom(e)ingness, Gegenwart indicates the original discontingent onset (Anfang) of all sense, that is, being itself as the onset. Gegenwart is thus a name of being itself as the “now” of an open becom(e)ingness against the “we ourselves” of interrogation and toward the comely abiding of things. In other words, Gegenwart is: Anwesenheit. Das Sein selbst is pure becom(e)ingness, and nothing else.45,46 Once again, it is decisive that we recognize that, as soon the phenomenon that here is named Anwesenheit and Gegenwart Ïashes, the opaqueness of ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ is itself broken, in other words, Anwesen (Sein) never again speaks in the time-blind manner of ̫Ѿ̛̮̝, namely, as ‘(metaphysical) being’ (Seiendheit, beingness). What henceforth speaks in Anwesen (i.e. in the “is”) is the cut whose Ïashing (or truth, or sooth) is the time-play-space toward the abiding of beings, which, in turn, have already broken as that which bides such coming towardness.47 As long as we fail to see this, we will necessarily misunderstand the title that indicates the scope of Being and Time, namely, “fundamental ontology.” The misunderstanding consists in taking the latter to be an attempt to determine the ground and thus the “being” of “being” (read: the beingness of beingness) in terms of some fundamental time-structure that supposedly is implied in “being itself ”; however, in this manner we will misinterpret Being and Time—where “Being and Time” means: the relief from metaphysics in response to a phenomenon that metaphysics does not know, and that we have now recognized in being itself as Gegenwart—according to a scheme that is itself derived from metaphysical thinking. Now that a provisional clarity regarding the theme of Being and Time is gained, we can go back to the expressions that indicate this theme and try to read them in a non-metaphysical manner: • (der) Sinn von (Sein) now indicates the sense, that is, the truth and openness, or again the Ïashing (Lichtung) as the there (Da) of Gegenwart, 13

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

•

•

•

•

14

which, in turn, is the open becom(e)ingness of ‘being (for the whole)’:48 Being and Time speaks of “Sinn von Sein” (and not just of Sein) only because Sein itself has already Ïashed as Gegenwart, that is, as the truth and openness (viz. the in itself Îrm Ïashing) of the “is” (cut);49 (das Sein) selbst now implies selfness as the element of discontingent selving (to borrow a verb from Gerard Manley Hopkins),50 so that being itself indicates in-itself-swaying51 ‘being (for the whole)’ in so far as it inwardly bides in its own truth, dealing itself out52 as wanting becom(e)ingness: Being and Time speaks of “das Sein selbst” (and not just of Sein) only because Sein itself has already Ïashed as the in-itself swaying schism of becom(e)ingness—as the selving cut; (Sein) überhaupt now says the uniqueness of the ungrounded ground for beings as such and in the whole, in so far as it (this ground) is the broken onset that shares its biding only with the nought (Nichts). The nought is the same as this ground, namely, it is this same ground in so far as the ground refuses itself to all contingency:53 Being and Time speaks of “das Sein überhaupt” (and not just of Sein) only because Sein itself has already and primarily Ïashed as the unsettling cut in which all contingency has already collapsed, and which therefore never again bides as a highest being for beings (ens perfectissimum, summum ens), but only and primarily as that which wants to be thought as the original nought (Ab-grund); (das Sein) als solches now adverts to the fact that the discontingent element for the constitution of sense requires a thinking that has ab initio renounced the support of any reference to beings: in fact, this element sways in itself (and thus withholds or keeps in itself its own thinking) as the pure be-tiding—the tidiness54 (biding in withdrawal and thus ever coming) toward all appearing of things themselves: Being and Time speaks of “das Sein als solches” (and not just of Sein) only because Sein itself has already Ïashed as the schism that wants to be thought in its own truth (viz. the tidiness of the strife of clearing and absconcing); (das Sein als das) transcendens schlechthin now refers to that which plainly and Îrstly breaks beyond—not, though, beyond something or even everything (i.e. in a sense of “beyond” that is based on that beyond which this beyond lies, in which case the beyond inevitably shares with the beyondwhich its manner of being, and therefore is itself a being), but beyond in the sense of the sheer other which in its own “there” awakens for itself a thinking for it to ground the truth of this “other” toward and for beings. This sheer other is the neighing nearness itself, thanks to which all things obtain the fair time and space for their selfsame abiding: Being and Time speaks of “das Sein als das transcendens schlechthin” (and not just of Sein as transcendence vis-à-vis and on the basis of beings) only because Sein itself has already Ïashed as the weirdness,55 whose Ïashing wants to be borne in a unique being (the being of Da-sein), on which, in

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

turn, the humanity of man (i.e. his humanness, his being human) may be grounded. 1.4 WHAT DOES MÖGLICHKEIT MEAN?

After having thus outlined the scope of the Seinsfrage according to the manner in which this scope is indicated from the very beginning of the Denkweg, we may now turn to considering a word that from the outset speaks in the sense of being itself and soon becomes one of its names, that is to say, Möglichkeit. As anticipated in the introduction, this consideration should show the manner in which, after Being and Time, the Seinsfrage becomes a matter of letting language “speak being” independently of beings—in German just as in all our motherlanguages: in fact, these languages necessarily consist in a yet undisplayed “tune of being,” that is, they are already tuned—each one of them according to a unique tone—to the initial claim of grounding being itself in its weirdness and thus a human world on the earth.56 Indeed, if, on the one hand, speaking of a “turn” in “Heidegger’s thinking” after Being and Time remains a misleading historical format, and is thus not only insuխcient but actually impairing with regard to an understanding of the Denkweg, we may well say, on the other hand, that from the early thirties onward, and explicitly with Beiträge zur Philosophie, the Denkweg “comes home,” in that thereafter it consists in nothing but the translation of the German mother-language into its selving as the word of being itself.57 What does Möglichkeit mean? In current philosophical language, this word translates the Latin potestas, potentia, and possibilitas.58 No wonder, therefore, that in our modern languages we Înd Möglichkeit, in turn, translated as possibility, possibilità, possibilité, posibilidad, and so on. However, the word Möglichkeit speaks diլerently than possibilitas. Again, this diլerence might or might not become relevant depending on what is said and how it is said; in other words, as long as Möglichkeit is (explicitly or implicitly) said in the sense of possibilitas, the diլerence is of no or only of limited import, whereas, as soon as Möglichkeit is said according to its own, genuine manner of speaking, the diլerence becomes critical. As a consequence, when translating Möglichkeit into another language, for instance, into English, we cannot mechanically substitute Möglichkeit with a word that is derived from possibilitas: in fact, we will Îrst have to pay attention to the manner in which Möglichkeit is said. Moreover, the translation will have to take into account how the word that, in the respective language, is derived from possibilitas, such as the English word “possibility,” speaks within that language’s own manner of saying. An instructive instance of this issue is provided by the manner in which the word Möglichkeit speaks in Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Even though we cannot, here, give a suխcient treatment of this question, we may observe 15

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

that it is indeed questionable whether Kant’s Bedingung der Möglichkeit can be translated as “condition of possibility.”59 What is Kant envisaging in his determination of the Bedingung der Möglichkeit of natural beings and of synthetic judgments a priori? He is envisaging that which makes it that this kind of beings and these particular judgments, respectively, hold as such, that is, for Kant, that they are sayable according to that which the positing of being (viz. that which being as position) and the saying of these judgments implies, namely (and ultimately), freedom. Diլerently put, the word möglich, here, indicates this autonomous capacity for holding (i.e. for maintaining itself) of that which is said. However, precisely this trait—namely, the autonomous capacity for holding—traces back to the original sense of möglich: in fact, the verb mögen, from which möglich and Möglichkeit are derived, originally means “I have grown big and strong; I am of an adult strength and capacity (including, in the Îrst place, the capacity for procreation).” This sense was later transferred to the verb vermögen, whereas simple mögen came to mean mainly “(I have the capacity for … and therefore) I like, want, desire …” As a consequence, möglich indicates that which is in itself and from out of itself able, capable to be, apt, Îtted, suited for being, and precisely in the manner in which an adult is capable of being. This adult capability is the capacity for being in accordance with being itself. This, in turn, implies, in a more comprehensive sense, true capacity, namely, a being capable on the basis of understood and seconded being, of the aptitude for letting be according to a seconded sense. Asking for the Bedingung der Möglichkeit of natural beings or of synthetic judgments a priori therefore means: asking for the freely biding element thanks to which these beings and these judgments are capable of being what and how they are; asking for that which makes them suited, Îtted, apt for being precisely natural beings or synthetic judgments a priori. Kant’s answer to this question—that is: his answer to the unique form in which the Ѷ̩-Frage came to him—shows clearly that it is this sense of Möglichkeit that is in view. In a derived sense, however, mögen (and later vermögen) also indicates a capacity derived from external circumstances, for instance, by way of a permission or the conferral of an authority: mögen then has the sense of the Latin licere, “having the right, being allowed” (“I can” not in the sense of “I have the capacity for sustaining the sense,” but—independently of this capacity—in the sense of “I am allowed to,” “I have the power,” “I may”). Finally, the sense of capacity can be reduced to that of the mere capacity for being or becoming real, that is, eլective, in a purely contingent sense. This capacity is the capacity for enacting contingency, which yields the sense of “mere possibility” that can also be indicated by the English “may” (mag sein: “may be”). For our purposes, the crucial question is therefore the following: does the original sense of mögen Înd in the Latin posse, from which possibilis and possibilitas are derived, a trait that responds to it at an equally original level of being? 16

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

The answer to this question is clearly negative. In fact, posse is a contraction of potis esse, which means “to be the one who dominates, to dominate, to exert mastery, to possess,” which, in turn, is to be heard in its characteristic Roman sense. Hence, posse indicates a capacity that is unrelated to the aptness, suitedness, and so on, determined with respect to the being or sense of that which is dominated, and that (namely, this capacity) is rather only referred to contingent domination—in short: posse indicates a contingent capacity, that is, power. Thus, when the Latin language says posse, potis esse, and so on, it refers primarily to a capacity for eլecting contingency, whereas the word itself does not imply any accordance with or any seconding of being, nor, therefore, a letting be: the sense of the latter may or may not be intended (since it can indeed be intended), however, not only does the word as such not indicate this trait, but it primarily says a trait of being (namely, power) that surrogates letting be with the mere control exerted over contingency, and thus explicitly excludes that which was shown as the primary trait of mögen. For our phenomenological analysis this implies the following: if, on the one hand, mögen and posse may speak in such a manner that they can translate each other (namely, when that which is said is contingent capacity), on the other hand, when mögen speaks according to its original trait, posse ceases to be an adequate rendition. In the case of Kant’s Bedingung der Möglichkeit, it is clear that, on the one hand, Möglichkeit does indeed speak in a sense that is not indicated by the words derived from posse; on the other hand, however, the consequences of the inadequate translation of Möglichkeit with “possibility” are limited by the fact that, in Kant’s thinking, Möglichkeit speaks as a word of ‘(metaphysical) being.’ This implies that the scope of that which Möglichkeit says in Kant remains ab initio constrained in the same sphere of posse (potentia—possibilitas), that is, in the sphere of contingency: as a consequence, the original trait of being that speaks in Möglichkeit is, in Kant, not heard in a primary sense and can therefore only modulate—as an unsaid and unthought “presupposition”60— ‘(metaphysical) being.’ In conclusion, understanding and translating Kant’s Bedingung der Möglichkeit as “condition of possibility” is insuխcient in the sense that what is unsaid in his thinking is, as it were, cut oլ, which causes the genuine metaphysical status (and thus the futurity) of this thinking to be corrupted; however, this corruption does not imply that a name of being itself is (mis)translated into a name of metaphysical being. This is, on the other hand, precisely what occurs when it comes to Möglichkeit as a word of the Denkweg. In fact, when Möglichkeit is said, in accordance with its primary trait, as a word of the Denkweg, it is not “contingent on” (and therefore decided in advance in the sense of) contingency, that is, ‘(metaphysical) being’ as a phenomenon of the forgottenness and obliviousness of being itself. Therefore, the translation of Möglichkeit now requires a word that can speak in a non-metaphysical manner. As suggested earlier, however, it appears that the word “possibility” cannot speak in this manner. 17

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

As a matter of fact, Möglichkeit speaks in a contingency-free manner already in Being and Time. The following passage, which belongs to the discussion of the existential of understanding in §31, is suխciently clear in this regard:61 Da-sein is not something objectively present (ein Vorhandenes) which then has in addition the ability to do something, but is rather primarily being-possible (Möglichsein). Da-sein is always what it can be (sein kann) and how it is its possibility (Möglichkeit). The essential possibility (Möglichkeit) of Da-sein concerns the ways of taking care of the “world” which we characterized, of concern for others and, always already present in all of this, the potentiality (Seinkönnen) of being itself, for its own sake. The being-possible (Möglichsein), which Da-sein always is existentially, is also distinguished from empty, logical possibility (Möglichkeit) and from the contingency [in the original: Kontingenz] of something objectively present (eines Vorhandenen), where this or that can “happen” to it. As a modal category of objective presence (Vorhandenheit), possibility (Möglichkeit) means what is not yet real and not always [recte: not ever, never] necessary. It characterizes what is only possible (möglich). Ontologically, it is less than reality and necessity. In contrast, possibility (Möglichkeit) as an existential is the most primordial and the ultimate positive ontological determination of Dasein; as is the case with existentiality, it can initially be prepared for solely as a problem. Understanding as a potentiality of being disclosive (erschließendes Seinkönnen) oլers the phenomenal ground to see it at all.62 We cannot, here, further specify the sense in which understanding “oլers the phenomenal ground to see [Möglichkeit] at all” by referring it to the ultimate Möglichkeit, that is, death (see Being and Time, §§53 and 58), and thus to the phenomenon of phenomena, namely Verbergung.63 Also, we cannot show in what manner Möglichkeit as an existential modiÎes the sense in which beings that are not grounded on (having to bear out) Da-sein are, in turn, möglich or unmöglich. For our immediate purpose, it is suխcient that we observe the following: within metaphysical thinking, the German word möglich speaks in the metaphysical sense of possibility, that is, it indicates a form of ‘(metaphysical) being’ that is neither actually contingent (i.e. “not yet real”) nor necessarily contingent (i.e. “never necessary”), and which therefore we may call “weak contingency” (i.e. what is “only possible”). However, as a word of existential analytic möglich already speaks diլerently, namely, as a word of being itself, and thus in a manner that can, of course, be heard only from out of a nonmetaphysical stance. As anticipated, the critical question for the understanding and translation of Möglichkeit in another language is therefore whether or 18

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

not the word that translates Möglichkeit when it speaks metaphysically can still do so when this word ceases to speak in that sense and instead speaks according to its original, non-metaphysical trait. In plain terms: does the ground-tone of English as a language of being itself recognize “possibility” as one of its words, that is, as a “cut-word”—or does it not? The diլerence between Möglichkeit as mere possibility and the discontingent sense of Möglichkeit as a word of being itself becomes clear in the following elementary consideration: mere possibility (i.e. not-yet-actual contingency) turns into reality (i.e. actual contingency), that is, it disappears in favor of the latter; on the other hand, Möglichkeit proper not only does not disappear in favor of actuality, but is indeed entirely unaլected by contingency;64 precisely as such discontingency it allows all concrete being (all concreteness, Wirklichkeit) to hold in its Îttedness or unÎttedness, suitedness or unsuitedness, abiding (Anwesen) or oլ-biding (Abwesen), appearing or disappearing: thus, any concreteness abides, in the manner in which it abides, thanks to the Möglichkeit that this same concreteness shelters and keeps, in other words, it (i.e. the concrete being) abides by keeping (its) Möglichkeit.65 Since there can, in this sense, be no concrete reality without Möglichkeit, for Möglichkeit is in fact the provenance and future and thus the sense of all concrete reality, Being and Time (§7 C) declares: “Higher than Wirklichkeit stands Möglichkeit.”66 In this sentence, the comparative degree “higher” does not suggest a mere reversal of the traditional hierarchy of actual contingency and not-yet-actual contingency: in fact, Möglichkeit now indicates the constitutive trait of the “is” of any true, discontingent concreteness, that is, a concreteness having as its timeplay-space the openness of being itself. The manner in which Möglichkeit is heard as not only speaking in the sense of being itself, but as a name of being itself becomes explicit in a passage from the Letter on Humanism,67 in which Heidegger shows how ‘being (cut)’ is the element of thinking. In order for us to have, in turn, a chance to hear what is said, we will need to consider this passage with the utmost attention, and with an ear for what on the face of it is only a nuance, but in fact discriminates between a thinking of ‘(metaphysical) being’ and a thinking of ‘being (cut).’ Being, Heidegger says, is the element of thinking in so far as it bides as the provenance whence thinking vermag, that is, as we may provisionally translate, is able, to be a thinking. However, what is thus determined as the provenance of a Vermögen, of a being able, namely, being itself, is subsequently itself called das Vermögende (that which is able or capable) and das Vermögen (the being capable, the ability). This is what the relevant passage says in German: Das Element ist das, aus dem her das Denken vermag, ein Denken zu sein. Das Element ist das eigentlich Vermögende: das Vermögen. (my emphasis) 19

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

And this is the English translation suggested by Krell: The element is what enables thinking to be a thinking. The element is what properly enables: it is the enabling. The German version shows what appears to be a shift in where the Vermögen (the being able, the ability) is, so to speak, located: if we say that thinking vermag (is able) to be a thinking, we should expect that the Vermögen (the ability) belongs to thinking. However, the text says: that which originally vermag is not thinking, but the element itself, that is, being. In other words, it appears that when we say: thinking “is able” to be a thinking, and thus to be itself, the “is able” consists in something that is not thinking itself, but rather being as the element of thinking. In the German version, this shift is sustained by the changing manner in which the verb vermögen speaks. In fact, on the one hand, ich vermag (“I am able, I can”) can be formed with zu + inÎnitive (just like “I am able to” + inÎnitive); on the other hand, vermögen may be used transitively with an object in the accusative case (etwas vermögen: to be capable of something, to bring it about, to accomplish, eլect it). Thus, it seems that, from a grammatical point of view, the mentioned shift goes along with a shift from vermögen as “being able,” to vermögen as “bringing about.” The element is capable of thinking not in the sense that it “does the thinking,” but in the sense that it somehow brings about and nourishes thinking as such. It is presumably on the basis of this understanding that the English translation chooses to anticipate the shift by turning the Îrst sentence in such a way that, from the outset, the element as that which brings about (“enables”) is in view. However, in this manner the translation fails to render a relation which indeed deÎnes the “quality” of non-metaphysical thinking—a relation that, despite the formal correctness of the preceding remarks, can in fact never be grasped grammatically.68 What this scarcely conspicuous passage shows is indeed an instance of a non-metaphysical thinking saying itself.69 In formal terms, what is indicated is a discontingent relation between being and thinking, and this means: a relation that does not have the structure of causation (cause-eլect; provenance as eլectuation) between contingencies; the latter is, however, the universal structure of both ontical and ontological metaphysical relations.70 If, provisionally, we retain the word “capacity” for Vermögen, the indicated non-metaphysical relation has the following form: thinking is capable of being a thinking (i.e. thinking is itself) when and in so far as, as a thinking, it seconds the capacity for thinking that, on the other hand, being itself is. What does this mean? Heidegger’s own formula (see ibid.) helps to clarify the point: thinking as such, he says, is the thinking of being, where the “of being” is articulated thus: on the one hand, the “of ” indicates a belonging (gehören) to being, while, on the other hand, it says a listening (hören) to being.71 That thinking “belongs to being” means: it is, out of being’s own original want, in the ownership of 20

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

being (i.e. it is in so far as it is called upon by being and minds the call of being), while “listening to being” means: thinking consists in owning (in the sense of “acknowledging”) this ownership by seconding its word. Thus, the manner in which being itself is the “capacity for thinking” is that it originates thinking by initially tuning—in the form of and through Da-sein—the thinking belongingness to itself (i.e. to being), into which belongingness it claims thinking as a listening (an owning seconding). This is the sense in which it can indeed be said that being (as das eigentlich Vermögende, i.e. Er-eignis) ermöglicht (“makes possible,” the English translation says) thinking.72 The fundamental trait of being as Vermögen, das ermöglicht—and therefore the ground-trait of ‘being (cut)’—is now indicated as mögen. The latter, whose dictionary translation is “liking, caring for”—is further elucidated as “loving,” in the sense, however, of: das Wesen schenken—to “bestow essence as a gift” (as the published translation goes), that is, to let something be in its provenance, to deal out, toward it, the time-space for its coming-to-bide as itself, in one word, for its selving. It is thanks to the Vermögen consisting in this Mögen (this liking as letting be) that something, in turn, vermag to be in a discontingent sense of the word. The Vermögen, the “capacity” that consists in such Mögen is—now in the sense of ‘being (cut)’—das Mögliche. Thus, being itself as das Vermögend-Mögende is “das ‘Mög-liche’”—that which, by virtue of such Mögen as letting be, vermag thinking, that is, preserves thinking in its biding.73 At this point, we are better prepared to understand the following passage of the Letter, in which, by way of a conclusion to his discussion of Möglichkeit, Heidegger marks oլ das Mögliche in the sense of being itself from the metaphysical concept of Möglichkeit:74 As the element, being is the “quiet force” of das mögende Vermögen, that is, of das Mögliche. Of course, our words möglich and Möglichkeit, under the dominance of “logic” and “metaphysics,” are thought solely in contrast to “actuality”; that is, they are thought on the basis of a deÎnite—namely, the metaphysical—interpretation of being as actus and potentia, a distinction identiÎed with the one between existentia and essentia. When I speak of the “quiet force of das Mögliche” I do not mean the possibile of a merely represented possibilitas, nor potentia as the essentia of an actus of existentia; rather, I mean being itself, which, in its Mögen, vermag über, that is, holds the capacity over thinking and hence over the biding of man , and this means over its (i.e. of man’s biding) relation to being. To vermögen, to be capable of something, to hold the capacity over something, here means: to preserve it in its biding, to maintain it in its element. 21

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

1.5 TRANSLATING MÖGLICHKEIT

We have by now heard often enough that, as a word of the Denkweg, Möglichkeit not only does not have the metaphysical sense of “possibility”: indeed, if we understand Möglichkeit in this sense, thus failing to hear it, according to its fundamental trait of Mögen, as a name of being itself, the Denkweg as a whole is reduced to a late variant of the long history of ‘(metaphysical) being’ as possibilitas and potentia (a variant that, after Nietzsche’s conclusive metaphysics of the will to power, one would have hardly felt the need of), and thus entirely misconceived.75 Nevertheless, we may still want to argue that the word “possibility” is capable of speaking in a manner that—though neither equal nor even properly analogous to that of das Mögliche—is still suխcient to indicate, in English, what the thinking of being itself says in German. It is true, one may argue, that “possible” does not have, as a word, any reference to the preservation of the biding of something or to keeping it in its element: on the contrary, “possible” says the assurance of contingency by virtue of the power of domination. However, the semantic spectrum of “possible” includes meanings such as “what can or may be according to (the) nature (of something)” or “what is acceptable, Îtting,” and so on, which do in fact imply some reference to a constitutive trait. Thus, it appears that “possibility,” too, can speak in a non-metaphysical manner. Is it not suխcient, then, that we simply hear this word in the “right” way, that we, so to speak, learn to hear it anew, instead of embarking upon an unlikely search for a replacement of this long-established philosophical term? In order to examine this argument, let us turn to the most genuine manner of speaking, that is, the speaking of poetry as the saying that, precisely, “comes purely from the source,” and therefore preserves this source in its purity. Perhaps, where words resound as a pure echo of a language’s most original sensebuilding and en-owning saying, we can Înd a corroboration of the other tone in which the word “possibility” speaks. In fact, the following poem by Emily Dickinson76 contains what might well be one of the most signiÎcant occurrences of this word in the English language: I dwell in Possibility— A fairer House than Prose— More numerous of Windows— Superior—for Doors— Of Chambers as the Cedars— Impregnable of Eye— And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky— Of Visitors—the fairest— For Occupation—This— 22

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise— Given the overÏowing richness of this poem, we are forced to select only the most immediately relevant traits.77 In the Îrst place, possibility is here called a house, a dwelling or abode—not, though, for man “in general,” but for the poet, that is, for man’s dwelling (viz. his biding) in so far as it is essentially dichterisch.78 In turn, the house that possibility is appears in its openness—the openness for beings as such in the whole. This same openness, tuned by possibility, is again said, in the second and third stanza, as the fourfold play of sky and earth, divine and mortals. The decisive hint for our present consideration can be found in the second line of the Îrst stanza, where the poetess names the ground-trait of possibility: “I dwell in Possibility— / A fairer House than Prose—.” Thus, what the poetic ear hears in possibility—as opposed to prose, that is, the sphere of contingency—is the trait of fairness.79 What does “fairness” mean? The primary trait of “fair” (which belongs to the same I.E. root as German fügen, “to Ît together, to joint”) is that of “Ît,” “Îtting,” “well-jointed,” “harmonic” (in the sense of the Greek з̨̛̬̫̩̝ [harmonia]). The fair is, in the Îrst place, that which “brings into a Ît,” the element that brings the Îttingness itself and in this sense brings about the Ît; as a consequence, it is also that which is itself fair in the sense of “beautiful, pleasant, clean, unbiased, gentle, plain.” Thus, this bringing fairness, the fair, is—more originally than any harmony, both shiningly conspicuous (̡̱̝̩̬̚ [phanerõ]) and withdrawn and inconspicuous (ж̱̝̩̭̚ [aphanõs])80—an element of (i.e. consisting in) pure clearing, lightening,81 opening, original disencumbering. “Fair” means “clear, light, open, free from obstacles” (namely, toward the harmonic selving of things): it thus shows the same traits as one of the ground-words of the Denkweg, namely, Lichtung. But “fair” also means “(originally unbiased and therefore) favorable, promising, likely to succeed,” in a sense that recalls the original mögen. Finally, “fair” means “light, bright, shining” in the sense of the original, obstacle-free and yet impenetrable, freeing and preserving, favorable and soothing clarity that is said in the German heiter, so that we can now say: what speaks in the -heit of Anwesen-heit is precisely the fair, as which Ïashes the truth of being itself (viz. the cut). The fact that in “fair” we need to hear primarily the trait of bringing openness and clearing (namely, again, toward the Ît and comely abiding of things) is what the poem itself seems to suggest: “A fairer House than Prose— / More numerous of Windows— /Superior—for Doors—.” However, if the English word “possibility” can be heard in the sense of the fair element that frees into and preserves within comely abiding (i.e. selving), what should prevent us from seeing in “possibility” a fully suխcient translation of Möglichkeit, and in “the possible” an English word for das Mögliche, and thus for being itself? Is it not so that, analogously to möglich, the English 23

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

word “possible” simply needs to be freed—in a manner for which Emily Dickinson’s poem can be paradigmatic—from “the dominance of ‘logic’ and ‘metaphysics’”? Again, the answer to these questions is presumably: no. The main reason for this resides in the manner of speaking that belongs to thinking (and thinking only) when it is truly a thinking of being; in other words, it resides in the unique manner of dwelling in the mother-language that the thinking of being is. This unique manner of speaking implies that that which may show as an entirely suխcient and even unsurpassably Îtting word in poetical saying may, on the other hand, not be a “possible” word for the peculiar task of thinking. Thinking is “thinking of being.” While poetry, in its singing, gathers paradise, that is, das Heilige, thinking only owns being itself: das Sein selbst. The gathering that is proper to thinking has its peculiarity in this: it is a stance that consists entirely in oլering a discontingent steadiness to the truth of the cut, in such a way that the cut itself—and always nothing but the cut—may say itself.82 In other words: the stance of thinking is to herd the mother-language itself as the homestead of the word of being (i.e. the language-mother)—and never of beings, where “of beings” refers to the threat of the taking over of contingency, which (namely, this threat) in turn pertains to being as such, and therefore to language itself. This implies: all genuine words of thinking are cut-words, that is, strictly speaking, names of the cut, and therefore not only not words of contingency, but also not words of beings in the whole or of the whole/holy itself—heilige Namen (holy names), Hölderlin would say. This character of the manner of speaking is meant when we say that thinking says traits, whereas poetry indicates Îgures (Bilder): traits are traits of the cut, while Îgures are Îgures of the holy. Incidentally, we may note that it is in having in view such traits—and only then—that the so-called etymology of words may be telling for an attempt of thinking. This brief elucidation of two neighborly, but fundamentally distinct manners of dwelling in the mother-language allows us to formulate the following rule, which also contains a provisional answer to the question concerning the aptness of “possibility” as a word of thinking: no matter how holy a word may sound and shine, it cannot become a word of thinking unless it autonomously indicates a trait of being itself. Now, as it seems the word “possibility” not only does not indicate such a trait (the trait said in möglich or another one that is equally original), but—as the language of metaphysics seems to show and has, in turn, contributed to Îx in a long tradition—it is a word of contingency (power). On the other hand, the recalled meanings such as “acceptable, Îtting,” and so on are clearly not original traits of this word—traits that the word itself indicates. This is why “possibility” cannot be a ground-word of the thinking of being; that is to say: it can be a word of the diagnosis of our tradition as a tradition of ‘(metaphysical) being,’ but not a name for the preparatory saying of that which is kept back and announces itself in the unthought onset of this same 24

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

tradition, namely, ‘being (cut)’ as, in turn, a provisional name for the most hidden (and “loving”) trait of the world. The very considerations that have led us to exclude “possibility” as a translation of Möglichkeit can now sustain the argument in favor of another word, which promises to oլer, if not a translation, at least signiÎcant hints in view of a rendition of that German name of being. The Letter on Humanism indicates as the fundamental trait of möglich the mögen itself in the sense of das Wesen schenken. Such letting be and preserving something in its element (i.e. such allowing to selve) is what constitutes any genuine capacity as such. Thus, etwas ist möglich means: a thing abides (or is) by and through the original Mögen as that which tunes and preserves the biding within which the thing may selve; das Mögliche is, literally, that which likes something in that it ever lies in wait for it (to wait = to watch, to guard) and thus attends it in its biding. As a consequence, to abide by Möglichkeit implies a Îtness and suitedness, a likelihood of being: what is möglich is promising and keeps the promise of being (the promise in which being itself consists) in a manner that never relies on contingency;83 as a consequence, the Möglichkeit of something is that which we can truly trust in and rely on. Is there an English word that can, according to its own manner of saying, indicate these traits? In fact, the verb “to like” seems to satisfy, to some extent, what is required for translating Möglichkeit (as a word of the Denkweg) into English. The dictionary explains that originally one would not say “I like it,” but rather “it likes me.” Again, “to like” means: to be like, where “like” is a shortening of O.E. gelic (“alike,” German gleich); this, in turn, is a compound of *ga- “with, together” and *likan “form, body.” Thus, “to like” means: to have the same form or appearance. Hence, what I like is what is like me, that is, what likes me and thus agrees, pleases, suits, beÎts me. But why should that which is like me be what agrees me and what I, in turn, like? Why should “being like” imply “liking”? We can answer as follows: liking indicates an agreement (a conformity) in time and space as an echo of (i.e. in which is heard) the original agreeing to time and space in their agreement (i.e. in their fairness) toward the selving of things.84 In other words, that which “is like me” is such not by eլect of a contingent similarity (which, in itself, has nothing “likely”), but in so far as such liking implies the Ïashing of that same that initially likes, namely, the harmony or fairness that frees and gathers into clear-cut, fair, measured selving. This is the sense in which that which is like me, likes me; and this original liking is, in turn, what I recognize, what I acknowledge and thus like, in that which is “like me.” Again, liking does not have, as its original trait of sense, a merely exterior, contingent resemblance, equality or identity, which, supposedly, gives rise to a kind of “pleasure from resemblance”: “like” and “liking” indicate, literally, the gathering of the same and into the same as the element of the original alikeness for the fairest, clear-cut selving of that which is alike.85 However, that which, 25

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

in this sense, originally gathers, and thus originally likes and pleases, is ‘being (cut)’ as the broken time-play-space. That which initially likes—and therefore that which we, as human beings, must initially like in our biding: our original likelihood—is the favor of the original “please” that frees and soothes into comely abiding.86 In so far as man, in his being, explicitly assumes his original likelihood, that is, herds ‘being (cut),’ he grounds the openness for the likely abiding of things.87 On the basis of this understanding of “like” and “liking,” we may be better prepared to appreciate the richness of meanings that the adjective “likely” shows in its current use. These meanings include: “having an appearance of truth or fact” (and thus: being reliable, credible); “apparently suitable, able, Îtted”; “strong or capable looking”; “giving promise of success or excellence”; “comely, handsome”; “seemly, appropriate.”88 It is not surprising that, “under the dominance of ‘logic’ and ‘metaphysics,’” and particularly under the form that this dominance has taken in our epoch, “likely” and its derivations (e.g. “likelihood,” “likeliness”) have come to indicate, in the Îrst place, a kind of actuality, namely, the not yet actual, which, however, has a high probability of turning into actuality. In the numerical science of contingency, that is, statistics, “likelihood” (as well as, albeit less frequently used, “likeliness”) is therefore a synonym of “probability.” Nonetheless, in the case of the word “likely” we do indeed Înd what is true for möglich and what, on the contrary, does not apply to “possible,” namely, that a thinking delivered from the metaphysical bias toward contingency can hear in this word another and more original tone that says the biding of being itself—in other words: this thinking can recognize “likely” as a word in which the English language has already said being itself. This more original tone of the word “likely” resides precisely in the trait of the liking that soothes into a likely “form,” that is to say, in the original agreeing to and pleasing, of which mere pleasure is only a contingent distortion. Thus, in “likely” we need to hear the original liking of ‘being (cut)’ as the favor of the original fairness toward all likely abiding.89 As words of a likely English speaking Denkweg, “likely” and “likelihood” say the biding becom(e)ingness that initially likes anything to abide in its fair and comely uniqueness. That which is likely (a likely house, a likely mountain, a likely mortal, a likely god, etc.) thus appears in the fair measure of the initial favor—the “please” of ‘being (cut)’ breaking as the time-play-space toward a soothful abiding, but also—in the obliviousness of the cut—toward the soothless abiding in the unleashed dominance of contingency (possibility—potentiality—power). We can thus conclude our preparatory discussion of the English translation of Möglichkeit as follows: while “possible” is only a possible translation of möglich—one that, however, in the light of the unique rigor of the saying of being itself turns out to be unlikely—, “likely,” on the other hand, shows as a likely rendition of this word, namely, as a word in which ‘being (cut)’ likes to say itself in English. 26

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

1.6 THE WORD OF THE SEINSFRAGE

Heidegger’s Denkweg begins with Being and Time. The beginning, however, is not the same as the onset. In fact, Being and Time is, as a beginning, the outset for a homecoming—a coming back to that onset whose Îrst name is “being (itself),” and to its abode, that is, language. In Being and Time, language is already on the verge of becoming the selving abode of being, just as being is on the verge of selving as the onset itself. This onset, Heidegger says in a letter to Hannah Arendt, is “the Îrst and only onset” of thinking, but “in another wise”90—namely, another wise than that of the Greek onset, which begins with the obliviousness of being and thus with the Ѷ̩-Frage and, so to speak, never comes home. The other wise of the onset is the sense that shapes the Denkweg. The unity of the Denkweg is not a historical value.91 This unity is in fact but a consequence of the oneness of the only onset to which thinking belongs and that, in turn, wants its own thinking. This is why it seemed appropriate to fasten the guiding thread of our attempt onto that onset, that is, onto that which Heidegger calls Unterschied. What for the historical eye must look like a dubious “blending” and a “superimposition” of diլerent “phases” of “Heidegger’s thinking” is in fact but a manner of observing the most basic hermeneutic principle: that of delivering that which is said to its—no matter how unknown—sense, so as to restore it in its own word. We have argued that it is necessary to distinguish between the Seinsfrage and the Ѷ̩-Frage. But again, these are not historical categories. We could just as well say: within the Seinsfrage—as a title for the one and only issue of thinking from Parmenides to Heidegger—we ought to distinguish between the Ѷ̩-Frage and the Frage that seconds being itself. The title “being itself ” is in fact—along with others that were mentioned—a manner of distinguishing the theme of Being and Time from the theme of metaphysics. However, none of these titles indicates what is at issue in Being and Time as long as we hold on to the unquestioned format of “being” that was characterized as “indeterminate metaphysical being,” and pretend, on this basis, that the addition of “itself,” and so on, brings some clariÎcation: in fact, the “itself ” can only speak if being has already Ïashed as the quære of the other onset. Had this onset not been what already claims the thinking of Being and Time, why (i.e. on the basis of what) would it have appeared necessary to abandon this attempt? In the Letter on Humanism, Heidegger says that this abandoning was due to the fact that “the language of metaphysics” would not allow to say what then—namely, in the third section of the Îrst part of Being and Time—needed to be said. The title “language of metaphysics,” however, does not indicate a certain (replaceable) terminology; rather, it means language itself in the domain of contingency and as the word of contingency. That which then wanted to be said did therefore not merely require a “diլerent language” (“less conceptual,” 27

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

maybe even “a bit more poetical,” etc.): it required a new relation to language as the word and abode of being itself. It belongs to the scope of this transformation that the sense of what is to be thought cannot be merely determined and displayed, so to speak, “from this side,” that is, from the side of contingency. The transformation implies that we already think—and this means: that our interrogating dwells—in that of which language is the word and abode, so as to let it say itself. In fact, thinking that which in Being and Time wants to be thought is the same as leaping into the speaking of language as the abode of being, thus grounding our mother-languages as being’s homestead. Being and Time is already Language and Being. This is what Contributions to Philosophy, in which the leap required by the onset of Being and Time is attempted, are there to witness. The second part of this chapter was intended to exemplify precisely this: there is no manner of thinking and saying the issue indicated as “being itself ” “from the side” of language as contingency, that is, as long as we stick to this manner of speaking. As a consequence, the indications that have been given as to the suitability of “likelihood” as a translation of Möglichkeit do not have as their primary objective that of establishing a new term in replacement of “possibility.” The brute fact of this replacement is indeed of no importance at all. What these considerations are primarily about is to show, albeit from afar (and in the only manner in which it can be shown, namely, by enacting it), some traits of a discontingent saying. This kind of saying does not merely designate a given being envisaged and assured in representational thinking: it rather originates (and keeps in their biding) as thought the traits of being that thinking, in turn, originates (and sustains in their coming) as said. Again, this manner of saying implies, as one of its laws, that the said is not sayable as long as it is not gathered in a thinking, while the thought is not thinkable as long as it is not indicated in a saying. In a passage of the conference “Die Gefahr” (1949), where the word Verwahrlosung is found as a word of the Denkweg, Heidegger writes: The word Verwahrlosung is here taken by its word, that is, it is said from out of an afore thought issue; for in fact : fairly thought is soundly said, and fairly said is soundly thought.92 Taking a word by its word means: saying it according to its said trait, which a thinking has gathered. This means—according to the above formulated rule—that if a word does not indicate a trait, and therefore cannot be taken by its word, the trait or issue remains not only unsaid but also unthought. This, we have argued, is the case of the word “possibility”: since in this word the fairness of being—no matter how much we may “mean” it—is not fairly said, as long as we say “possibility” being itself is not soundly thought, that is, 28

WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING ?

originated and grounded in a thinking. There is no likely thinking of the other onset, which has already become, if not by the words of its own fairness: the words in which it has already said—as that which wants to be thought—its likely becoming.

29

CHAPTER 2

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING Mit dem Entwurf des Seyns als Ereignis ist erst auch der Grund und damit das Wesen und der Wesensraum der Geschichte geahnt. Die Geschichte ist kein Vorrecht des Menschen, sondern ist das Wesen des Seyns selbst.1

In one of the many places in which his book on Contributions to Philosophy addresses the problem of language and translation in the context of Heidegger’s Denkweg, Parvis Emad writes: The objection that this essay merely repeats what Heidegger has said does not address what this essay wishes to accomplish. This objection comes from the assumption that beside Heidegger’s own language there is an ontologically neutral language that stands ready for explicating Heidegger without repeating him. This assumption ignores this essay’s purpose, namely, to look closely at the hidden “features” of Heidegger’s thinking of being that call for returning to the forgotten resources of the English language.2 This remark, whose sense is enacted throughout the essays that form the book, is of critical importance for the stance we are to take in the attempt at rethinking the only thought the Denkweg itself has set out—and taken on—to rethink.3 Such rethinking can unfold only when our ordinary relation to language is unsettled and our thinking is shifted unto an as yet ungrounded element that we may call “the say” (die Sage). The say, which is not any one of our languages, stresses thinking to soothe4 and bear it so that it may be grounded in its truth and thus sway in the tempered tone of world-calling names and world-bearing things. Such soothing, however, is likely only in and as the saying of a language—it is itself a saying.5 The task—no doubt weird in kind— that we are thus called upon to assume, is that of learning a speaking which says the say as the latter, in the simplest taking, tunes the speaking of our languages.6 As weird as the task is, as odd must the speaking that tries to “soothsay” the say sound to the ear used to employing words in order to designate things without bothering about the dimension within which such usage arises 30

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

and rests, thrives and fades away. The capacity of a language for saying the say is what we call its word.7 The word is that to which the “forgotten resources” refer—“resources” to which we need to “return.” It is the farthest and nearest thought of our languages, namely, the say itself, that we need to explicitly repeat, that is, think again and say again. The Denkweg is not only the Îrst but, as yet, the only guide we have in this regard. In this chapter I shall tentatively indicate how this return is prompted by the sake of thinking itself and indeed as a constitutive trait of this sake.8 All along the way, this attempt remains in dialogue—at times explicit, at times implicit—with Parvis Emad’s enactment of “the coalescing of translation and interpretation and their ultimate indistinguishability” (WHC, p. 21). Since any preparatory9 thinking within the dimension opened by Heidegger’s Denkweg must have already leaped into the errancy and speechlessness implied by the need of saying the sake of thinking, thereby leaving behind, as unlikely and insuխcient, the stance of a supposed neutrality of language, this preparatory thinking must bear that, for the safely evaluating historical eye and its putative neutrality, its saying remains indistinguishable from a wanton distortion of language. 2.1 ENOWNED OWNING AND THE STRESS FOR WORDS

The thinking that unfolds in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) consists in the acknowledgement of the original belongingness of thinking itself to the truth of beǺng (Seyn): it is a thinking of beǺng—and nothing else.10 Should ever [man] regain a mortal stance; should ever a ground for the Ïashing of the godliness of [gods] be restored;11 should ever [beings] return as world-bearing things, the preparation for this with-fall (Zu-fall)12 requires a thinking that owns to man’s belonging to the “onlyness” and “apartness” of beǺng13 and is thus Îrm in surrendering to its afaring14 and schismatic15 truth. Such thinking is already native in beǺng and thus cannot take into account the forms of [man] or [god] or [beings] that “persist” “while” beǺng is not,16 and which, in order to indicate this “beǺng-less” and therefore time-less persistence, we write (as Heidegger occasionally does in the treatises of the so-called “pentalogy”) in square brackets. “Not taking into account” has a precise phenomenological sense: it does not mean “disregarding” or “being indiլerent to,” but rather: “not counting on,” “not basing itself on,” and thus “not letting itself be guided by” (namely, the beǺng-less) in the attempt to own to that which has already released, and now claims and brooks, thinking, namely, beǺng itself. Such counting on is denied because that which persists while beǺng is not can in fact appear as such, namely, in a suխcient diagnostic transparency, only in the light of the thinking of beǺng.17 In a last step of thinking, Îrst taken in Beiträge, beǺng itself is to be thought and grounded 31

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

in the truth of its allowing “afaresomeness-denyingness,” which implies the thought of the granting of beǺng itself through that which the Denkweg calls Verwindung. Verwindung is the over-winning that wins, that is, in the Îrst place originates, by letting that which is over-won be gathered into the turnsome deliverance to the under-going, in-itself-setting, resconsing onset (Anfang).18 The name of the over-winning of beǺng, in which beǺng itself is Înally grounded in its schismatic apartness from ̸̱̮̥̭ as the Îrst onset of thinking, is: Er-eignis.19,20 Owning to the belongingness to beǺng is therefore not something the thinking of an extant man may engage in or else prefer not to engage in. In fact, the instant of owning is itself the onset of thinking (or of a transition to thinking) as Er-eignis. This instant is not only rare: it Ïashes in so near a farness that it is of sheer grace that the need and stress (die Not) it implies concern a single “who,” thus awakening him to Înd his very being released into having to bear and ground this coy and only (oլ-cut, abscinded) instant. Not only is there no thinking “before” this owning, but there is, strictly speaking, no “before,” as long as this idea of “before” implies an underlying Ïow of time in which “thinking” is located and in which it can occur to it that it takes a certain form and addresses a particular issue. The instant of owning is itself the onset of time and space, or, as Heidegger says, of the in-falling schismatic in-between (Zwischen) as the truth of the oլ-ground. On the basis of the translation of Ereignis in Contributions to Philosophy, we may call this owning, in which thinking consists, an enowned owning.21 The coined word “enowning” indicates the instantaneous mutual acknowledgement or acknowing22 that on-settingly grounds the relation of beǺng with the being of man, in so far as by virtue of this acknowledgement (1) beǺng is originally acknown (and thus, in its own returning biding, is alert) to man as him whose being it owns23 out of a want of beǺng’s own truth, while (2) man, in turn, is acknown (and thus alerted) to beǺng as that to the truth of whose in itself returning onlyness man’s being originally belongs. “Originally” here means: inwardly and ab origine, so that man’s being is, in its ground, withheld from man himself, in other words, man is not the owner of his being. Heidegger’s name for the biding24 in-between between beǺng and the being of man; his name for the element of their turnsome acknowing by which man’s being, in turn, re-turns unto the belongingness to beǺng; in short, his name for the Îrm knowledge of beǺng that man is called upon to assent to and suլer in his being, if he is to return unto his kind or sooth biding—this name is: Da-sein. This yields, as a critical notion of the other onset, that the relation of beǺng and the being of man is beǺng itself as the schismatic instress25 of Da-sein (the instress that, in the word Da-sein, is indicated precisely by the hyphen). Understanding Da-sein as bearing and thus grounding the truth of the instress that beǺng itself is, Înally allows us to envisage Da-sein—which metaphysically means as much as contingent extancy26—as the crisis between the Îrst and the other onset of thinking.27 32

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

This outline of one sense in which we need to hear “enowning” as a translation of Ereignis—that is, Ereignis as the mutually alerting acknowledgement (via the “between-fall” [Zwischen-fall] of the turning-ground Da-sein) of beǺng in its withdrawn onlyness and man’s being in its surrendered (or released) owning— implies that beǺng, in some sense, needs man, which seems to contradict the claim that the thinking of beǺng ought not to take into account man and his extant being. However, what beǺng needs (and indeed, as the original instress, originates via the stress of the grounding of its truth) is precisely not man in his contingency, nor any particular capacity of the contingent being that each one of us happens to be. What beǺng needs (i.e. behoves, is in want of) is rare and is still to come, namely, man in so far as his being is geschichtlich. But that which comes is coming, and man is geschichtlich, only in and thanks to the “between-fall” of beǺng as Da-sein,28 whose breaking (or irruption) generates, for the behoof of beǺng’s own bidance, the form or Îrmness of being—originated by the stressing want of the Da—that is geschichtlich. Hence, this Îrmness of being is engendered on behalf of beǺng, that is, it is originally oլered to beǺng and therefore kindly, natively belongs to beǺng itself. As a consequence, this being is nothing we could Înd in the contingent being of man, no matter how hard we look.29 If these introductory remarks concerning the sense in which the thinking of the other onset consists in owning to the belongingness to beǺng bear witness mostly to their own insuխciency, they might however be apt to raise our awareness for the stressing need of words, in short, our awareness for the stress for words. In fact, it is not likely that an external (neutral) criterion be established, which, from its “historical balcony” (HGA 70, p. 182)—that is, from its “raised hide” for preying sense—would be capable of drawing a distinction between onsetting thinking and what is the standard for thinking in the element of the will to will, to wit, a supposedly life-enhancing, exact mechanics of operative concepts of contingency. In fact, only onsetting thinking itself is, and heeds in itself, the criterion. Therefore, the only stressing need is that of biding the owning to beǺng in such a way that beǺng itself, which is pure say, may word itself, that is, break (or break through) in originally dicting30 words that temper and tune the speaking of language as a language of beǺng and thus as a mother-language in the sense of the Denkweg, which is to say: as the mother-element of that which Heidegger calls Geschichte.31 The mother-word of German as a mother-language is: Er-eignis. This implies that the likelihood of German as a language of beǺng now resides in the say of this word. If it is true that the say and only the say says, and each time “has its say,” in the speaking of a language that is geschichtlich, then Er-eignis is the word in which the say of beǺng—which is the mother of languages, that is, the language-mother—wins German over and originates it as a language, or speech, of beǺng. The diction Er-eignis en-owns German as an onsettingly dictative say and thus as a mother-language, in the speciÎc sense this latter word has in the 33

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

other onset of thinking. The German that speaks in the Denkweg bears the trait of the say in that its saying, grounded in Er-eignis, is in every single word soothing surrender to the resconsing whose takingness bides as the onset itself. However, in the closer kin of Ereignis there are words that themselves soothe the say of beǺng in a primary manner: these are kin-words in that they name primary traits of the dimension of ascendance and descent that beǺng as onset is, so that beǺng breaks through in and as these words as the unique cut or schism (“kin”) whose openness is the discontingent element for the coming of a thing-borne world. 2.2 TRANSLATING SEYN

The Îrst of these kin-words, and the closest cognate of Er-eignis, is Da-sein. Together, Er-eignis and Da-sein form, as it were, the Îrm threshold of the other onset—they form the very element of its “onsetting-over-winning.” Since it is in these two dictions that the say has originally tempered the German language as a saying of beǺng (and thus of world and things), the saying of all other ground-words Înds its original tuning in the unspoken coalescence of these dictions. This is true, of course, also of the word Seyn, in which, by virtue of the silent echo of Er-eignis, speaks the transition32 to the other onset, and which the English translation of Beiträge zur Philosophie renders as “be-ing.”33 Concerning the translation of Seyn, it has been suggested (other than adopting the older form “beon”) to recur to the archaic spelling “beyng,” whose relation to “being” to some extent parallels, at least in this formal aspect, that between Seyn and Sein. However, a formal analogy is one thing, a translation another, and, to my knowledge, no one has argued for “beyng” beyond merely submitting this kind of analogy. What is more important, no one to my knowledge has shown the likelihood of hearing “beyng” as an echo of the same that resounds in Seyn, that is, the other onset as Er-eignis. (Incidentally, the same holds true for the suggested French translation estre, which is an archaic form of être and its homophone. By contrast, the Italian essære, where the ligature “æ” silently echoes the Innigkeit of the crossing [“æ”: “x”] of the countering of god and man and the strife of earth and world, says the unique onset in the uniqueness of its in itself atoning and schisming [discinding] other tone—the tone that over-wins the Îrst onset, thus originally setting it over into its apartness.34 While the fact that “æ” indicates the crossing is readily recognizable, the fact that essære is a true, namely, a thinking and therefore dictative translation remains, as Aristotle teaches, a matter not of demonstration [ж½̷̡̠̥̪̥̭] but of acknowledgement.) What can we say, in this respect, of the translation of Seyn with “be-ing”? “Be-ing” meets the requirement of marking the diլerence from (metaphysical) “being”—a necessary, but not suխcient condition for attaining the rank of a translation. Furthermore, and more importantly, the hyphen makes explicit 34

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

the schism or cut itself,35 so that now, in the said Ïagrancy of the ̫լ-ground, the suխx “-ing” (which is the same as the German -ung)36 indicates be-ing as origination and onset and thus, in some sense, as the original (not Sein = Anwesen but) Anwesenlassen, that is, as that which grants (accords, aլords, bestows—gewährt) any being that it be or selve.37 In fact, the capacity of “-ing”/-ung to speak in the sense of the onset, and therefore of Seyn, is what, for instance, lets Heidegger say Wesung instead of Wesen. In this sense, “be-ing” sustains, in English, the say of Seyn. Along this same line one may argue for writing “be-yng,” if this lets the English language indicate more clearly still the other tone of the only onset as the over-winning of the Îrst one.38 I shall now brieÏy outline a diլerent attempt to translate Seyn, which shows how far the owning-surrendering thinking not only can, but ought to go in order to hear the ground-words of the say of the other onset, so as to let “the wholly other song of be-ing” (HGA 65, p. 9; English translation, p. 7) resound. In fact, this “going far,” and the “treasures” it yields, are most true to what Heidegger says concerning the forced forming of new words as opposed to the necessary phenomenological coining that obtains its measure from a thinking that hearkens to the oldest say of our languages, that is, to the already said saying of the language-mother awaiting to be grounded in and as Da-sein so as to openly have its say in the speaking of our languages.39 Indeed, the endless and often clueless “debate” on “what kind of language” one should “apply” when translating Heidegger mainly succeeds in eluding the acknowledgement of the only necessary condition for the translation of a diction of the Denkweg, the condition namely that this translation be dichterisch in the unique sense this word has in the saying of the other onset, whose say is “ein Dichten, anfänglicher denn alles ‘dichterische’ und jedes ‘metaphysische’ Wort” (HGA 70, p. 31), “a dicting, more onsetting than any ‘poetical’ and any ‘metaphysical’ word.” Without the reference to this original dictative trait, any talk of “ordinary vs. uncommon words,” “neologisms,” or even “English words,” is devoid of a sufÎcient criterion for determining the sense of these locutions—unless we prefer to clinch the matter by straightaway assuming “language” in its immediate contingency as a measure for any saying and thus also for the say of the other onset. Middle English knows the letter Ǻ (“yogh”) for the sound “y” (as in “yes”).40 Moreover, this sign is used to transcribe “gyfu” (Proto-Germanic *gebô), which is the name of the Anglo-Saxon g-rune, a rune meaning “gift, generosity” (as that which sustains, or soothes, the being of man when all beings fail), and whose shape is that of an “x.” Hence, the diction “beǺng” (a homophone of “being”) words the say of Seyn in that it indicates the original trait of generosity (“es gibt”), which—by virtue of the atoning-schisming, in itself resconsing oլ-ground (in its aլording the crossing of strife and countering)—grants the gift of Ent-bergung41 and thus the ensconced selving of things in a world. If beǺng is thus the overwinning of the Îrst onset as ̸̱̮̥̭, only en-owning, on the other hand, wins over beǺng itself into the in-itself resconsing, withdrawing other onset. 35

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

2.3 TRANSLATING GESCHICHTE

Generosity, the Îrm element of beǺng as the free generation (namely, the generating itself) and coming of the truth and Ïagrancy for beings, as it (viz. this generation and coming) calls upon the generative instress of man’s being— this is what the Denkweg puts forth in the diction Geschichte.42 However, if enowning itself is: die Geschichte des Seyns, how are we to think and say this in English? In one of the last pages of Beiträge we read: “Unsere Geschichte—nicht als der historische Ablauf unserer Geschicke und Leistungen, sondern wir selbst im Augenblick unseres Bezuges zum Seyn” (HGA 65, p. 501; my emphasis). The translation reads: “Our history, not as the historically known course of our destinies and accomplishments, but we ourselves in the moment of our relation to beǺng” (English translation, p. 353; my emphasis). What kind of “history,” one may ask, is itself not historical and, as a consequence, not knowable in the manner in which the historical is known? And how, in the Îrst place, are we to know this “history”? Any attentive reader of Heidegger’s writings—especially those written after Being and Time—must be aware of the fundamental distinction between Geschichte and Historie in Heidegger’s thinking. In fact, it is an established notion of Heidegger scholarship that Historie refers to the domain of facts and objects, events and occurrences (mainly, but not only, those of the past), in short, to matters of fact, and, in particular, to the more or less ordered and systematic (“objective”) account thereof as produced in historiography and in other historical disciplines.43 By contrast, Geschichte indicates “what is enowned by being” (Contributions to Philosophy, p. xxiii), namely, the entirely other reign of, so to speak, ontological occurrences or happenings, which have—at least immediately—nothing to do with the historically appraised events of the ordinary sphere. Moreover, as those interpreters who venture upon a closer look at the ordinary German word Geschichte will know, this word bears precisely the trait of “happening,” that is, of that which occurs, in a manner sudden and unpredictable, by hap, or else by fate, or, Înally, by the intervention of a divine power. In short, Geschichte refers to an extraordinary occurrence that breaks the ordinary course of events.44 All of this, including of course the phenomenon that the Denkweg calls Geschichte, is so familiar to informed scholars that it seems odd we should read in Beiträge: “Bisher war der Mensch noch niemals geschichtlich” (HGA 65, p. 492) and in its English translation: “Until now man was never yet historical” (p. 346). How can such an assertion be justiÎed? Has mankind not always been exposed to happenings—natural or supernatural, but in any case beyond man’s control—that have revealed, changed, and shaped not only the course but the sense of things, either accidentally or according to some higher, unknowable plan? And has this happening-character of “being” not been in various manners recognized and accounted for in human knowledge, 36

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

including metaphysical knowledge?45 If all that is new now is that even the “sense” and the “truth” of being itself “happens” by way of particular, unpredictable and sudden occurrences, whose structure is, supposedly, that of “en-owning,” Heidegger’s insisting on the absolute novelty of what he calls Geschichte (as “eine ganz andere Grundmacht des Seins”46 that is coming up) seems exaggerated. However, in what manner and from where are we to think and say the apartness of Geschichte and Historie? Answer: in no manner and from nowhere. In fact, since the other onset as Unter-schied is itself the original schismatic apartness, any distinction involving a ground-word—and thus a ground-trait—of this onset can be made only on the basis of this ground-word and ground-trait itself, that is, by acknowledging it as a word of the onsetting cut or schism in its schisming. In other words, any ground-word is, as such, a trait of beǺng as the onsetting schism, and therefore is itself schismatic, schisming, and schismed. As a consequence, any ground-word is, by its in-itself “diլerentiating,” namely, discinding biding, itself the “diլerence” with respect to that which is not, that is, [beings].47 This implies that there is no external viewpoint from which to draw a distinction between Historie (the domain of [beings]) and Geschichte (the reign of beǺng), simply because the latter is itself the “distinction” in the elucidated sense. In the moment we do nonetheless adopt such an external viewpoint (advertently or not), we are in fact stuck in the domain of Historie and of its historical distinctions, which, however, do not and cannot know anything about Geschichte, as they owe themselves to the forgottenness of this element. Hence, we need in the Îrst place to gain a suխcient notion of Geschichte as a cut-word or schismatic word (a word by which the cut bides as such), thereby keeping in mind what is said at the very beginning of Beiträge, namely, that the thinking therein attempted is devoted to bringing the transition “ins Oլene der Geschichte” (HGA 65, p. 4; English translation, p. 3; my emphasis). In the treatise Besinnung (HGA 66, p. 167) we read: “Geschichte ist in die Gründung der Wahrheit des Seyns (Da-sein) er-eignete Wesung des Seyns”—we say: “Geschichte is the bidance of beǺng en-owned into the grounding of the truth of beǺng (Da-sein).”48 From this passage we learn, Îrst of all, that Geschichte is not to be construed on the basis of an understanding of man and of his given being. Rather, what we may eventually call “man” and “man’s being” is to be inferred from that which Geschichte, as the bidance of beǺng, gives to wit. The just quoted passage from Besinnung implies the following: in order to bide, beǺng needs the grounding of its openness or truth. Therefore, beǺng grants itself within and as its ground-wanting truth (i.e. the Da-), which, in the stress of its wanting, shapes a truth-bearing (i.e. grounding) Îrmness of being (i.e. -sein). In short, beǺng grants itself through and as Da-sein. Da-sein is the grounding that suլers, out-stands and out-bears the stress of the truth (or sooth)49 of beǺng—the stress consisting in its want of a grounding. However, 37

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

through Da-sein, beǺng as en-owning calls upon (i.e. “en-eyes,” alerts) a “who” in order for this “who” to take on and bear, in his being, the owning Îrmness (or temper) that out-stands the truth of beǺng, so that beǺng bide as the Îrm openness and Ïagrancy of the oլ-ground. The called-upon “who” turns unto this claimed out-standing by virtue of the over-owning overturn of his being that in the Îrst place originates this being, from out of the oլ-ground, as surrendered to the oլ-ground itself. The over-owned “who” is thus, as to his biding, native in the oլ-ground: it is ultroneous in its (viz. the oլ-ground’s) overcomingness and thus belonging to the oլ-ground’s truth.50 The earlier quotation from Beiträge (p. 501) now speaks more distinctly: “Unsere Geschichte— … wir selbst im Augenblick unseres Bezuges zum Seyn.” “Our Geschichte— … we our ownselves [our selving “us”] in the Ïashing instant of to beǺng.” Clearly, this passage does not explain “history” in terms of the relation of “beǺng” to an undetermined “us.” Rather, Geschichte is indicated as the Ïashing that en-owns the likely “who” of Geschichte. This “who” has its ground in and owes itself to the selving that natively inbides in the belongingness to beǺng and out-stands its truth. As a consequence, the “we” names the coming man-kind of a selving self that stands upright in the out-standing of this truth.51 However, the selfhood of the selving self, in turn, bides in the turning-ground of Da-sein and thus in the Augenblick—the Ïashing instant—of en-owning that over-wins (i.e. en-owns) beǺng into its tempered openness (i.e. the en-owning that above has been called beǺng’s “granting itself through and as Da-sein”). Another passage from Besinnung clariÎes further the sense of this Ïashing in relation to the alerted upstanding of man unto the owning uprightness in the broken openness (the clearing52 or Ïagrancy) of beǺng as onset. The passage reads: Der “Augenblick” ist die Jähe des Ab-sturzes alles erst noch gar nie gegründeten Gründbaren in die Lichtung des Seyns. / Der “Augenblick” ist die Jähe des Aufstandes des Menschen in die Inständigkeit im Inzwischen dieser Lichtung. (HGA 66, p. 114) The “Ïashing” is the abruptness of the oլ-fall of all the never yet grounded groundable unto the clearing [the Ïagrancy] of beǺng. / The “Ïashing instant” is the abruptness of the upstanding of man unto the upright inbidingness in the in-between of this clearing.53 What here is called “the never yet grounded groundable” is the collapsed contingency (i.e. the contingent whole) of beings in its need and readiness for a grounded truth. The “groundable” refers to beings in so far as they now bide in the awaiting of a truth.54 38

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

Finally, so as to close the circle and come back to Geschichte, I shall quote two passages, one from the treatise Geschichte des Seyns and the other one from the lecture course text entitled Parmenides, in order to shed some light on the sense of geschehen implied in Geschichte itself. The Îrst passage reads: “… das ‘Geschehen’, nicht im Hinblick auf Abläufe und Bewegung, sondern aus dem Ereignis die Jähe—Steile und Sturz—der Gründung”:55 “the ‘Geschehen,’ not in view of occurrences and movement, but, from out of enowning, the abruptness—steepness and fall—of grounding.” And the second passage: “Die Geschichte”, wesentlich begriլen, und d. h. aus dem Wesensgrund des Seins selbst gedacht, ist der Wandel des Wesens der Wahrheit. Sie ist “nur” dieses. … Man meint längst, wo Vorgänge, Bewegung und Abläufe seien, wo etwas “passiere”, sei Geschichte, weil man meint, Geschichte habe mit dem “Geschehen” zu tun, und “Geschehen” heiße “passieren”. Aber Geschehen und Geschichte besagt: Geschick, Schickung, Zuweisung. Echt deutsch sagend, dürfen wir nicht sagen: “die” Geschichte im Sinne von “Geschehen”, sondern “das Geschicht” im Sinne von: die Zuweisung des Seins. Noch Luther gebraucht das echt deutsche Wort “das Geschicht.”56 “Die Geschichte,” if grasped as a biding, and this means, from out of the biding-ground of being itself, is the turning of the biding of truth.57 It is “only” this. … One maintains and has been maintaining for a long time that, where there are processes, movement and courses of events, in short, where something “happens,” there we have Geschichte, because Geschichte, it is reckoned, has to do with “Geschehen,” and “Geschehen” means “happening.” However, Geschehen and Geschichte mean: Geschick, Schickung, allotting. Saying in a genuinely German manner, we should not say “die” Geschichte, in the sense of “Geschehen,” but “das Geschicht,” in the sense of: the allotting of being. Luther still uses the genuinely German word “das Geschicht.”58 Based on what these passages say, we can provisionally indicate the main traits we need to retain for the understanding of Geschichte: (1) Characterizing Geschichte in terms of events, occurrences, and happenings is not suխcient with regard to the need of a thinking that owns to beǺng and grounds it in its truth. In fact, the words “event,” “occurrence,” and “happening” refer to the becoming, coming about, appearing, rising of something, and to “happening” (with its trait of abruptness, suddenness, etc.) as the modality of this contingent rising, issuing or 39

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

coming forth; in short, they refer to some kind of “epiphanic” or productive event of emergence. All these ideas, however, remain within the domain deÎned by the trait of assurgency of ̸̱̮̥̭ and thus within the subjugating “physical” rule over ж̧̡̤̥̝̚.59 (2) Geschichte does indeed show the trait of abruptness: it indicates an irruption or in-fall or between-fall. In fact, the original meaning of geschehen (cf. also O.E. (ge)sceon) is “to jump, fall to, rush, run about, turn abruptly, go (away) quickly, Ïy,” thus also “to happen by a sudden turn and unexpectedly; to come to pass by a twist of fate; to take place accidentally (by hap) or due to a divine allotment.” However, this irrupting does not consist in the sudden production or the happening of an event (i.e. it does not consist in a sudden emergence); rather, it consists in the breaking60 (or break-through) of the withdrawing and self-absconcing, in itself resconsing oլ-ground (i.e. the cut) as the allotting (destining, imparting, dealing out)—in the turning of an en-owning acknowledgement—of a (wanting-to-be-grounded) truth of beǺng, that is, of the withheld openness of a time-space of beǺng itself. In other words, Geschichte consists in this witting-wising-allotting as the abrupt break-through of time-space, in which that which allots itself and gives itself to wit, that is, beǺng, withdraws its own biding. It is this withdrawing, self-absconcing wisinggiving-to-wit of beǺng (schicken)61 as the irruption of the clearing (i.e. the time-space) that, in the Îrst place, we ought to hear in Geschichte. (3) As a consequence, Geschichte is neither instantaneous or momentaneous (i.e. of an extremely short, punctual or even null duration); nor is it extended, in the sense that it lasts for some period of time; nor, Înally, is it the totality of “moments” and “lengths of time.” In fact, the Ïashing of Geschichte is altogether alien from (and therefore cannot ever be grasped in terms of) duration or the absence of it. The reason for this is that both duration (i.e. “being,” continuity, rest, persistence) and momentaneousness (i.e. “becoming,” discontinuity, movement, change) are but modalities of physical contingency and therefore irrelevant to the Ïashing of Geschichte, in so far as Geschichte originally breaks as the collapse (more precisely: as the having-already-collapsed) of contingency (i.e. of the prevailing of [beings] over being) with all its continuities (i.e. states) and discontinuities (i.e. occurrences, happenings, etc.). The fact that this break-through is original means that the Ïashing does not actively intervene in a previously ongoing state of aլair, which, as a consequence of this intervention, is interrupted and brought to collapse. (As long as we think in these terms, everything is already in the grip of [beings].) Rather, beǺng as onset, that is, Geschichte, is this collapse as an origin for beings that has no aխnity whatsoever with that which has collapsed into the groundable. Hence, beǺng can also not aլect it or “intervene” in it, but holds itself entirely and exclusively in its sunder and only abidance (in its Einsamkeit, 40

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

as Contributions to Philosophy says; see HGA 65, p. 471; English translation, p. 332). As a consequence, as long as [we] are actively positioned within contingent time and space, that is, within the historical domain of beingness, any experience of Geschichte is precluded. In fact, there is no manner of catching sight of being from the standpoint of beingness, namely, from the standpoint that in our epoch is the viewpoint of values. (4) Geschichte is not a prerogative of man,62 but implies a relation to man in so far as the enowned truth (i.e. time-space) of beǺng wants a Îrm outbearing. The man of a coming kinship may stand up to the acknown uprightness for this out-bearing so as to become the warden of beǺng as the biding oլ-ground. Therefore, “man is geschichtlich” means: the being of this “who” is ultroneously intraneous to the extraneousness of the openness of beǺng (i.e. the extraneousness of the oլ-ground), in such a way as to bide and ground this openness for the coming of the fair. Attuned and atoned in the overcomingness63 of the fair, selve the becoming, fair and Îtting, world-gathering things. This outline of the manner in which Geschichte speaks as a word of the Denkweg stresses the need for a suխcient translation of this diction into the word of the English Denkweg. For it is apparent that the word “history” is not capable of indicating the traits just outlined, nor of saying the dimension of Geschichte according to other traits that are “cognates in say” of the ones indicated in the German word. In fact, the attempt to dig into the etymology of “history” in order to extract from it traits that are Ît for indicating, in their own manner, the say of Geschichte, is, as far as I can see, unlikely to yield “history” as a ground-word of the English mother-language. While in any attempt to think in the transition to the other onset it is not only legitimate, but also necessary to recoin certain words of our metaphysical languages (namely, those which bear the likelihood of speaking in a non-metaphysical manner) so as to let the other tone (namely, the silent tune of beǺng) resound in their saying, such recoining must however obtain its measure from the still unheard say of the mother-language, as is to be grounded in and as Da-sein, and thus take place in a manner commensurate to the mother-language itself, that is, to the language-mother that speaks in it. In addition to this fundamental objection to translating Geschichte with “history,” we must consider that this word speaks in its entire breadth (and not only in the meaning of history as a discipline) in the sense of Historie as a diagnostic word of the Denkweg. When Heidegger stresses the sameness of Historie and Technik, and characterizes man in the epoch of accomplished nihilism as historisches Tier, the words Historie and historisch do not merely speak in the sense of historiography or of the historical disciplines. These dictions name any stance toward [beings] and any form of the concreteness of [beings] based on the extreme forsakenness by beǺng and the unleashed domination of Machenschaft as 41

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

the ultimate rule of accountable beings over beǺng. Thus, Historie is a “treatment” of Geschichte consisting in the self-outpowering devastation of the nayed time-space of its (scil. Geschichte’s) onsetting Ïashing.64 The fact that Historie is in this sense (i.e. as an implement of the implementation of Machenschaft) a derived phenomenon; the fact that it is not itself a ground-phenomenon but only likely on the ground of the un-biding of Geschichte (i.e. on the “ground” of Ungeschichte)—this indeed justiÎes the proposition: “Die Historie gründet in der Geschichte” (HGA 66, p. 182).65 On the contrary, what this sentence does not mean is that history “as a discipline” is “founded,” that is, has its ontological foundation, in the phenomenon of Geschichte. Given that “history” does not translate Geschichte; given that thinking historically is as much as not thinking at all; given, therefore, the highest stress of the wantingness of the word thanks to which thinking may let the say of die Geschichte des Seyns have its say in the English language (thus translating the latter into its ownmost word), where are we to Înd an English diction that has already thought and said the say of Geschichte and can thus be accordingly (re-) coined? Such a word can only be the gift of the say of the (yet to be grounded) English mother-language. If we think of certain ground-words of the Denkweg, such as Dasein, Möglichkeit, Wesen, and others, we see that here a word that has been speaking metaphysically shows to an advertent ear (i.e. a listening advertent to and sustaining the echo of beǺng that Da-sein is) to be such a gift as a diction that bears a trait of the other onset. Another form of this gift is when the nay-said66 mother-language has spared a fair word (a word that says the say itself) from serving in the construction of the metaphysical realm of beingness. Such is in fact the case of the word “weird,” which is likely to say, in English, what the Denkweg names in the words Geschichte and Geschick. We know the word “weird” only as an adjective meaning “strange, unusual.” The I.E. root that speaks in this word is *uer- “to turn, plait,” which also gives rise to the Latin vertere and to the German werden. In fact, werden originally means “to turn,” which yields the present meaning “to turn into, become.” In English, the same root yields the verb “to worth,” that is, “to come to be, come about, happen, take place, become,” but also “to behove, need, be necessary” (see the now obsolete “i-worth”). The adjective “weird” is originally a noun (O.E. “wyrd”) meaning “the principle, power, or agency by which events are predetermined; fate, destiny,” then also: that which is destined or fated to happen (one’s lot or destiny), Înally, any event or occurrence (as in the common saying “after word comes weird”). The adjectival use stems from the “weird sisters” in Shakespeare’s Macbeth;67 henceforth, “weird” meant “having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings.” What is more important, the noun also yields a verb, “to weird,” which has the sense “to preordain by the decree of fate; to assign to (a person) as his fate; to apportion as one’s destiny or lot.” However, given these etymological references, we now need to focus on the thought phenomenological trait that is relevant for the saying of Geschichte as 42

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

Geschick, and to which the dictions “worth” and “weird” show to be responsive. In this connection it is of crucial importance to keep in mind that the meanings “fate,” “destiny,” “coming about,” and so on, taken in their common understanding, belong to the realm of contingency, and are, as such, not capable of saying the withdrawing (self-)allotting of beǺng as the clearing for beings.68 What we Înd in the dictions “worth” and “weird” is that the root which in German yields the verb werden as one element of the metaphysical dyad ‘being/becoming’ (Sein/Werden) has been spared from speaking in this deÎnite metaphysical sense, precisely because of the fact that this sense is said in “becoming” and in “happening.” However, this is an occasion for letting a deÎnite trait of this kin of words speak in the other tone, namely, in the sense of the unusual, uncanny, and strange that over-comes (breaks through) in and as a turning. More speciÎcally, “weird” can say the Ïashing of the withdrawing allotting of the estranging “abroadness” of beǺng, which, in its abrupt coming, “strikes” the “who” of this “abroadness,”69 and in this manner “preordains” (namely, tunes to the truth of beǺng) the dimension of his dwelling as the wholesome sphere for the ensconced abiding of things. Consequently, we say (and coin): “to weird” now indicates the abruptness in which Ïashes the self-absconcing oլ-ground that in its halting withdrawing aլords the breakthrough of the truth of beǺng as the extraneous schismatic in-between into which the ordinary sphere of [beings]—the sphere of the now groundable—has already collapsed. Succinctly put: “to weird” now says the same as schicken. Accordingly, “the weirding” says die Schickung and “the weird” das Geschick, whereas “to worth” translates geschehen, and so on.70 But how are we to say Geschichte and geschichtlich? As mentioned above, in the Denkweg the genuine form of the word Geschichte is das Geschicht, in which das Geschick and thus the primary sense of schicken more audibly resound. Das Geschicht is the Ïashing that weirds a truth of beǺng together with the likely en-owned inbiding that suլers this truth, thus yielding a likely selfhood of man. This Ïashing, the between-fall of the oլ-grounding in-between as the “abruptness—steepness and fall—of grounding,” might be best said by adopting the word “weird” in its O.E. spelling “wyrd”: Ereignis, enowning, that is, the over-winning of beǺng as the full bidance of beǺng itself, is: das Geschicht des Seyns—we say: the wyrd of beǺng.71 2.4 RETURNERSHIP

Die Geschichte des Seyns: the wyrd of beǺng. In a manner that is commensurate with the nay-said word of the English mother-language (the oլ-grounding word whose grounding is Da-sein itself), this say seems to indicate what Beiträge names die völlige Ungewöhnlichkeit des Seyns gegenüber allem Seienden, “the utter non-ordinariness of beǺng over against all beings,”72 or, we may say, beǺng’s 43

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

downright unwontedness—its weirdness. Only the weirdness of beǺng can “set us out from beings [in the sense of [beings]] and set us—who are in the midst of beings, and besieged [or beset] by beings—free from this being besieged” (Contributions, p. 339).73 To this setting free (ent-setzen, “to deliver from a siege”) corresponds das Entsetzen as the ground-attunement of the experience of beǺng—more precisely, the ground-attunement of originating it by upholding (or out-standing) the truth of beǺng’s afaring bidance.74 Entsetzen, which coalesces with Erschrecken as a trait of the ground-attunement of the other onset, attunes in the sense of the startling horribleness,75 which only calls and strains into the leap into beǺng and the upright (or upstanding) raising—the upholding and grounding—of its truth. Since Entsetzen attunes the originating fare (Erfahrung) of upholding the afaring (Entfahren) of beǺng as Gefahr, we may translate Entsetzen with the English cognate of Gefahr, which, however, in English names an attunement, namely, fear.76 With this leap we Înally attain what we might call the “safe zone” or the “point of no return” for the stance of man in the other onset of thinking, and thus reach a crucial moment of what Emad calls the “liberating ontology” unfolding in Beiträge, and in particular in its last part, Das Seyn.77 Since, as Emad explains, the liberating trait consists in the “happening,” by which thinking is originally enowned as projecting-open the turning (die Kehre) that is beǺng’s swaying (WHC, p. 110 et sqq.), we shall now brieÏy characterize this ‘projecting-open the turning’ as returnership.78 The “point of no return” is the self-experience or self-knowledge of thinking (see WHC, p. 113 et sqq.) that grounds the unique stance of man as the “who” that Beiträge kens in the following manner: Der Mensch als der im ausgetragenen Loswurf Fremde, der aus dem Ab-grund nicht mehr zurückkehrt und in dieser Fremde die ferne Nachbarschaft zum Seyn behält. Man as the stranger in the outborne free-throw, who no longer returns from the oլ-ground and who in this strangeness [weirdness]79 keeps the far-out neighboring to beǺng. (HGA 65, p. 492; English translation, p. 346; translation modiÎed)80 However, this non-returning, as the Îrm returning unto the oլ-ground, marks the Îrst (albeit transitional) settlement of man unto the errancy of the other onset, in so far as the ground of the wyrd of the Îrst onset (i.e. man’s obliviousness of and beings’ forsakenness by beǺng)81 is the fact that “man was not capable of mastering the returnership [Rückkehrerschaft]” (Contributions, p. 319). What is the origin of this not-mastering and what does it imply? Answer: this origin is the Îrst onset as such, that is, the onset in so far as it withholds 44

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

its “onsettingness” (Anfänglichkeit),82 so that beǺng as projecting-open (as throw that releases and opens its own truth: Ent-wurf) denies itself in and as the assurgency of ̸̱̮̥̭ (emergence). Thus, beǺng itself denies the return to the oլ-ground, whose truth (i.e. ж̧̡̤̥̝̚) in the Îrst onset does not call for being grounded as such and thus, without the onsetting in-stress, falls prey to what is disensconced (das Entborgene). In fact, as a consequence of beǺng’s self-denial, the free-throw in which thinking man is to assume his being by holding himself (ъ̡̲̥̩) within the gathering (̷̧̟̫̭) that atones beings (i.e. what is disensconced) in their sphere of wholeness—this free-throw has, from the outset, an essentially limited scope, to wit, the scope deÎned by beingness as the cut-less, non-schismatic metaphysical supplement to “physical beings.” The failure (Versäumnis) of thinking in the Îrst “onset” is not a misperformance, but consists in the fact that the truth of the cut itself does not break (or break through) as the wanting openness of the in-stress and thus as the onsetting need of thinking. In other words, the free-throw sets man into the beingness of [beings]—a sphere that, no matter the extent to which it is thought as “other” over against the domain of beings, never attains the unique strangeness of wyrd. Accordingly, man as the rational animal, namely, the animal endowed with the competence of gathering (̧̡̙̟̥̩) this beingness, can never become the stranger who is wyrd. We must hear the strangeness of the withholding oլ-ground, which receives and shelters man as a stranger, as the extraneousness of the schismatic in-between, to which man’s being is oլered from its own onsetting, in so far as this being is weirded to take on the out-bearing of the openness of the oլground (Da-sein). This outbearing is originally en-owned by the extraneous itself in its own returning unto itself. Thus, this outbearing is intraneous to the extraneous, and in this sense belongs to it, in other words, the outbearing is own to the extraneous’s bidance in onlyness. “The stranger” is man’s being in so far as it has Îrmly taken on (though only in a foreboding) the onlyness of beǺng.83 The man who is the stranger returns to beings only from out of the unreturning belongingness of his being to the turning in beǺng as en-owning. On the other hand, the free-throw that deÎnes the scope of metaphysics necessarily implies the “not-being-able-to-hold to the oլ-ground of the freethrow,” and thus implies the “not-being-able-to-retain the return,” and “the forgetting of the returnership” (Contributions, p. 319), as a forgetting “von dem, was sich ereignete” (HGA 65, p. 453), which in the English translation (p. 320) reads thus: “[a forgetting] of what is enowned.”84 However, such forgetting amounts to a return to [beings], whose ungroundedness (i.e. the trait of contingent extancy indicated by writing “beings” in square brackets) is not suխciently broken in the on-settingness of the Îrst onset, so that the withdrawing onset never becomes Ïagrant as such. Therefore, this return implies the following: supplying a basis (a stable ground of beingness) to the cut-less self-suխciency of the extant, such that “being” is henceforth conceived as 45

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

an assuring, stabilizing “ground.” “Mastering the returnership,” then, means precisely in-biding in out-bearing the extraneousness of the openness of the in itself returning oլ-ground as the en-owning that over-wins beǺng. It means returning to and suլering (or: Îrmly returning unto) the returnership that is intraneous to the extraneousness of beǺng—and thus keeping (not for-getting) its far-out neighborhood, so as to return to beings, ensconced in their selfdom, with the keeping (preserving) touch of the stranger. Such not-forgetting (i.e. not letting go) the returnership Înds itself as having (and ever again Înding) its abode in (the return to) the oլ-ground, so that the biding of man is thrown-free and grounded in the estranging bidance of the oլ-ground itself. Hence, what is thus to be achieved in the daring of thought is “the freethrow and the grounding of man’s biding in the estranging of the open. Only now does being-wyrd (Seinsgeschichte) and the wyrd of man set on” (Contributions, p. 320 [Beiträge, p. 454]; translation modiÎed; my emphasis). The onset of wyrd Înally prepares the likelihood of beings getting their truth not in a groundsupplying return to the extant, but rather—thanks to the overcomingness of beǺng—in the “preserving of what is strange” (ibid.).85 This getting the truth for their selving by virtue of the grounded overcomingness of in-itself returning beǺng is what Heidegger calls: the return of things.86 The mastery of returnership thus consists, in the Îrst place, in inbiding in the oլ-ground so as to out-bear and raise the unprotected and unsustained openness of the returning-unto-itself as which bides the instress ‘beǺng,’ thus keeping its neighborhood, that is, the truth of beǺng, as the nearness itself for the return of things. Such out-bearing implies that the biding of man be shifted into the intraneousness to Da-sein and thus into the weirdness of the oլ-ground. The oլ-ground is the element whose turning unto itself stresses man’s biding to the keeping of beǺng, and in this manner transforms man into the keeper of its (scil. beǺng’s) truth: “being strikes man and shifts him into the transformation, into the Îrst winning, into the long loss of his biding. / This measuring of the errancy of biding, as wyrd of man, [is] independent of all history” (Contributions, p. 320; translation modiÎed).87 Parvis Emad’s book, which, in the variety of its approaches to diլerent “Jointures” of Contributions to Philosophy, as well as to the overall architecture of this treatise, has its core in the explication of returnership, remains Îrmly oriented towards the only sake of this path-book, and can thus rightfully bear the title, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy. However, remaining on the way to the say that breaks through in this treatise already implies the enactment of an out-standing returnership in the word of the errancy of biding. The bearing, attuned by fear, that measures this errancy, is grounded in what is, again, not an action of man, but a character of Da-sein that man may take on as a coming stance, namely: owning to the belongingness to beǺng. As its innermost and most onsetting trait, such owning implies the Îrmly returning alertness to beǺng that has the name of surrender. Surrender is not giving 46

OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING

oneself up and passively consigning oneself into the hands of some exterior power. It is the Îrm stance of owning thought in the transition to the other onset. However, “in the transition to the other onset” means: in the wyrd of the over-turn of man’s being to beǺng, when man—having already lost his metaphysical prerogatives88 and not having yet taken on the guardianship of beǺng—belongs to the unknown word of transforming errancy. Surrender abdicates any hold oլered by beings, and steadfastly sooth-says the denyingness of beǺng as the only sake of thinking. In surrender man becomes the stranger who is at home in the weirdness of beǺng, as the warden of its overcoming denyingness. The coming man abides as the returner into the weirdest nearness of the resconsing onset. To be wyrd is to soothe the soothing coming of beǺng.

47

CHAPTER 3

TRANSLATION, TRADITION, AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINKING

3.1 ONSET AND UNTERSCHIED

In 1955, in the context of a seminar in Cerisy-la-Salle, for which he had delivered, by way of introduction, the lecture Was ist das—die Philosophie?, Heidegger said the following:1 Insofern … die Sprache jedem Denken vordenkt, wird die Überlieferung der Philosophie notwendigerweise Übersetzung. Wenn es sich darum handelt, meine Schriften zu übersetzen, möchte ich dabei ein Urteil abgeben, das ein Prinzip äußert: Man soll ein primäres, möglichst genuines2 Verständnis der Sache geben: ob es mit Gebrauchswörtern oder in einer gelehrten Sprache geschieht, ist sekundär, und es ist vielmehr wesentlich, daß das Gedachte in eine andere Sprache produktiv übersetzt wird, z. B. das Wort “gewesen” als Unterschied zum “Vergangenen”. Es ist gleichgültig, welches französische Wort—sogleich oder in 10 Jahren—für die Übersetzung gewählt wird, sondern es kommt darauf an, das Wort der Sprache anzumessen, damit man den Unterschied gleich versteht, und daß dieser Unterschied möglichst als Samenkorn aufgeht und eine kleine PÏanze daraus aufwächst. In so far as … speech thinks in advance of any thinking, the tradition of philosophy necessarily becomes translation. When it comes to translating my writings, I would like to oլer a judgment that utters a principle: one ought to give a primary understanding, as genuine as possible, of the sake: whether this happens with commonly used words or in a learned language, is of secondary importance, 48

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

and it is rather essential that what is thought be translated productively into another language, for instance, the word gewesen as a schism with respect to das Vergangene. It doesn’t matter which French word is chosen—immediately or in ten years time—for the translation; what is important is to commensurate the word to the language , so that the schism is readily understood and this same schism is likely to be a grain that swells into the growing of a small plant. Apart from the Îrst sentence, which deÎes immediate understanding and thus is easily forgotten, the quotation seems to express a fairly ordinary standpoint concerning the task and scope of translation: who would not agree that a translation should give a genuine understanding, that it should be productive and readily understandable? Only the passage in which this standpoint is illustrated with an example (“das Wort ‘gewesen’ als Unterschied zum ‘Vergangenen’”) is slightly odd. Why does Heidegger say als Unterschied zu and not, as one would expect, im Unterschied zu, which would smoothly translate into “as distinguished from”? Indeed, what on the face of it is merely an odd expression, actually bears a key for reading the entire passage in a diլerent tone. The diլerence shows as soon as we realize that the expression als Unterschied zu literally implies that the word “gewesen” is itself and by itself that which the Denkweg names “Unterschied.”3 At a more attentive look, what is said in the very Îrst sentence actually anticipates the sense of that “odd” formulation. For it draws out the utterly uncommon dimension that sets the tone for what follows, namely, the dimension and tone of Unterschied itself as the one seed of the seminar, and thus the dimension and tone of beǺng-wyrdly thinking.4 As the second part of the sentence formulates an implication of the Îrst one, we must, to begin with, turn our attention to this Îrst part. What does it mean that “speech thinks in advance of any thinking”? Is speech here seen as being endowed with a “mental power”? No. Rather, the breaking of the Seinsfrage shows otherwise what we are used to calling “speech” and “language,”5 and to understanding, within the constraints of subjective contingency, as a matter of human communication and expression. In light of the Seinsfrage it appears that being speaks through speech as that which stirs the saying of speech itself, that is, the very showing and letting appear in which speech consists, namely, in the Îrst place, the showing of being itself. Thus, being originates, bears, and keeps a language’s likelihood of biding as the word of the en-saying of that which is, in other words, this language’s likelihood as a language of being itself and (only thus) toward beings.6 This stirring is itself ab initio broken to a being which might, in turn, overcome [thinking]7 man, thus breaking his thinking to the bearing of being itself and its truth. Being speaks to thinking and claims it for outspokenly sustaining that brokenness (i.e. Da-sein) so that it (i.e. being) 49

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

may bide in the openness that is utterly and solely its own. Speech “thinks in advance of any thinking” means: it has already said the Unterschied that claims for itself human thinking. When man thinks, he thinks what being has already said and left unsaid in the spoken and the unspoken. How are we to understand, though, that such saying and leaving unsaid, which is the biding of speech, is itself a thinking? In order to see this, it sufÎces that we bethink what thinking itself means in the Îrst place. In such bethinking, we attempt to let thinking appear as thinking, that is, we attempt to let it show as itself and as it selves, while we en-hear the very showing out in which this selving is sustained. Again, this en-hearing consists in out-holding the onset of the withdrawn beholding in which the showing out of the selving consists. Now, this very characterization seems to already provide us with a provisional answer to our question. For thinking is precisely this: showing, letting appear things themselves—that is, things in the fair roominess of their selving—thanks to the bearing of the withdrawn onset of that roominess in which the showing takes place. Thus, the saying and leaving unsaid, which constitutes speech as such, is itself a thinking, and indeed the original thinking. When man thinks, he seconds such thinking in steadily oլering to that which is fairly thought (i.e. “thought in advance”) in speech the smart8 bearing of the schismatic sooth that the biding in the open of what is fairly thought requires. Human thinking joins into the ensconcing of the truth of speech in that it hearkens the be-speaking dictions that bear the echo of the silent say of being. Only that which is fairly thought in speech can, in turn, be smartly en-thought in human thinking. It is no accident that the English language has the words “thank” and “i-thank,” which both say not only thanking but also thinking and thought. Thinking, the ownmost likelihood of man’s being, is the enjoined, over-owned letting appear that ensconces in the open the selfsame (lonesome) thank of speech. Fine, yet how are we to intend this “letting appear”? Perhaps as a weak version of causality? Again, the answer is negative, for letting appear is: clearing an openness for all appearing and disappearing, a-shining and ceasing to shine. As we have seen, the core of such letting is that it is anfänglich, that is, that it is itself an onset. This implies: the cleared openness is only the openness of the onset itself, so that the letting appear consists in nothing but the pure coming of the onset in and as and with its own openness. Thus, the letting appear, as it shows out into what is own, does in no way “touch,” let alone “act upon,” in short, it doesn’t exert any kind of force (not even the “force” of letting) on that which may, thanks to it, appear.9 In other words: between the letting appear and that which may, thanks to it, appear, there is no relation of causation. How can there be such a letting without any relation of the kind that can be stated, assessed, and therefore made? In order to see this, we need to turn more attentively to that in which the letting is said to consist, namely, the clearing of the onset’s own openness. 50

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

In the treatise Über den Anfang (HGA 70) we read: “Der Anfang ist das Ansich-nehmen des Abschiedes.”10 Before we attempt to elucidate what this says, we may note the following: a number of passages and formulations of this treatise (notably in the Îrst part, entitled “Die Anfängnis des Anfangs”) show the work of thinking (a work within speech and in the wake of its say) at the outmost extremity (Greek: к̦̬̫̩ [akron]) of what is to be thought, namely, the extremity where thinking itself is en-owned as the thinking of enowning (HGA 70, p. 40). The extremity, to which thinking has gone and goes (Greek: ̡̞̝̯Ӻ̩ [batein]) in a “last step” (HGA 70, p. 39), we may name: die Ab-Schiednis des An-fangs or, in a tentative translation, the oլ-breakingness of the on-set. Such thinking is thus acro-batic in the rigorous sense that its going bides and bears an ultimate ungrounded turning-point, namely, the still oլ-ground for the transformation of the spoken word. In such biding, thinking is claimed for obtaining and entertaining what has already been thought, but never outspokenly said, so that the outspokenness of the word, which implies what is ownmost to man, has to undergo a transformation. A short, though still scarcely suխcient way of indicating this transformation is this: the outspokenness of the word needs to transform itself from being the outspokenness of beings to being the outspokenness of being itself as Er-eignis.11 What is at stake in this transformation? This: the onlyness of a discontingent ж̬̲̚, the sheerness of an on-set and on-sway free from any reliance on the “nothingless” (HGA 70, p. 12), namely, on beings, as well as on any (itself nothingless) grounding supplement to beings. And again: what is that which in this attempt must be “acrobatically” en-thought and en-said? This: the irrevocable Îrstness of the cleared absconcing of the in-keeping12 of the on-catching on-set as it sets (or resconces) unto itself as the clear-kept inward schism of en-owned onlyness. This must sound awkward. It is indeed as awkward as is the word that ensconces the sourceness of the only source. It is by far not as overÏowing as this source. It is (or ought to be) as rigorous in saying this inkept overÏowing as the source itself will have thought it. Let us go back to the quotation that indicates the biding of Anfang: “Der Anfang ist das An-sich-nehmen des Abschiedes”: “The onset is the on-(itself-) taking of Abschied.” What is Abschied? Abschied is parting, departure, leavetaking, going away. How are we to hear this word when it speaks as a Denkwegdiction or schismatic diction? While in ordinary usage Abschied demands some kind of speciÎcation (who departs from whom or where?), it may also speak in what at Îrst one would call an “absolute” sense, but what in fact is simply the saying-itself of being as Er-eignis. Abschied is: the parting—and nothing else. This parting is discontingent, that is, it has the carrying tone and trait—the hard13 instress—of a clear-cutting cut, a clear-schisming schism, a clear-shedding shed (“cut,” “schism,” and “shed” being English echoes to what is said in the name Schied).14 The shed, keeping clear in slight aloofness, consists in the abrupt (or short) clearing of sheer going-into-absconcing and keeping-absconced, or 51

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

again: it consists in the abrupt clearing (or Ïashing) of the apartness of openly in-kept ab-sconcing. The clear-cut, on-drawn parting, which bides as the shed of cleared absconcing, is far-standing far-keeping (ousting). In this way Ab-schied is the very worthing (das Geschehen) in which rises and swayingly bides what the Denkweg calls Ab-grund—we say: oլ-ground. Thus the grounding of Ab-schied raises the Îrm oլ-ground as the en-owned roominess for the biding of world and things. Because the cut or schism or shed is the break of the oլ-breaking, in which the onsetting self-ensconcing of absconcement consists, we shall elect the word “oլ-break” as a tentative English translation of Ab-schied. But what does Abschied have to do with absconcing? And what is the sense of the mentioned An-sich-nehmen? Another passage of Über den Anfang (HGA 70, p. 10) reads thus: [Das Wort Anfang denkt] das An-sich-nehmen und Auլangen dessen, was im an-sich-nehmenden Aus-langen er-eignet wird: die Lichtung der Oլenheit, die Entbergung. Das An-sich-nehmen ist Entbergung und Verbergung zumal. / Der Anfang ist die Ereinigung dieses Einen. Der Anfang ist anfänglich das An-sichnehmen der Verbergung und d. h. des Ab-schieds … Der An-fang ist Er-eignis. Das Anfangen ist das Sichfangen und Sichauf-fangen im Ereignis selbst, als welches die Lichtung west, die durch den Schleier des Nichts überschleiert ist. / Der An-fang ist das Sich-auffangen in der Entgängnis zum Abgrund. [The word Anfang thinks] the on-(itself-)taking [-seizing/-drawing] and open-catching [inter-cepting] of that which, in the on-(itself)taking out-reaching, is en-owned, namely, the clearing [Ïashing] of the openness, that is, the disensconcing. The on-(itself)-taking is disensconcing and, together and more so, absconcing. / The onset is the en-onement of this one. The onset is as on-set [inceptually, oncatchily] the on-(itself-)taking of absconcing, that is, of the oլbreak … The on-set is en-owning. The onsetting is the selfcatching and selfopen-catching in enowning itself, as which bides the clearing that is overveiled by the veil of nothing. / The on-set is the selfopen-catching in the atgoingness unto the oլground.15 More important than immediately establishing dogmatic points of intelligibility in the German text, or appraising (on what already established ground?) the suխciency of the English translation, is that we gain a sense for the word of Ereignis as anfängliches Sagen. Such saying bides as the naying nothingness of (i.e. in which consists) being itself, and thus as the in-itself swaying freeness of (viz. with regard to) beings, in that it is Îrst and foremost and inwardmost the word of the self-saying of absconced en-owning. A 52

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

word not only—ontically—“suspended over an abyss,” but the word of the selfraising oլ-ground as (that whence grows) the ‘may-be’-ground toward beings in the whole.16 In fact, the just quoted passage indicates precisely the discontingent ground in which consists the aforesaid letting-appear. This is how the text continues: Das Wesen der Entbergung, darin Verbergung ist als Bergung und Verhüllung, hat seine Auszeichnung darin, dass es das Seiende zu ihm selbst erstehen läßt und so das Seiende als solches aufnimmt; und als dieses Aufnehmende ist es Grund in dem Sinne, wie wir in “räumlicher” Hinsicht von Vorder-, Mittel- und Hinter-grund sprechen. The biding of disensconcing, in which there is absconcing as ensconcing and concealing, has its schismatic distinction in this: it lets what is a being a-rise [astand] unto itself and thus takes in [enter-tains] beings as such; and as this in-taking [enter-taining] element it is a ground in the sense in which, in a “spatial” regard, we speak of a fore-, a middle-, and a back-ground. The onset as the out-reaching on-itself-taking (to-itself-drawing) of Abschied is further indicated as Untergang: “[Der Anfang ist] das Ereignis des Untergangs in den Abschied” (HGA 70, p. 20). Unter means both “under, below, beneath” (Latin infra) and “among, in-between” (Latin inter). What appears as a combination of given meanings shows in fact the original schismatic trait of this “preposition,” which tunes the likelihood of Untergang—whose common meaning is “set, decline”—as a schismatic word. In fact, only the translation into schismatic say allows us to hear the tone in which “unter sagt hier nicht ‘hinab’, sondern eher hinauf in die Bergung (‘unter’ den Bogenschwung ihrer Würde)” (HGA 70, p. 84)—“unter here does not say ‘down,’ but rather up unto the ensconcing (‘under’ the bow-swing of its worthiness).” Thus, Untergang in den Abschied does not imply that “something” goes down (sets, declines, goes under) into the parting or oլ-break. It rather indicates that the said on-itselftaking is the under-going unto the ensconcing schismatic temper (the clearcut, smart “asylum”) of the oլ-break, so that the onset-ness of the onset is in-kept in the in-between as the clearing of clear-kept discontingency, that is, freeness. Ereignis des Untergangs in den Abschied is the en-owning that consists in the rising of the only in-kept on-setting under the ensconcing of its own schismatic clearing. Anfang is Unter-gang. Anfang is Ab-schied. What have we gained? This: the sense in which Unter-schied itself bides as Anfang and An-fang, in turn, bides as Unterschied: “‘Unterschied’ [ist] das Wort des ‘Abschieds’ und des Untergangs” 53

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

(HGA 70, p. 32). The worthing of what we may call the “under-shed” (or “undercut”) draws on itself the clearing of absconcing in such a way that the openness of this clearing is the in-between for the interplay of world and things. However, what bides in this manner is beǺng as the word. This has an essential implication: in the wake of what is named in the schismatic diction Unterschied, all key words of the Denkweg, as words of the other onset, necessarily speak unter-schiedlich or schismatically, that is, they outspokenly ensconce the swaying of Unter-schied as the onset itself. In light of this insight we may now go back to the initial quotation. Heidegger talks about translating his writings. These writings are the transition to the other onset of thinking. He oլers an Urteil, that is, a schismatic criterion for what translating this transition into another language implies. The criterion utters a principle, literally, the “Îrst incepting” (prin-cipium), in other words, the onset itself, which is everywhere the only sake of these transitional writings that en-write Unter-schied. The schismatic sake is what ought to be genuinely understood in the other language. An understanding is genuine when it grows in and from the ingenite and ingenuous belongingness to the wyrdly speaking that has already thought the schismatic, discontingent engendering and worthing of beǺng’s truth, and thus has itself the character of a free generation. The sake is indeed what has been thought, das Gedachte, in that speech has thought it as the schism, so that the Denkweg can, in turn, en-ground it in the thinking that translates (“over-sets”) the speaking of the German language whereto it already and ab initio is, namely, unto the stillness of the oլ-break and thus into the swaying outspokenness of the onset. The thought schism is to be productively translated into the other language. The translation is productive in so far as Unterschied itself is pro-duced, that is, out-spoken and grounded in the open, thus setting the other onset apart from the Îrst onset, which is the forgottenness of Unterschied. However, this grounding is accomplished thanks to schismatic dictions such as gewesen. These dictions not only express, but are (i.e. ensconce the showing of) the schism as which the onset bides. The schism that the word gewesen itself is, schisms itself of (and thus clears as such) what is merely vergangen, that is, no longer actually contingent and, in this sense, “past and gone.” The outspokenness of the onset as Unterschied is thus the criterion for the productive translation of the writings of the Denkweg as writings of the over-going to the other onset. However, such productivity is likely only if the translating diction is commensurate to the speaking of the language, to wit, if it accords with the absconced wise and fair measure in which that speaking has already thought the schisming-showing Unterschied, so that the soundless schism can be heard in the resounding of that diction. Finally, a word in which a language awakens to the say of Unterschied can help to awaken this same saying in other coalescent words, and thus be a seed of the plant of Unterschied itself as the grounded growing of the wyrd of the other onset.17 54

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

3.2 TRADITION AS TRANSLATION

We have indicated in what sense “speech thinks in advance of any thinking.” Moreover, we have shed some light on the scope of Heidegger’s critical (i.e. schismatic) Urteil concerning the translation of his writings. Yet the implication of the Îrst sentence, which opens the dimension for the rest of the quotation, is still far from being clear: “Insofern … die Sprache jedem Denken vordenkt, wird die Überlieferung der Philosophie notwendigerweise Übersetzung.” What legitimates this implication and its necessary character? Clarifying the “insofern” requires that we say what Überlieferung and Übersetzung mean in beǺng-wyrdly thinking, in other words, that we give a schismatic translation of these words. As long as this translation is wanting, the sentence as a whole remains incomprehensible. What is there to say about Überlieferung? That there is something like a tradition, and in particular a tradition of philosophy, is a well-known fact. That this tradition occurs across diլerent languages and therefore, time and again, implies Übersetzung, is stating the obvious. However, the introductory text to the Cerisy seminar gives us a hint at another, much less “well-known” and obvious understanding of Überlieferung: Die Philosophie aber ist: ѓ ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝. Dieses griechische Wort bindet unser Gespräch in eine geschichtliche Überlieferung. Weil diese Überlieferung einzigartig bleibt, deshalb ist sie auch eindeutig. Die durch den griechischen Namen ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ genannte Überlieferung, die uns das geschichtliche Wort ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ nennt, gibt uns die Richtung eines Weges frei, auf dem wir fragen: Was ist das—die Philosophie? Die Überlieferung liefert uns nicht einem Zwang des Vergangenen und UnwiderruÏichen aus. Überliefern, délivrer, ist ein Befreien, nämlich in die Freiheit des Gespräches mit dem Gewesenen. Der Name “Philosophie” ruft uns, wenn wir das Wort wahrhaft hören und das Gehörte bedenken, in die Geschichte der griechischen Herkunft der Philosophie … [Wir gelangen nur so] zur Antwort auf unsere Frage, daß wir im Gespräch mit dem bleiben, wohin uns die Überlieferung der Philosophie ausliefert, d. h. befreit. Wir Înden die Antwort auf die Frage, was die Philosophie sei, nicht durch historische Aussagen über die DeÎnitionen der Philosophie, sondern durch das Gespräch mit dem, was sich uns als Sein des Seienden überliefert hat.18 However, philosophy is: ѓ ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ (hõ philosophia). This Greek word binds our colloquy into a wyrdly Überlieferung. Since this Überlieferung remains unique, it is also univocal. The Überlieferung, named by the Greek name ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝, which the wyrdly word 55

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ names for us, unhands for us the direction of a path, on which we ask: what is this —philosophy? Überlieferung does not give us over to the constraint of what is past and irrepealable. Überliefern, délivrer, is setting free, namely, unto the freedom of the colloquy with the fairly-biding.19 The name “philosophy,” if we truly hear the word and bethink what has been heard, calls us unto the wyrd of the Greek provenance of philosophy … [We attain] the answer to what we are asking [only] by remaining within the colloquy with that whereto the Überlieferung of philosophy over-gives, that is, frees us. We do not Înd the answer to the question of what philosophy is by means of historical propositions on the deÎnitions of philosophy, but through the colloquy with what has überliefert itself to us as the being of beings. From this quotation we learn: if Überlieferung means “freeing unto the colloquy with the fairly-biding,” then there is no such thing as a given “Überlieferung per se,” on which there may be diլerent historical perspectives. Überlieferung, let us say: handing over (or delivering), is only as geschichtliche Überlieferung, which in turn is only thanks to geschichtliche Worte. But Geschichte is also not given per se. Geschichte, and therefore Überlieferung, is likely only within and from out of that which frees unto the colloquy with the Îrst onset, namely, the other onset as attempted in beǺng-wyrdly thinking: Überlieferung is Geschichte and Geschichte is Anfang and Anfang is Ereignis. Therefore, there is no such thing as a genuine tradition of philosophy (i.e. of the Greek onset and the metaphysical thinking which occurred in its wake) if not within the (transition to the) other onset. This implies that within the scope of the Îrst onset there is no ingenuous tradition, which only takes place as the en-owning handing over unto that which fairly binds us. But such handing over is likely only if that which binds us is outspoken and bethought as such. That which binds us (the fair itself) is what Heidegger, in Was ist das—die Philosophie?, calls: der Zuspruch des Seins des Seienden. This originally binding, yet unheard, absconced Zuspruch is: die Lichtung (i.e. the hitherto unthought ж̧̡̤̥̝̚, now thought as such) and its biding, to wit, the onset as en-owning. What binds us, in that it has bespoken the humanity of man in its fairest onset, is what is heard as the only outspoken and outspokenly wanting sake of the other onset of thinking. We should not let the awkwardness of the conclusion that reads: “there has never been a tradition of thinking, the Denkweg is the Îrst example of such a tradition” confound us. Rather, we should acknowledge what it says in its simple rigor. What it says is the following: what we know as “tradition” is essentially historical and therefore never a colloquy that frees (viz. shows out) unto what is own. Such “tradition” remains—notably in the domain of metaphysics—exposed to Geschichte, but it never is itself outspokenly geschichtlich. The metaphysical tradition owes itself to (and has its likelihood in) the wyrd of 56

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

being, but it never thinks what frees unto a colloquy with the Greek onset. In a sense, it preserves the binding to the onset-ness (the on-catchy instress) of the onset, and thus to the likelihood of a handing over to the belongingness unto the oldest (fairest) bond. However, it does so as the striving for the beingness of beings, which is the forgottenness and obliviousness of beǺng and of its onset. If we call Überlieferung the thinking bound to the Îrst onset of thinking, which, for want of the outspoken en-owning of the onset, fails to hand over unto a genuine colloquy, then we must say: “Überlieferung rechnet stets nur historisch” (HGA 70, p. 183). However, the historical reckoning of such tradition is “incapable” of giving rise to an “ownsome” (eigentliche) Überlieferung (ibid.), that is, a handing over that shows out unto the growing of “what is own.” Historical tradition is not only “not the only” form of tradition, it is in fact not a tradition in the wyrdly sense of freeing unto “what is own” for our thinking manhood, namely, the grounding of Lichtung and thus of a human world on the earth. The likelihood of such a handing over is Îrst en-opened in the Denkweg. This is why the thinking of the Denkweg must ask: “Wenn aber Überlieferung Auslieferung würde in die Anfänglichkeit?”: “What if tradition became an over-giving [delivering, surrendering] unto the onset-ness [on-catchiness] ?” And this same thinking adds: “Diese Auslieferung muß sich aber ereignen aus dem Seyn und als Seyn und als Wesung der Wahrheit”: “However, this over-giving must enown itself from out of beǺng and as beǺng and as the bidance of truth” (ibid.). We have thus gained the beǺng-wyrdly (i.e. schismatic) sense of Überlieferung. What we commonly know and take for granted as “tradition” is in fact the obliviousness of this handing over. But how does this relate to speech and to Übersetzung? Was ist das—die Philosophie? gives a hint when it speaks of “das geschichtliche Wort ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝” as opposed to “der griechische Name ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝.” The wyrdly word ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ names and indicates the tradition named (though never outspokenly) by the Greek name ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝. The diction ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ is not geschichtlich just because it belongs to a past of which we are, in some way, the result and the continuation. It is geschichtlich only in so far as it is translated, handed over, and “over-set” unto the other onset thanks to a thinking that surrenders itself to enter-taining that onset, which in its turn needs the smartness of such surrendering thinking for the grounding of this onset’s schismatic truth. Thus, within the Denkweg (i.e. as geschichtliches Wort) ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ does not speak Greek. It speaks a Greek translated into Unterschied and therefore into the wyrd of being, in other words, it speaks a schismatic, a beǺng-wyrdly Greek. Only thanks to this translation can the Greek name free unto the coming of the fairly-biding; only thus it is Überlieferung that, in turn, sets free unto the bidance of beǺng as the onset itself, and therefore unto the on-catchy instress of the onset, namely, the oլ-break as das Er-eignis des Untergangs. 57

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

The sake of thinking itself—the other onset as Er-eignis, Lichtung, and Dasein—has led us from Überlieferung to Übersetzung, from tradition to translation. But, one might ask, isn’t translation about rendering in one language what has been said in another language? Indeed, but not only, and not in the Îrst place.20 In order to see this, we must Îrst gain a fair understanding of the provenance and the biding of speech and, consequently, of our languages in so far as their speaking says, shows, lets appear. In Über den Anfang (HGA 70, p. 25; my emphasis) we read the following: Im Sagen, das in seynsgeschichtlicher Herkunft das Ereignis des Anfangs sagt, waltet die “Ent-sprechung”. Die Sprache entstammt dem Abschied. Die Sprache antwortet dem Anfang. In the saying that, in beǺng-wyrdly provenance, says the enowning of the onset, holds sway “Ent-sprechung.” Speech stems out of Abschied, out of the oլbreak. Speech answers [speaks in answer to] the onset. This passage oլers a rigorous beǺng-wyrdly determination of speech. In light of what has been said so far concerning the onset, it implies the following: speech (not just human speaking), in its stemming out of Abschied and speaking in answer to the onset, is originally the realm of Unter-schied. In other words: Unter-schied breaks as speech, and speech is originally the breaking of Unter-schied on the thus weirded, inmost, and irrevocable ground-note of stillness. Thus, the say of Unter-schied itself is the inmost and most onsetting, most “on-catchy” word in the speaking of any language. However, in our languages there are words—prime schismatic dictions, already spoken or yet unspoken— in whose speaking the say of Unter-schied has Îrst coined its likely outspokenness, and which are thus in an eminent sense seeds of the plant of Unterschied. And there is indeed one word (such as the German word Er-eignis), that absconcedly keeps in the very likelihood of the inward swaying of Unter-schied as Anfang and Abschied, and which thus is the mother-word of the schismatic saying of a language. This mother-diction engenders the mother-language as such (and therefore the ownsome wyrd of a manhood) in that it Îrmly hands over the speaking of that language unto its wyrdly biding as a say of en-owning.21 In fact, by naming en-owning we have indicated precisely that which Îrst stirs, ultimately restoring it unto stillness, the saying of a mother-language as such. For this saying is a showing out and this showing out is an owning and the owning showing—the showing out into ownness—is the original thinking, or, in other words, the schismatic want22 of the stillness that, having originated it, claims the en-thinking and en-saying of the enowning say. 58

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

How does the Îrst sentence of our initial quotation sound at this point? “Insofern … die Sprache jedem Denken vordenkt, wird die Überlieferung der Philosophie notwendigerweise Übersetzung.” This now says: in so far as the ownmost biding of speech (namely, speech as Ent-sprechung),23 and therefore the original saying of a language, consists in thinking the schism for any human thinking,24 the handing over that frees unto the colloquy with the metaphysical tradition necessarily implies that philosophy—and this means, the philosophical names such as the name ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝—be in turn translated, that is, over-set unto the schism, so that these words may openly speak as words of the Îrst onset. This translating may take the form of a translation of these words into schismatic dictions of our own languages. However (and this is still an implication of that Îrst sentence), such handing over requires that another, primary handing over take place within the speaking of our languages, namely, the over-setting of this very speaking into the word of the in-between that enopens and grounds the other onset. That is to say: in the transition to the other onset—which implies Auseinandersetzung, that is, literally, the “each-otherout-and-apart-setting,” with the Îrst onset—thinking (independently of the number of languages involved) necessarily has the form of translation, namely, the form of Er-eignis as the over-setting on-catching that hands over unto Unterschied and therefore unto the ownmost, most inwardly in-kept and on-setting saying of our wyrdly languages. The silent enowning say that tunes the schismatic speaking of our languages is the original letting-appear that calls upon a thinking, which, stemming out of it, inwardly speaks in answer to it.25 Thus, if there is to be anything like a transition to the other onset of thinking by way of a handing over of philosophy, then this must necessarily take place as a translation into the speech that stems out of Abschied, and which therefore, in its innermost biding, is stillness (see HGA 70, p. 40). This implies the following: The tradition of metaphysics cannot be “overcome.” It can only be schismatically acknowledged as a tradition and thus surrendered unto the stillness of the other onset. Übersetzung, translation, is now the name of the biding of speech in the transition to the other onset of thinking. This form of saying implies diլerent, yet never entirely separate moments, namely:26 the translating as which takes place the grounding of the other onset in its ownmost say; the translating in and as which takes place the schismatic and therefore original positing of the Îrst onset as such (a translating that may involve that thinking says again in schismatic dictions of its own language, and thus otherwise, the words of the tradition of ̧̛̱̥̫̮̫̱̝ [e.g. ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ translated into its German explication, namely, Anwesenheit]); Înally, the translating in and as which takes place the Auseinandersetzung of the Îrst and the other onset, in which the positing of the Îrst onset plays forth into the grounding of the other onset, which, in a transitional (or over-going) path of errancy, again plays forth into a yet more original handing over and positing of the Îrst onset. Having indicated translation, in the sense of the handing over into the outspokenness of the onsetness of 59

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

the onset, as the fundamental trait of any saying in the transition to the other onset, Heidegger can now give an indication concerning the translation into other languages of the writings of the Denkweg: “Wenn es sich darum handelt, meine Schriften zu übersetzen…” How could this indication say anything else than that the translation of the Denkweg into another language must in the Îrst place be itself a translation in the outlined sense of a handing over unto the outspokenness of the other onset? In so far as translation is not about words per se (i.e. an outer form shaping a content), but about the Sache that stirs and tunes the saying of these words, at the turning-point of the over-going into the other onset the translation from (Denkweg-)German into another language concerns the very biding of that other language, and only thence, and in this sense, the speaking of single words. In so far as translation is from enowning, as enowning and unto enowning, the translation of words and phrases of the Denkweg implies the handing over of a language’s speech unto its biding as Ent-sprechung. In this manner translation must itself give a genuine understanding of the Sache, that is, retrieve and speak out what the speech of its own language, where it says the onset as such, has thought in advance. It must itself speak in schismatic words that openly indicate the setting apart of the Îrst and the other onset. It must itself be a handing over that, in a diլerent wise and tone, sets forth a free colloquy with the fairly-biding. It must itself be commensurate to the speech of its own language where this speech stems out of the oլ-break and speaks in answer to the onset. It must itself be Sage and thus a seed of the other onset. In one word: it must itself be the word of another wyrd-grounding Denkweg. 3.3 THE DENKWEG-SENSE OF INTERPRETATION

In conclusion we may brieÏy indicate a further implication of the Denkweg, which concerns what we commonly call “interpretation.” This implication reads as follows: just as there is no tradition per se, nor a translation per se, there is also no interpretation per se; just as both tradition and translation (in a wyrdly, not merely historical understanding) are likely only within the colloquy of the Îrst and the other onset, interpretation is also likely only within this colloquy; just as the Denkweg is the Îrst tradition and translation of the Îrst onset, which, within the domain of metaphysics, has never seen a genuine tradition and translation, the Denkweg also is the Îrst ownsome interpretation of the Îrst onset and as such the Îrst exemplum of Auslegung. In Über den Anfang (HGA 70, p. 148) we read the following: Das Auslegen ist dem anfänglichen Denken aufgegeben und zwar dem anfänglichen, das im anderen Anfang denkt und so in sich die Auseinandersetzung des ersten und des anderen Anfangs denken 60

TRANSLATION , TRADITION , AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINK ING

muß. Das erstanfängliche Denken ist noch kein Auslegen; es ist noch nicht seynsgeschichtlich. Auslegen is given as a task to oncatchy [onsetting] thinking, and precisely to the oncatchy [onsetting] thinking that thinks within the other onset and thus must think the each-other-out-andapart-setting of the Îrst and the other onset. The thinking of the Îrst onset is not yet an Auslegen; it is not yet beǺng-wyrdly. Our common sense has trouble acknowledging that “the thinking of the Îrst onset is not yet an Auslegen.” Is not everything interpretation? How can we reasonably deny that, for instance, Hegel interprets Heraclitus, or that Nietzsche interprets Plato? However, that saying is not about granting or denying what we are used to calling “interpretation” according to some unquestioned operative concept of it. It is rather about a suխcient understanding of what auslegen means in the Îrst place—not what it means “in general,” but what it can only mean for “us.” The only criterion for such an understanding is the onset itself. This criterion says: there is Auslegung when that which is laid out (or rather out-laid, ex-pounded) is set free and ensconced into its unexplainable onset (HGA 70, pp. 148–9): Jedesmal ist das Aus-legen das Heraus-legen dessen, was in sich, in seinem anfänglichen (anfanghaften) Wesen die Befremdung wahrt. Das Heraus-legen bringt ins Oլene, aber so, daß es dem Anfänglichen nicht die Befremdlichkeit nimmt, sondern läßt. Dieses einfache In-sich-Wesen-lassen des Anfangs hat den Charakter der Weg- und Fernstellung … Solches Fernstellen ist das sagende Öլnen des Inzwischen, ist das Sagen des Seyns selbst. / Das Auslegen hat in sich den einzigen Wesensbezug auf das Seyn, d. h. auf den Anfang, d. h. auf die Geschichte. Each time the Aus-legen is the out-laying of that which in itself, that is, in its oncatchy [onsetting] biding (in its biding as the temper of the onset), keeps the stranging strangeness. The out-laying brings into the open, but in such a way as not to take away from what is oncatchy [onsetting] the strangeness; on the contrary, the out-laying leaves to the oncatchy [onsetting] its strangeness. This simple letting-bide-in-itself of the onset has the character of putting away and far … Such far-putting is the saying opening of the in-between, is the saying of beǺng itself. / Out-laying has in itself, in its own biding, the only relation to the biding of beǺng, that is, of the onset, that is, of wyrd. 61

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

In the pages from which these quotations are taken, Heidegger is outspoken about how the task of wyrdly—and this means: wyrd-grounding—out-laying has no relation to historical interpretation and explanation.27 A sensible sign by which we can tell a genuine attempt at a wyrdly out-laying (and thus at a wyrdly handing over and over-setting) is the said Befremdlichkeit, namely, the “stranging strangeness” that the out-laying as en-owning sets free and keeps. This stranging strangeness belongs to the farness of the only on-set that holds sway as the setting apart and atoning in-between of its shed owndoms (Eigentümer), namely: the denied Îrst onset, that is, that which fairly bides as the over-rich accomplishment of metaphysics; and the withheld other onset, that is, the fairer still coming of (the fairly-biding in) pure soothing stillness. This strangeness is of the only onset in that the onset’s own schismatic biding is sheer ensconced awkwardness (awk-ward), namely, the in-kept at-goingness of the oլ-break. The strangeness, bespeaking the awkwardness of the onset and the weirdness of beǺng, consists in an essential trait of out-laying that Heidegger indicates when he names the criterion by which a wyrdly out-laying proves itself. This criterion is that the out-laying become überÏüssig, that is, “superÏuous,” “unnecessary,” “dispensable,” in the wake of that which is to be out-laid (HGA 70, p. 152). Hence, “die wesenhafte Beseitigung der Auslegung” (ibid.)—“the clearing away of out-laying that belongs to out-laying’s own biding,” indicates the likelihood of all “interpreting,” but also of all handing over and over-setting in the transition to the other onset. What is the trait of this clearing away? If this trait is to “let-bide-in-itself ” and to “put far,” the clearing away cannot consist in a mere “removal.” Rather, it must be a schismatic parting that in itself clears and frees. But then überÏüssig cannot, in turn, mean “dispensable.” What does this word say where Überlieferung and Übersetzung speak übergänglich? What does it say as a schismatic diction? It says: over-Ïuid and over-Ïuent, and thus, in the instant of en-owned under-going, ingrown unto the overÏowing stillness of the only onset. In the strangeness that tunes the transition to the other onset, stranged thinking speaks out as the word of the awkward, only to return unto the weirder still Ïuency of en-owning.28

62

CHAPTER 4

HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN To Parvis Emad To renounce or banish a new word or a new meaning of this word (no matter how foreign and barbaric it may be), when our language does not have an equivalent, or does not have it as precise, not having received it in that own and determined sense, is (and cannot be less than) to renounce and banish, and treat as barbaric and illicit, a new idea and a new concept of the human spirit. (Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone di pensieri, p. 2400)1

What follows is not and cannot be a “neutral” attempt to compare systematically the positions of two thinkers with regard to a certain concept or phenomenon named “Dasein.” In fact, such a comparison inevitably takes the form of a computation, and thus of an evaluation, of the compared terms. In order to compute and evaluate these terms we need to have previously seized them in a computable form, that is, as values. This is done by means of historical formats. The formated2 and thus computable terms are pure data, namely, given concepts depurated of their philosophical stress. In order to perform this formating seizure, our thinking self must have acceded to the will that wills the computability, and therefore formatability, of all sense, so that this sense may function as a willable value within the self-implementation of the pure will to will. So much for the supposed neutrality of systematic comparisons. Instead of carrying through such a comparison, we shall attempt to clarify the sense in which Dasein is not a concept, or a thought, we could assign to a particular thinker, but “the crisis between the Îrst and the other onset (Anfang)” of thinking.3 However, the clariÎcation requires that this crisis be not merely “known” and “expressed,” but actually said, that is, shown as a knowledge that language itself, here the English mother-language, has already left to be thought. Finally, the path leading towards a tentative English diction for Da-sein should show how little the task of translation, which is the same as the task of thinking, has to do with providing operative results, and how much it is, instead, a matter of venturing on the path itself.

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4.1 THE WORD DASEIN

The word Dasein was introduced in the eighteenth century as a German translation of the Latin existentia. Grammatically, it is a noun formed from the verb dasein meaning “to be there.” Where English, Italian, and French philosophy say, respectively, “existence,” esistenza and existence, German philosophy, when it starts speaking German, says either Existenz or Dasein, that is, “being there.” Hence, it is not surprising that we Înd the word Dasein throughout German philosophy: in Kant and in Hegel, in Schelling and in Nietzsche, in Husserl and in Heidegger. However, the sense in which anything is said to “be there” changes according to the metaphysical ground-stance of each thinker. Consequently, an enquiry entitled, for example, “Kant and Hegel on Dasein” would have to show how the sense of Dasein is modiÎed according to the ground-thoughts of these two thinkers, namely, their respective determination of the being of beings. On the other hand, Heidegger’s use of the word stands out in at least two respects: Îrst, Dasein here seems to have a more speciÎc sense than that of the Latin existentia. Secondly, in this more speciÎc sense it is not merely a received concept undergoing a certain interpretation and thus Înding its place within a philosophical system; rather, it is itself one of the names of the ground-thought of this thinking. Indeed, in Heidegger Dasein does not have the generic meaning of “existence,” but refers to the being of man and only to that: man is said to exist, but in a unique sense of “existing.” A key passage of Being and Time4 reads thus: “Das ‘Wesen’ des Daseins liegt in seiner Existenz”: “The ‘Wesen’ of Dasein resides in its existence.” In this sentence, Wesen, Dasein, and Existenz speak diլerently than they do in the tradition of philosophy.5 The diլerence is not merely the result of a diverging terminological choice, but the consequence of the rise of a new phenomenon. This is why in one of his lecture courses on Nietzsche Heidegger states: “Was wir mit ‘Dasein’ bezeichnen, kommt in der bisherigen Geschichte der Philosophie nicht vor”: “That which we indicate with the diction ‘Dasein’ cannot be found in the hitherto wyrd of philosophy.”6 Meanwhile, it seems that we have, so to speak, in passing, already given an answer to the question implicit in the title “Husserl and Heidegger on Dasein,” namely the question: “What does Dasein mean, respectively, in Husserl and in Heidegger?” The answer reads more or less as follows: while in Husserl Dasein indicates the existence of any being whatsoever in a sense of existence that is to be determined in its pure intentional constitution, in Heidegger Dasein designates the peculiar being of man, and it does so in a sense that, moreover, proves to be crucial for the one and only question of his thinking, namely, the more general question of “being itself.” However, if this answer is correct, there seems to be hardly any point in jointly discussing the meaning of Dasein in these two thinkers. Once it is seen that, in using this word, Husserl and Heidegger indicate two diլerent matters, there is not much left to be gained from contrasting the two positions. 64

HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN

However, despite its correctness, the answer is insuխcient. It is insuխcient in that it takes an external standpoint vis-à-vis the question. From this standpoint, we compare two positions relatively to a concept named Dasein, of which we know that “somehow it means existence.” But where exactly is this standpoint located? Can there be an external standpoint to this matter? Certainly not, if the question is to be a philosophical one. As a matter of fact, philosophy is precisely the instant when there is no more external standpoint. Philosophy begins where any such standpoint has collapsed.7 For philosophy consists in an interrogative stance that, irrupting in the middle of wavering contingency, and thus of the eternally undecided and the inÎnite stand- and viewpoints that are based on it, sustains the want of that which provisionally we may call a schismatic decision. Philosophy is the schismatic instant, and therefore has no external standpoints that could serve as a basis for historical vistas or the scanning scrutiny of concepts. Hence, the answer we just gave to the question concerning the “use” Husserl and Heidegger “make” of the word Dasein is not philosophical. Why? Because we were implicitly relying on an undecided, merely given, operative sense (i.e. a format) of “existence,” a sense that does without the schism which in the Îrst place asks for the assenting philosophical word in order for a reign of sense (a world) to arise. Philosophy sustains the schismatic decision that yields the sense in which anything is given in what it is and in the manner in which it is. In other words, philosophy belongs to, and thus haunts and heeds, the awareness of the initial giving that not only lies in all givenness, but silently transforms it. 4.2 HUSSERL ON DASEIN AND THE SCOPE OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY

All of a sudden, we are set in the middle of things. In fact, givenness, being given, Gegebensein, is in Husserl a synonym of Dasein. For Husserl, philosophy is a decision concerning the sense of the natural, unreÏected givenness of things. This decision originates in phenomenological ц½̫̲ҟ (epochõ) and reduction, that is, in the methodical a priori element of evidence. Evidence as a norm-giving methodical principle means: bringing into view the transcendental constitution of the sense of things in its (i.e. of this constitution) pure self-givenness. Husserl uses the words da, daseiend, Daseiendes, and so on, chieÏy for the givenness of the world in the general thesis as carried out in the natural stance. For instance, in Ideas we read the following: alles aus der natürlichen Welt erfahrungsmäßig und vor jedem Denken Bewußte, trägt in seiner Gesamtheit … den Charakter “da”, “vorhanden”.8

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anything belonging to the natural world and conscious [i.e. given to consciousness] in the form of experience, before any thinking takes place, bears, in its gathered entirety, … the character “da,” “vorhanden.” Dasein, or, which for Husserl is the same, Vorhandensein, is the achievement of a thesis (i.e. a position, a positive act), in the Îrst place of the position we constantly perform, before any thinking takes place, in the natural stance, that is, by the mere fact of being the conscious beings we are. But there are also other positions. For instance, in the arithmetical stance we obtain the Dasein of the arithmetical world with its arithmetical objects. This peculiar positive or thetical stance coexists with the one that posits the natural world. Moreover, since Dasein is existence (i.e. “positedness”) in the light of positive consciousness, it is, strictly speaking, the name of a relation, namely, the relation between man and the world. Consequently, Dasein indicates a certain manner of “being there” of beings together with a “being there” of man—here, the “being there” in the form of the naturally positing consciousness of natural experience. The sense of phenomenological ц½̫̲ҟ, as a decision concerning the natural conscious Dasein, is to refrain from straightforwardly carrying out thetical acts, in the Îrst place the position of the natural world. This counternatural refraining (or abstaining, holding oլ, inhibiting, putting out of play) interrupts the exclusiveness of the general thesis. However, the negative sense of this interruption—the fact of saying “no” to the position of the natural world (viz. the fact of holding back from this positing)—consists itself in an eminently positive phenomenon. This phenomenon is the breaking, or, we shall say, the irruption of the dimension of pure transcendental intentionality, that is, the realm of apodictic evidence. The irruption of this dimension is positive in an original sense, in that it primarily establishes, or “ur-posits,” (and in this sense decides) the likelihood (Möglichkeit) of the natural position. The interruption of the relative evidence of the general thesis and the irruption of transcendental or absolute evidence are the same. ь½̫̲ҟ therefore means: allowing the irruption of the realm of absolutely positing evidence.9 This irruption implies a detachment from natural positivity, that is, from natural Dasein. The detachment is such that it leaves the givenness and that which is given unchanged, literally untouched. And yet, nothing is as it used to be. In fact, everything now appears in the light of its transcendental constitution within the gathered entirety of consciousness. Everything is now overtly immanent in transcendental subjectivity, this immanence being either noetic (reell) or, in the case of that which transcends consciousness, noematic (ideell).10 The da-hood of the natural world is now supplemented (in a sense that shall soon be speciÎed) by the absolute da-hood of experiencing life in the modality of abstinence. As a consequence, the natural faith in the being of the world is not any more merely da, but, Husserl says, “mit da,”11 that is, 66

HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN

it is “there”—now as a “mere phenomenon”—together with the sight of pure experience in which it is seized. Hence, Mit-da-sein is the trait of phenomenality of all natural objects as such. The supplementation accomplished thanks to phenomenological ц½̫̲ҟ can thus be characterized as a shift of the da-character of the being of things from the da-hood of natural positivity to the da-hood of evident or absolute positivity, or again, with an ever shorter formula, as a shift from da to selbst-da, where the Îrst, natural da does not disappear, but becomes mit da. As we shall see, this shift, which is constitutive for the self-being of things, is the liberation of the da-character itself that before was, in a sense, caught in (and covered by) the straightforward natural stance. The beginning of §24 of the Cartesian Meditations,12 in which Husserl characterizes the meaning of evidence, allows us to Îx this shift with his own words: Im weitesten Sinne bezeichnet Evidenz ein allgemeines Urphänomen des intentionalen Lebens …, die ganz ausgezeichnete Bewußtseinsweise der Selbsterscheinung, des Sich-selbst-Darstellens, des Sich-selbst-Gebens einer Sache … im Endmodus des “Selbst da”, “unmittelbar anschaulich”, “originaliter” gegeben. In the broadest sense, evidence indicates a general original phenomenon of intentional life …, the eminent manner of consciousness the self-appearance, the self-positioning as itself, the self-giving as itself of a thing … in the Înal mode of “itself da,” “immediately intuitive,” given “originaliter.” If it is true that Dasein implies a relation of man and world, the detachment from natural Dasein must result in a transformation of this whole relation. The transformation that takes place thanks to the lift-oլ (or the free-throw) from the general thesis is the translation of all relations into structures of pure intentionality. As a consequence of this detachment, my own Dasein as a psycho-physical (i.e. animal) human being is inhibited in its exclusive natural validity in favor of the open abiding (Anwesen) of the pure self-reÏecting transcendental I. In other words, a sort of de-animalization takes place. The structures of pure intentionality articulate the realm of evidence, which, in turn, is sustained by the evidencing eye of transcendental consciousness. The verb “evidencing” indicates the act in which evidence itself consists. In this sense we say: evidence is evidencing, and that which ultimately evidences, and therefore is the ultimate, absolute evidence, is the pure I, that is, the original and originating, universally constituting subject. Hence, evidencing is the transcendental structure of the natural positive acts. The transcendental I is the absolute universal ̡Ѩ̠̫̭ (eidos) for all ̡Ѧ̠̣ (eidõ) as evidences. As a consequence, the relation between absolutely subjective evidencing and intentional 67

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evidence is, in a formal sense, the same as that between the idea of the good and any single idea in Plato.13 What exactly happens in the shift of Dasein from natural to pure, from naïvely thetical to explicitly transcendental, from pre-phenomenological to phenomenological? A suխcient answer to this question requires in the Îrst place that we further characterize natural Dasein as it appears within our asking. Therefore, the next question is: what precisely does Husserl mean with “the character ‘da’”? How are we to understand this character borne by the entirety of beings as such? As mentioned earlier, Husserl uses the words da, vorhanden, gegeben synonymously. However, these words are not at all equal. In fact, gegeben says more than vorhanden, and da, in turn, says more than gegeben. If vorhanden indicates the mere contingency (as a manner of the concreteness) of a thing,14 gegeben suggests that this concreteness has a provenance, that is, that it owes itself to and rests on a giving. However, gegeben, in turn, does not say anything about the speciÎc character of this provenance or the nature of the giving. This is, on the other hand, precisely what the word da does. In its primary sense,15 the German word da indicates the Ïagrant clearance (or simply the Ïagrancy) in which anything may show itself as itself, from itself and by itself, in which it may itself stand and rest in its selfhood, in short, the clearance by virtue of which anything may itself selve.16 In other words, in da speaks the trait of this “may” for (i.e. in favor of) selfhood, and therefore also the element in which something like an ur-posited self-giving, that is, evidence, may take place. Anticipating what will be shown below in the elucidation of the dimension that the Denkweg names Da, we can say that da, as the clearance of the “may” for any showing, indicates two originally related traits: (1) pure, discontingent (unseizable and unseizing) towardness or favorableness (i.e. a liking) with regard to the likely selfsame abiding of things; (2) the in-itself wanting truth of this towardness, namely, this truth’s want of being sustained (i.e. of being, in turn, liked or be-lieved) precisely in its seizelessness. Being thus characterized as the liked liking of the likely, the “may,” whose Ïashing clearance is indicated as da, can also be called likelihood.17 As we shall soon see, evidence is itself likely only on the ground of the forgottenness and unmindedness of this likelihood as such, and therefore of the sake that Heidegger eventually names das Da. It is by no means a contradiction if we say that, while evidence is likely only on the ground of this forgottenness, the latter, once it becomes Ïagrant, implies the unlikelihood (Unmöglichkeit) of evidence as the truth of beings.18 In the quotation from Ideas we Înd a trace of this forgotten and unminded may-element. We Înd it in the brightness and light—in this case, the natural light—of consciousness: “anything conscious, Husserl says, bears the character ‘da.’” The detachment described as an interruption of the general thesis and as the breaking of the realm of apodictic evidence liberates the light of consciousness, which, as long as it is trapped in the natural relation of Dasein, 68

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remains invisible as such. The name of the liberated light of consciousness is: apodictically evidencing evidence. In the realm of evidence, the Dasein of the world is liberated into its pure intentional constitution, while thinking is, in turn, freed into its highest self-reÏective clarity. Both that constitution and this clarity are absolute. Hence, phenomenological ц½̫̲ҟ and reduction consist in a coming-to-itself of transcendental subjectivity, which initially liberates, successively explores, and Înally secures the pure da-character of beings in the whole, that is, the absolute light of consciousness in which they appear. At this point, it becomes even more urgent that we gain a suխcient insight into the da-character itself. For it is this character that the meditating eye becomes in a certain manner aware of and minds, and that, in its pure form, is the very element of eidetic phenomenology. We said before that, in the triad of (apparent) synonyms vorhanden—gegeben—da, da is richer than gegeben, which, in turn, says more than vorhanden. Nevertheless, as we shall now see, it is in fact the character “vorhanden” that will allow us to identify the decisive trait of Husserl’s understanding of “being there.” It can be shown that it is this character that—in a manner that is as kept from being minded as it is critical—determines the sense of da-hood and thus the pure element of evidence, and therefore, Înally, the entire scope of transcendental phenomenology.19 In formal terms, we will conclude that the traits of the da-character necessarily only supplement the vorhanden-character and the kind of givenness this character implies. Although it adds a “light” to mere Vorhandensein,20 the supplementing is constrained within this very manner of being. In other words, the da-character fundamentally retains the trait of Vorhandensein. Let us look at this matter more closely. Once again: what is concerning Husserl’s thinking when he says: all beings as such bear the character “da,” “vorhanden”? I shall tentatively, and speciÎcally with regard to the guiding character “vorhanden,” call this concern “(natural or pure) contingency.” In the present context—and it is of crucial importance that this be understood and kept in mind—the sense of “contingency” is diլerent from the traditional philosophical as well as from the ordinary meaning of this word. Thus, contingency here does not refer to that which happens by chance or depends, that is, “is contingent,” upon something else, and therefore is never essential. In other words, “contingent” is not to be understood, as is usually the case, in opposition to “necessary,” “substantial,” or “absolute.” Instead, we now hear the word “contingent” (Latin cum + tangere) as “being (already) contiguous, being (already) in contact.” Contingency is now the name for a manner of being (and precisely for a manner of concreteness or Wirklichkeit) that consists in a peculiar contiguity, namely of beings as such and man as such. In turn, this contiguity consists in an impact that implies the staying away of what we shall call nearness.21 The nearness that, in the sphere of contingency, stays away (i.e. withholds itself), is the open, impregnable nearness between who man may be and what beings themselves may show as. The nearness of this sheer “may” is, as we can now say, the nearness of sheer 69

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likelihood. The staying away means: the nearness refuses to aլord itself (not “in general,” but) in its own on-setting “light,” that is, in a Ïagrancy claiming to be grounded as such and in its own right.22 Where nearness stays away, the encounter of (contingent) man and (contingent) beings is an impact or clash. This clash, which is the same as the refusal of nearness, is hidden, and this means: it shows the trait of an itself forgotten absconcedness (Verborgenheit). More precisely, the clash does not show itself as what it is, namely, as that which absconcedly holds sway and tunes thinking where contingency is broken, but not broken in a suխcient manner. The rigorous determination of this insuխciency is: the breaking (the schism) itself does not Ïash (i.e. become Ïagrant) as such, and thus is not grounded, in its own truth, as the onset.23 With reference to the now elucidated phenomenon we shall speak of the hidden clash (or impact) of contingency.24 This hidden clash determines, in diլerent manners, all metaphysical thinking. In the domain of insuխciently broken contingency, man touches beings as such and beings concern man as such, so that the two are intertwined in each other’s being. However, precisely the inter, the in-between of this intertwining, is initially and ultimately consigned to the relation of the self-contained25 givenness of beings and the self-contained givenness of man (e.g. man’s being as the contingent subjectivity of consciousness). As a consequence, the in-between—namely, the nearness itself—now only Ïashes as a character of self-contained beings, that is, as a supplement to their self-contained being. This Ïashing is what our tradition knows as the light (lumen) in which beings appear and are seen as such, that is to say, in their being or, as we must more rigorously say, in their beingness. However, the nearness that Ïashes from the contingent intertwining of man and beings not only refuses its own sway, it even hides this refusal as such. When we speak of the hidden impact, or clash, of contingency, we are not referring to an ontical contact between given things and given thinking beings. Rather, the indicated phenomenon pertains to the “natural” undecidedness of sense into which any manhood as such is cast. In the Îrst onset of thinking, whence stems the metaphysical schismatic decision on the givenness and therefore on the da-character of beings, the clash of contingency is decided (and thus broken) in a unique manner, which, in an essential sense, remains forever enigmatic. In fact, contingency now holds sway, in the described hidden manner, within the schismatic decision in which the Îrst onset of thinking consists. This constellation can be indicated through the following traits, which are critical for our attempt at clarifying the scope of transcendental phenomenology: (1) in the prevailing of the hidden impact of contingency, the decision (i.e. the schism) refuses its open awareness,26 and therefore does not call for an acknowledging human stance in this awareness; (2) as a result of its keeping itself (viz. its remaining contracted) in unawareness, the decision gives rise to a sphere of concreteness constituted as an opposition, 70

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that is, a standing against each other, of man in his thinking and the gathered wholeness of beings in their beingness. This shows how the hidden impact of contingency, if we understand it as “acting” within the decision, decides the givenness and the sense of Dasein as a relational—or, in its pure form, intentional—phenomenon. As a result of the prevailing of this impact, the dacharacter of beings is precisely, as Husserl says, a character of beings, and it does not cease to be a character of beings even in its pure form. Why not? Because the interruption of the general thesis and the irruption of evidence never reach back into that which refuses and keeps itself in the initial decision. On the contrary, this interrogation and this interruption are what they are precisely within the “sphere of decision” granted by and as this refusal. However, what exactly does it mean that da is a character of beings? It means that this character emanates from or, as we said, is a supplement27 of beings that are themselves undecided, unschismed, that is, beings not broken unto the oլ-breaking tentative clearance that consists in the open want of a schismatic decision (a decision that does not immediately concern beings), in which the schism itself is to be raised and borne as the only ground. These beings are self-contained in that they only deal with one another, but never as themselves. They are beings for whom the explicit grasp of their da-hood is but a posterior grounding of an itself unschismatic subsisting. It should be borne in mind that, when we say “undecided,” “unschismatic,” and so on, this does not imply an utter lack of decision. It rather means that the decision remains contracted in the hidden impact and in the own light and brightness of this impact (the light that eventually becomes the lumen naturale), and that therefore the truth and awareness of the schism remain ungrounded.28 Let us resume: the schismatic decision that gives rise to philosophy in the sense of metaphysics consists in a breaking that is in fact an abrupt refusal of the original nearness of the “may.” This implies that the decision is left in the grip of the hidden impact of contingency. The abrupt refusal is, however, a Ïashing of the schism itself. This Ïashing grants a sphere of brightness in which beings show as being given, that is, as having their provenance in a certain form of being, or again, as having the ground of their self-showing in a Ïashing evidence (namely, the Ѣ̠̙̝ [idea]). This provenance and this Ïashing, though, are already seized in a contiguity in which beings are extant as a stock, in other words, they are left in the grip of the hidden impact of contingency and therefore forsaken by the schismatic decision. Thus, the character “da,” once it is obtained as evidencing evidence thanks to the detachment from natural contingency, cannot but itself retain the essential trait of this contingency, that is, this character is, in turn, forsaken by the onsetting schismatic “may.” As a consequence, the da-character29 of pure consciousness and eidetic intentionality is itself absolutely contingent (in the literal sense of its constituting an absolute contingency), while the pure constitution of givenness remains a subjective contingent grounding of contingency. In asking for 71

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“the things themselves,” thinking Înds the absolute contingency of evidence (the ̡Ѧ̠̣ qua pure possibilities), and necessarily leaves the schismatic decision itself unthought. Why necessarily? Because the schism-forsakenness and schism-obliviousness is, as such, constitutive of the da-character (i.e. the givenness) from which the enquiry sets out and which eventually it obtains in its pure form. Hence, the schism does not break as the sake of thinking. Our provisional conclusion is that phenomenological ц½̫̲ҟ consists in a detachment from the immediacy of the impact—the naïve general thesis of that which appears as facts (the transcendent Zustände or “states of things”30)— but does not and cannot know a suխcient initial detachment from the clash of contingency. Therefore, contingency remains the fundamental trait of all pure structures that are laid open in evidence. For a phenomenological critique of transcendental phenomenology, this implies that Husserl’s decision draws its likelihood from the forgottenness of the only original decision, namely, the schism itself. Hence, the ж̬̲ҟ (archõ) that is eventually found in the transcendental ego is a contingent principle, and thus not capable of founding the element of self-giving or self-showing of things, namely, the element (or dimension) Da. That which in Husserl constitutes the da-character, that is, the ultimate daness of the transcendental self-giving ego (or monadic transcendental genesis), has the ground-character of a self-constituting, self-evidencing substance conÎned to the (“enlightened”) sphere of contingency. When Husserl says that the self-constitution of the transcendental I is a reÏection having “the essential character of an evidently irremovable thesis of the Dasein,”31 this thesis is in fact the self-positing of an absolutely indubitable contingency. The pure Dasein of transcendental phenomenology is ultimately the self-experience of self-constituting selfhood of the ur-positing transcendental I. In turn, the I in its evident self-experience is the absolutely contingent element, the stable uphold for the apodictic self-givenness, or the character “Selbst da,” of all intentional objects, that is, of beings in the whole. Husserl’s phenomenology is therefore an absolute transcendental self-reÏection for the sake of setting the absolute subjectivity of consciousness as the absolutely stable ground of contingency of the absolutely evident Dasein. Before turning to Heidegger’s thinking of Da-sein and the elucidation of its crisis-character, we can further prepare this understanding by brieÏy considering the following question: in what sense, if at all, does the character “da” show the trait of Înitude? In other words: is there, in the sphere deÎned by this character, a Înitude of man, or even a Înitude of being, or, Înally, a Înitude of man within the Înitude of being? Husserl’s transcendental idealism shows a trait of all post-Cartesian metaphysics and, in fact, of metaphysics as a whole, to wit: the attempted step back from the immediacy of contingency—the immediacy of ̯Қ ̱̰̮̥̦қ (ta physika)—results in the absolute contingency of an absolute ̷̱̰̮̥̦̩ (physikon), that is, here, transcendental subjectivity as “das einzige absolute Seiende,” “the only absolute being.”32 This step of thinking 72

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Înally overcomes what the transcendental-phenomenological description of the natural stance recognizes as a “Înite” character of givenness, namely, the fact that the objects of the natural world are given in Abschattungen or, as a suggested English translation reads, “oլ-shadings.” However, the scope of this Îniteness (“If I look at this object from one side, I cannot at the same time see the other sides,” etc.) is from the outset contained within the concept of horizon (here, the horizon of potential actual perception), which helps to form the idea of a conscious totality of perception constituted of partly dark and partly lightened regions, or, which is the same, of partly actual and partly potentially actual perceptions. This implies that, here, Îniteness is merely a default of actuality, in other words, it is not a trait of being as such, but a privative phenomenon within a sphere of being uniformly determined as contingency. As a consequence, the “Îniteness” encountered in the natural da-hood can be overcome by virtue of a lift-oլ that, exceeding natural contingency, yields the pure region of consciousness. In fact, the lift-oլ shifts the oլ-shaded “givenness to intuition” to the status of Mit-da-sein, thus obtaining pure da-hood. This implies that the being of pure consciousness does not depend on any reality,33 or, which is the same, that the immanence of the transcendental I knows no oլ-shadings; in other words, it is an absolute actuality. Husserl’s idea of the absolute foundation of the subjectivity of consciousness is thus an idea of total apodictic evidence and clarity implying a total seizure and assurance— thanks to a peculiar form of knowledge—of the contingent world, that is, of all reality or nature.34 The possibly inadequate degree of clarity and the necessary factual limitation of this evidence due to the essentially inÎnite horizon of the transcendental sphere of sense constitution does not alter the non-Înite character of this idea. What is at the heart of Kant’s critical transcendentalism (namely, the reliance of thinking on what is given in intuition, so that thinking itself is at the service of intuition) and grounds the Înite stance of man over against the given and, in this sense, Înite being of things, has Înally no echo in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. On the other hand, the reference to Kant and to the question of Înitude may bear a clue to what arrested Heidegger’s attention, in the sphere of his own asking, in Husserl’s concept of categorial intuition, that is, the intuition of being. 4.3 HEIDEGGER ON DA-SEIN AND THE SCOPE OF THE SEINSFRAGE

Let us now turn to Heidegger’s thinking of Dasein. How can we make the transition? Where should we start looking for diլerences and analogies? Despite the introductory remarks on comparison and its presuppositions, we risk once again falling prey to the reÏex of historical computation. Therefore, the Îrst thing to be said and brought to mind is that there is no likely “transition” from “Husserl’s” Dasein to “Heidegger’s.” The reason for this is that within 73

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the horizon of the Dasein of transcendental subjectivity, there is no way out from the absolute contingency of evidence. On the other hand, the sense of Da-sein thought in the Denkweg is precisely this: the onsetting, abrupt relief from contingency in favor of the now Ïagrant already broken onset that had been threatening and, in a manner of speaking, vexing itself in that and as that contingency (for indeed any tone and manner of contingency obtains its temper from being itself as the onset).35 This Ïagrancy implies not only contingency’s (having already) collapse(d), but its being left to itself and thus held oլ from occupying the impregnable onset of thinking.36 This is why there is no way of Înding an access to Da-sein by moving from the stance of transcendental phenomenology. Any step one might take from this stance—for instance, by indicating a new “aspect” or an unthought-of presupposition of the Dasein of evidence—can only lead to yet another form of contingency. The peculiar da-hood, for the sake of which transcendental phenomenology thinks, cannot know what has been called the “element Da.” In fact, transcendental phenomenology has its likelihood in this element’s keeping itself from awareness or mindedness. The consequent unlikelihood of indicating the concern of Heidegger’s thinking from within the scope of and on the basis of Husserl’s subjectivity should be borne in mind when reading Heidegger’s own elucidation37 of the relation between transcendental evidence and the clearing (Lichtung), which is indicated as the coming sake of thinking. In explicit reference to Husserl, Heidegger says that only the clearing or openness—the Da—in the Îrst place grants any evidence the fair clearance (das Freie) in which it may sway. However, this hitherto unthought openness is not to be understood as a presupposition of evidence, to wit, as a structure of the constitution of sense that, once it has been unearthed, needs to be added to the self-constitution of subjective transcendental genesis “as we know it.” It cannot be understood thus, because any presupposition of (i.e. claimed by) contingency is necessarily itself a form of contingency, and therefore can never be the contingency-free element that Heidegger calls Lichtung or Da. If there is no likelihood of turning toward Da-sein from within a thinking of transcendental Dasein, the opposite, on the other hand, not only is likely, but has indeed already taken place. In fact, the preceding interpretation of the Dasein of evidence arose from and was entirely tuned by the hitherto unthought Dasein. The attempt at grounding transcendental Dasein in its own onset, guided by the clear foreboding of the “decision” of the unknown other onset, has nothing in common with a historicizing comparison of two philosophical positions, but already belongs to the thinking of the other onset, and this means: to the thinking of Ereignis. More speciÎcally, it belongs to that which Heidegger calls Zuspiel, that is, the mutual “playing-forth” by which the stressing need of the other onset of thinking is to be cleared “from out of the original setting of the Îrst.”38 As little as the preceding interpretation might have accomplished in terms of this setting, this interpretation should now help to Înally indicate explicitly 74

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what the hitherto unthought Da-sein consists in. For this purpose we can refer to a brief remark concerning the hyphenation of this word that Heidegger makes during Eugen Fink’s 1972 seminar on Heraclitus: In Being and Time, the word Dasein is written as follows: Da-sein.39 What does the hyphenation of the word Dasein mean? There is at least one reading we can rule out right away, namely, the one stating that the hyphenation “stresses the da-component of the word Dasein.” We can exclude this reading in so far as it presupposes a given concept of Dasein as some form of “existence,” that is, of contingency; however, stressing the da-component of “Dasein as contingency” can only result in yet another form of contingency, and precisely a form in which the da-character, the character of contingent “thereness,” is stressed, whatever this stress might be seen to imply, in this particular context, in terms of “existential” readings of the condition humaine and its “horizontal openness.” What does the hyphen indicate, if it is not the emphasis on the da-aspect of a given sense of Dasein as contingency (i.e. as contingent life)? How can the hyphenated form on the contrary indicate, as has been anticipated, the onsetting relief from contingency? We can answer this question by referring back to what was said about the da-character as it appears in Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology. The Da, we said, “indicates the Ïagrant clearance in which something may show itself.” Furthermore, it was said that precisely the contraction of this Ïagrancy (and thus the forgottenness of the “may-element”) yields the contingent light for Husserl’s asking for evidence as the pure “character ‘da.’” Finally, this contraction was shown to consist in the refusal of the schismatic decision as such, that is, in its refusing to aլord itself unto its own, open and wanting Ïagrancy and awareness. However, only the sustained awareness of the schismatic decision grants the self-showing of things. The awareness, the Ïashing of the schism, is the contingency-free clearing toward the self-showing of that which, thanks to such showing, we call “a thing.” Hence, the hyphenation does not stress the da-component of a given sense of existence: on the contrary, it names—in the Îrst place and for the Îrst time—the element Da as the contingency-free (or discontingent) Ïashing of the schismatic decision that grants the broken ground (namely, the oլ-ground of time-space) for the sheltered self-showing of things in their sphere of wholeness. More precisely still: the hyphen indicates (ex abrupto and as an onset, not by “extracting” it from Dasein) the element Da as the Ïashing or Ïagrancy of the withdrawing schism, that is, the Ïagrancy of the very withdrawing in which the schism itself consists. However, we might ask, what justiÎes the claim that a self-giving and selfshowing of things may take place, in other words, that this self-giving and self-showing is likely, only within this discontingent Ïashing? And in the Îrst 75

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place: what sustains the claim that this Ïashing is discontingent, that is, the claim that it consists in a relief from being as contingency, and thus in an original unburdening and disencumbering that lets things ease themselves unto showing themselves as themselves, from out of themselves and by themselves? What grants the collapse of contingency, the deliverance from the order of “only beings in the light of the da-character of a supplementing beingness”? The likelihood that contingency might collapse rests entirely on the trait that, from the outset, we have called “schismatic decision.” We have called it thus and repeatedly indicated its traits. Yet, we have never asked: does the word “decision” in fact Ît, and therefore say, what it is supposed to say? Or does it merely stand for that which needs to be said? Is “(schismatic) decision” an English word (i.e. a diction) of the other on-set, and this means: is it the showingitself of that which is never a being, not even the highest or (as Husserl says of transcendental subjectivity) “the only absolute being,” but being itself, that is, sheer discontingency? As far as I can see, the answer to this question is: no, it is not. From all we can say after having, as it were, let the ear of the Seinsfrage try the speaking of the English mother-language, “decision” does not say again that which, in and from out of Da-sein, resounds in the Denkweg-word it is supposed to translate, namely, Entscheidung. And if “decision” is not a commensurate word (namely, not commensurate to the English mother-language tried by the soundless saying of the Seinsfrage), the mere addition of the adjective “schismatic” cannot make it become one. The wanted translation of Entscheidung ought to be such that not only does it not rely on anything given. It must be a word that indeed frees the language’s discontingent, schismatic manner of saying that already speaks in it. Diլerently put, it must be a schismatic word, that is, a diction in which the ownmost word of the mother-language (to wit, its schismatic saying) has already said and grounded itself, thus preparing and keeping in store the ground for the schismatic speaking of this language as a whole. The wanted word is, in this sense, a “word of words.” If “decision” is not such a word, on the other hand, all our wyrdly languages must necessarily have such schismatic dictions, be they already spoken or still unspoken. Why? Because language as such is, in its own biding, the silent voice of sheer discontingent being. In order to indicate the contingency-free schismatic openness toward that which is ungrounded and yet to be grounded in its Ïashing, we elect the diction “clear-cut.” This choice is not based on some linguistic deduction or construction, but on the forehearing into the same sake of thinking that, from the outset, prompted us to speak not merely of a decision, but rather of a schismatic decision. To be suխciently clear: we are now saying that “clear-cut” is, in the English mother-language, a diction of the same rank and kin as “beǺng.” In “clear-cut,” we ought to hear the cut itself, as whose self-absconcing is generated (i.e. weirded) the enowned clearance.40 In this understanding, “clear-cut” is an answer to the Denkweg-diction Ent-scheidung. Ent-scheidung, we read in Contributions to 76

HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN

Philosophy, is the going-asunder that scinds and thus originates the clearance for that which absconces itself and is yet unentschieden, that is, un-(clear-)cut, namely, “man’s belongingness to beǺng, in so far as he is the grounder of its truth, and the weirdedness of (the wit of) beǺng (die Zugewiesenheit des Seyns) into the time of the last God” (HGA 65, p. 88; English translation, p. 61; translation modiÎed).41 How “weird” is this translation of Ent-scheidung? And what justiÎes that a word of the tradition and weight of “decision” be, in the present attempt, abandoned in favor of a diction that seems to lack any immediate appeal? A justiÎcation can only come from being itself as the say (die Sage), in so far as it shows that “clear-cut” is what Ent-scheidung says in German, whereas “decision” merely stands for it. As to the weirdness, a reference to the saying of beginning metaphysics and of onsetting thinking might help to get over the Îrst perplexity caused by this choice. We might think, for instance, of the Greek word ѷ̬̫̭ (horos), as it speaks in Aristotle, and of the word ̴̡̨̦̲̬̥̮̙̩̫̩ (kechĮrismenon), as we hear it in Heraclitus’ Fragment 108 Diels-Kranz. In this fragment it is said that the ̷̮̫̱̩ (sophon) is ½̴̘̩̯̩ ̴̡̨̦̲̬̥̮̙̩̫̩ (pantĮn kechĮrismenon), that is, that which is separated or cut oլ from the entirety of beings, but not as another, “ab-solute” being; in fact, ̯Ң ̷̮̫̱̩ is that which, of beings as such in the whole, is the gathering separation or setting apart, the clear-cutting awareness that sways from out of its own openly withdrawing ̲̹̬̝ (chĮra) as the openness toward all clear-cut beings. Neither ѷ̬̫̭ nor ̴̡̨̦̲̬̥̮̙̩̫̩ are words of being itself, but “physical” words, that is, they are dictions of the being of beings. However, in these dictions resounds the unsustained schism that irrupts as the clearance for the clear-cut showing of things, that is, toward the showing of things in the self-withholding and thus be-holding awareness of Er-eignis.42 The Ïashing or Ïagrancy of the clear-cut (i.e. the clearing of being itself) is what the Denkweg names das Da. The word Da is now written with a capital, for it does not anymore speak as an adverb, but rather indicates the withdrawn dimension from which the diլerent uses of the adverb da obtain their meaning, while all verbs obtain from this dimension the nearness for their dis-ensconcing saying. Hence, in the hyphenated word Da-sein, the hyphen is not a punctuation mark used to divide two syllables or word elements. Rather, the hyphen is the cut (or schism) itself, and therefore the Îrst trait to be heard in this and indeed in all hyphenated words that we Înd in Heidegger’s writings. All dictions of this thinking—Îrst and foremost its ground-words (Seyn, Dasein, Lichtung, Ereignis, Geschichte, etc.)—are schismatic words or “cut-words,” namely, dictions in which the discontingency of beǺng says itself in German. The clear-cut is the disencumbering, open clearing toward the self-giving of beings only because it is the Ïashing of the sheer cut. The cut itself, however, is neither a being nor the being of beings in whatever form, including that of absolute subjective evidence. The cut is only itself: the inwardly retreating 77

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

swaying of the original “may” that onsettingly aլords itself unto—and indeed as—the openness of the clear-cut. If now we brieÏy turn back to the da-character in Husserl, we can state the following: the natural da-hood as the immediate form of subjective consciousness that engages phenomenological reÏection; further, its interruption as the irruption or breaking of pure evidence in phenomenological ц½̫̲̚; Înally, the inÎnite reductive unveiling of pure da-hood as the self-constituting and thus evidencing transcendental I—all these constitutive moments of the science of phenomenology take place in the unawareness of the Ïagrant clearcut unto which, from the outset, all contingency has already collapsed. ь½̫̲̚ and reduction are, in some sense, themselves a cut, or, as we said, a detachment from the clashing immediacy of the natural stance. However, all depends on the meaning and scope of this “in some sense.” In fact, the detachment unto absoluteness—the “cut” between nature and pure consciousness accomplished thanks to transcendental ц½̫̲̚—remains within the domain of contingency, in that it constitutes itself as the contingency of absolute subjective consciousness. This implies that the character of being that concerns thinking—the character “da”—owes itself to the unawareness of the original cut. Thus, the explicit grounding of this character in terms of the structures of pure consciousness enhances the power of contingency. In this manner, this grounding serves contingency’s will to apodictic absoluteness in the increasing forgottenness of being itself. The fact that Husserl thinks the evidence of subjective contingency as the only absolute being owes itself to the fact that the openness of the cut has retreated into the Ïashing that yields the evidence of subjective consciousness. On the other hand, the fact that for Heidegger this cut—or, as he would call it for a short time, the “ontological diլerence”—is the only thought, comes from the onset that onsettingly tunes his thinking, to wit: the shocking Ïagrancy of the absolute power of contingency as the beinglessness of beings and man’s obliviousness of being itself. In other words: if for Husserl’s thinking the cut (i.e. being itself) refuses its own Ïagrancy and remains withheld in the hidden impact that determines the natural and the pure da-character of beings, for Heidegger the awareness of this very refusal is precisely that which initiates and never ceases to claim his thinking. In fact, the Ïashing of this refusal, its oլering an awareness that asks to be borne as such (namely, in an instance of Da-sein), is already the Îrst Ïashing of the schism itself in its retreating sway, is already the clear-cut. The refusal that remains unthought in Husserl’s Dasein Ïashes as the Da-sein of the Seinsfrage.43 Dasein is, in Husserl, the relative or absolute position of the gathered entirety of beings, respectively in the natural light or in the pure evidence of subjective consciousness. What, then, does Dasein mean in Heidegger, if it is to be understood as Da-sein? In order to answer this question, we need to be attentive to two constitutive traits of the hyphenated Da: 78

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(1) The spaciousness (Bereich) of the Da- as the Ïashing of the cut—or, which is the same, as the clearing of beǺng (Lichtung des Seyns)—is “durch und durch nicht menschlich,” that is, “out-and-out [or: through and through] not human,” that is, “it can neither be determined nor borne by the animal rationale and just as little by the subject. This spaciousness is, in the Îrst place, not a being …”44 This passage brings us back to what was said concerning the de-animalizing trait of phenomenological ц½̫̲̚. The interruption of the general thesis, thanks to which the transcendental I obtains itself in its pure form, implies that man, that is, the psycho-physical nature, is left behind, in the sense that the being that carries out the naïve thetical acts shifts to the modality mit-da and thus becomes an intentional object, which, in itself, is nothing (i.e. it is only for intentional consciousness).45 However, if we view the animality of man as his contingency, it appears that in the idea of absolute subjectivity not only something like a de-animalization does not take place, but, on the contrary, the animalization of man (and thus the contingency of all beings) is pushed to an extreme. In fact, absolute subjectivity is pure of all reality, but only because, as the being of man, it constitutes the absolute contingency of evidencing life-experience. We can call the reduction of man’s being—and, consequently, the reduction of all beingness—to the absolute contingency of the rational animal, “homination” (Vermenschung).46 In its modern subjective form, such homination implies that the hidden clash of contingency claims man himself, that is, pure consciousness, as the subjective assurance of absolute contingency, and thus as the warden of inhibited selfhood. Husserl’s pure phenomenology is therefore a humanism in the sense that it lays a transcendental subjective foundation for the absolute homination of man and, as a consequence, of all beings. On the other hand, as we shall see, Heidegger’s thinking is not anymore a humanism: in fact, the element in relation to which man may, in the Îrst place, become who he is, namely, the Da, is “out-and-out not human,” that is, not only other than any contingent man but also other than the being of man, no matter how pure this being is thought. That Da-sein implies the collapse of all contingency is the same as saying that, where Da is grounded as the truth of beǺng, all abiding is de-hominized (entmenscht). (2) A ground-trait of the Da as the Ïashing of the schism is that it is in itself wanting. The verb “to want” is a prime instance of what we have called “cut-words” or “schismatic words,” that is, those eminently translating dictions that readily, and earlier and more groundingly than others, translate a language unto its own word. In fact, not only does “to want” originally mean: to be lacking, and therefore to wish for; but this lacking, in turn, rests on a more original trait indicated in the I.E. base *eue (the same that speaks in the words “wane” and “vanish”), which means 79

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“to leave, to abandon,” that is, to retreat, withdraw. In other words, “to want” means: to desire out of a lack, which, however, is not a contingent deÎciency (the lacking of something) that can eventually be made up for (namely, by supplying that something). Rather, desiring is here the inward attractiveness of sheer withdrawing, in which the lack itself consists. Thus, “wantigness” is sheer withdrawing in so far as it withdraws and, in such withdrawing, needs to be sustained as such. Therefore, when we say that the Da “wants” or “is wanting,” we are not implying the existence of some mysterious entity endowed with a will and the capacity for expressing it. Nor, on the other hand, does it mean that the Da is missing from somewhere and needs to be restored or recovered from somewhere else. The Da is in-itself wanting, in that it is the Ïashing of the cut, which, in turn, claims to be sustained as sheer withdrawing.47 The cut, that is, beǺng, wants to be sustained and grounded in the Ïashing of its truth, so that a thing-borne world may come into the open time-playspace of the clear-cut. In other words, the openness of the cut requires to be suլered, borne, and held out, and thus set up in a biding Îrmness. This biding Îrmness is a form of being, and precisely the being indicated in the -sein that speaks in the word Da-sein. This form of being, however, sways entirely in the openness of the clear-cut whose wanted Îrmness it is. The latter point is crucial if we are to understand in what sense that which the word Da-sein indicates “is not to be found in the hitherto wyrd of philosophy.” The form of being we now ought to think is a suլering (i.e. a bearing that sets up and holds), which from the very Îrst is formed in the openness or awareness of the cut. It originates from and bides in its (i.e. the cut’s) wanting. It is native of its withdrawing sway, and therefore itself withdrawing. In one word, it is the open cut’s own bearing, before extant man or other beings come into play. This allows us to see how Da-sein is a Îrmness or form of being, or simply: a being, and that yet it is neither (a given) man nor the being of (a given) man. This is what the saying “durch und durch nicht menschlich” implies.48 Man, on the other hand, comes into play in so far as the wanting cut beholds (or, so to speak, catches sight of and minds in an awareness) a being as the one that is claimed for grounding its (i.e. the cut’s) openness by taking over the bearing of this openness, that is, Da-sein. This abruptly beheld being, in so far as it takes on itself to bear, in its own (read: enowned) being, the Ïashing of the cut, and thus grounds its ownhood into the belongingness to the cut itself, we may call homo humanus or simply “man.” This implies that man’s own being, that is, his kind, is originally (or natively) oլered, and onsettingly belongs, to the Îrmness of being that we call Da-sein, whereas contingent man is, so to speak, cut oլ from the ground of his own being, so that it is never decided nor decidable by man himself whether or not, and in what manner, he Înds an access to his own kind and thus to the ground of his ownhood and selfhood. On 80

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the other hand, beǺng wants man to take a stance in his kind, and thus beholds the “may be,” that is, man’s likelihood, from out of its (i.e. beǺng’s) own wanting openness. An explicating translation of Da-sein now reads as follows: bearing (suլering, ek-sisting) the Ïashing (or the openness) of the cut or schism (i.e. beǺng) in its own truth. However, a rigorous understanding of this diction must start with the hyphen as Da-sein’s most onsetting trait. This results in the following translation: Da-sein, that is, the onsetting cut engendering the openness of beǺng’s truth, and therein (engendering) a Îrm bearing, to which is ab initio oլered man-kind’s openness- and truth-sustaining ownhood. This reading Înally allows us to seize the unique sense of the word “existence” as it speaks in Being and Time. “Existing”—the manner of being of man in so far as he is onsettingly translated into Da-sein—means: bearing out (“standing”) and thus setting up the weird openness (the estranging “ek” or “out”) of being itself. “Existing” means “ek-sisting” in this rigorous sense.49 If, on the contrary, we understand “existing” as the peculiar manner of being of contingent, given man, “everything that in Being and Time has been gained as a new position is irrecoverably lost.”50 Da-sein thus shows as the ground for a transformation of man’s being. Man is transformed from being constrained to implementing absolute subjective contingency to being the attendant of beǺng in man’s Da-bearing kind.51 Moreover, Da-sein, in so far as it is taken on in man’s belonging existence, is the grounded spaciousness toward the coming and self-giving of the concrete wholeness of things. This leads us to conclusively contrast, as an exercise in the mutual playing-forth of the Îrst and the other onset of thinking, the meanings of Dasein in Husserl and in Heidegger: In Husserl, Dasein means “being-there.” In its pure form, this indicates an absolute transcendental contingency (-sein) characterized by the trait of there-ness (da-), that is, a cut-less domain constituted as a potentially inÎnite radius of evidence enlightened by the rays of consciousness irradiating from the evidencing pole of the absolutely contingent monadic I (Ego).52 In Heidegger, Dasein—heard and written as Da-sein—means “there-being.” The sense of the latter is the wanting openness of the cut or schism (i.e. Da-) as the initial concern of thinking, which (viz. this cut), in so far as it is grounded in its own bearingness or bearsomeness (i.e. -sein) by a man-kind that understands itself as onsettingly belonging to it, may become the open ground toward the fair self-showing and selving of things in a thing-borne world. There is no external viewpoint whence these two phenomena may become visible. In fact, Dasein as absolute subjective contingency becomes visible only for a thinking that takes a stance in—or rather: becomes a bearing of— Da-sein as the Înite ground of beǺng shed in-between all things toward their likely showing. In so far as it grounds the openness of the schism and thus has already broken the absoluteness of contingency, Da-sein is “die Krisis zwischen 81

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dem ersten und dem anderen Anfang”: “the crisis between the Îrst and the other onset.” However, “crisis” now means: the Ïashing of the schism itself, that is, the clear-cut in which the prevailing of Dasein as contingency, and with it the metaphysical stance, have already collapsed unto unlikelihood. 4.4 COINING DA-SEIN IN ENGLISH

How are we to indicate, in English, the sake that the Denkweg calls Da-sein? It seems strange we should ask this question after having just declared that the English translation of Da-sein reads “there-being.” However, this word is as yet little more than a compound formed rather mechanically on the basis of the elucidation of the German word it is supposed to render. The simple mechanics consists in equating da and “there,” and sein and “being,” and assuming that the combination of the English components must, with some level of approximation, yield an equivalent expression to that which results from the combination of the German parts. What, however, is the likelihood of “there-being” as a word of the English mother-language and, more precisely, as an English “word of words”? Not only have we not asked this question. In fact, we have just about prepared the ground on which this question becomes compelling. This ground is Da-sein itself as an echo of the stress of Seinsvergessenheit and Seinsverlassenheit, that is, of the being-obliviousness of man and the beinglessness of beings. Both the want for an English diction that says Da-sein and the capacity for testing, in thinking, a likely English translation, can only come from the experience and the bearing of this stress. Supposing we wanted to follow a “literal” approach in order to Înd this English diction, we could, much as we apparently did in Îrst suggesting a translation, proceed by analogy to German and start from the verb dasein. This verb yields the noun Dasein, which Înally allows the minting of Da-sein. The analogous English sequence would read thus: being there—(the) beingthere—???. The three question marks indicate that it is in fact not clear how the German sequence could be “replicated” so as to produce a hyphenated word mirroring Da-sein. On the other hand, if we invert the order of the parts, we obtain a diլerentiation that seems to respond to the manner in which Dasein speaks in German. But again, is this a translation? As a matter of fact, the question comes too late. Why? Because what is rather thoughtlessly called a “literal translation” cannot yield a suխcient English saying. It cannot do so because “literal” translating operates on the basis of the “letter” intended as a marker of contingency. However, just as Da-sein, as a schismatic diction of the Denkweg, is not obtained on the basis of the Dasein of contingency (i.e. by modifying53 the sense of contingency that this word indicates), a “literal” transposition of Dasein into English (i.e. “being-there”) cannot provide the basis for an English saying of Da-sein as “the crisis between the Îrst and the other onset.” 82

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An English translation of Da-sein can only come from the English language itself as owned by the say (Sage) of enowning. In order to attempt this translation, in what follows I shall take a path that initially might appear as being itself merely “linguistic.” However, it will soon become clear that it is not. The attempt asks: what does (silently) resound when the English language says “there”? Whence are we to obtain a clear-cut directive for hearing the saying of this diction? Can “the there” Înally translate das Da, and, if yes, in what sense? Da and “there” are etymologically the same word, yet they have diլerent meanings. For instance, as an adverb, da means both “here” (“in this place”) and “there” (“in that place”). However, we know that the Da of the Denkweg is not obtained by transforming the adverb da into a noun. Rather, Da indicates the dimension which is the withdrawn source for all recorded meanings of da, but also for its peculiar tone and its unique capacity for opening the spaciousness of saying. As a consequence, a translation—and this implies: a schismatic diction—cannot be obtained by combining as many as possible of the recorded meanings and traits of the German word. In fact, if it is true that da means both “here” and “there,” on the other hand das Da does not mean both “the here” and “the there,” nor the “horizontal space” of all “heres” and “theres” (or even, in addition, of all “nows” and “thens”). Instead, das Da says the wanting openness and clearing of the schism as the breaking of the original timeplay-space (i.e. the truth) of beǺng toward all likely thing-borne “world-heres” and “world-theres,” “world-nows” and “world-thens,” “world-thats” and “world-hows” in the whole. In fact, the earlier indication of the guiding sense of da (see above, p. 68) was by no means the result of privileging or “generalizing” one of the meanings that the dictionary records for the word da. Rather, it resulted from electing the original trait of its saying. Therefore, the question is whether or not an equally original saying speaks in the English word “there,” independently of the degree to which this word “covers the semantic Îeld” of da. Even at a superÎcial glance at the diլerent uses of “there,” one is stricken by the singular role this word plays in English. Much as da does in German, and even more so, “there” seems to speak everywhere in the English language and, in a sense, to uphold its saying as a whole. How can this be demonstrated? Answer: it cannot, nor need it be. In fact, here is the point where it must show that the path we are following is not a “linguistic” one. This is why, rather than listing and illustrating the uses of “there” in view of reconstructing the singularity of its role and scope as a sum of semantic and grammatical traits, I shall instead indicate the ground-trait of this diction, which is, so to speak, responsible for its unique status. Again, it should be borne in mind that this trait is not obtained by some inductive or generalizing procedure, but strictly by forehearing into the sake that the Denkweg names das Da. In other words, that which authorizes the indication of this trait is not a “linguistic argument,” but the thinking of the Seinsfrage.54 83

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The ground-trait that speaks in the English word “there” is the trait of soothing clearance.55 What does this mean? The foresight on the sake named das Da implies that what has been indicated as “clearance” does not concern the appearing, nor even “the appearing of the appearing,” of beings. Rather, the clearance refers to being and to being only (i.e. to the only beǺng), without any reference to beings, namely, without being in any way contingent on beings. “Sooth,” in turn, means as much as “truth,” but again the truth of beǺng, and, more precisely still, this truth in so far as it calls for a grounding, in order for this truth to bide as the soothing (and as such wholeness-granting) openness toward world and things. Hence, “there” as a name of the in-itself-wanting soothing clearance says the original openness and clearing (namely, the freeing, the unburdening, the disencumbering) unto which comes the sooth of beǺng, so as to Înd, in this openness, the ground for its own bidance (Wesung). What has just been said prepares the decisive indication for measuring the astounding uniqueness of the English word “there.” In fact, this word already says, perhaps on an even more soothing tone than the German da, the truth of beǺng in its relation to man, namely, in so far as this soothing truth bears in itself the need for an assenting being that soothfastly grounds it. In what sense? In the sense that—as we can, once again, only indicate and never demonstrate—in the diction “there” silently speaks, as its ground-trait, the gift of the “there is.” The fact that, naturally, the dictionary records the expression “there is” as one of the locutions involving the adverb “there,” so that, in the Îrst place, there must be the word “there” with its meanings and only then, as a phrase that can be formed with this word, the expression “there is” becomes possible—this fact does by itself not contradict the insight that the sake named “there is” is the ground-trait of the word “there.” In fact, the saying “there is” explicitly names the silent original trait and tune of the “there.” The consequence of this insight is that, when we mint “the there” as a translation of das Da, we explicitly form it as the “there” in which speaks, as its tuning ground-trait, the “there is”; in short, we form it as the “there” of (i.e. stemming from) the “there is.” Meanwhile we have introduced the phrase “there is” as if its sense were obvious. Yet, what the ear of the Seinsfrage has shown of “there” already bears an echo of the own saying of “there is.” Here we must limit ourselves to a succinct indication. “There is” in some sense corresponds to the German es gibt and to the French il y a. The phrase es gibt has a prominent role in Heidegger’s 1962 essay Zeit und Sein. This latter text indicates the sense and provenance of “being” and “time,” soothed in their most onsetting trait, from out of the Es gibt (Es gibt Sein; Es gibt Zeit). In turn, the Es (written with a capital) indicates the sake the Denkweg has come to name Ereignis. Thus, Es gibt says the same as das Ereignis ereignet. Therefore, if we were to analyze es gibt and “there is” by means of a formal analogy, we would have to conclude that, if “is” corresponds 84

HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN

to gibt, “there,” in turn, corresponds to es, so that “there” would actually say the same as Ereignis. Indeed, the “there” we are minting as a translation of the Da does say the same as Ereignis—as, on the other hand, does “there is,” which translates Es gibt. However, this result is not satisfying, in that it seems to conÏate Da and Ereignis in a single English word. On the other hand, even if it is striking to Înd the English “there” to speak in this manner, we can certainly not be utterly surprised. In fact, the same as can be said of the “there”—namely, that it says Ereignis—also holds true for the Da and, in another sense, for Da-sein. We must, however, avoid confusing this sameness with some form of identity or equivalence, or with the fact that these dictions are interchangeable. In fact, another manner of indicating this sameness is: “there” (as well as Da) absconcedly bears in itself the “say” of Ereignis, namely, the “there is,” where “is” is the verb of beǺng (so that, in fact, we should not write “is” but, more rigorously, “Ǻs”). This means that the thinking of Ereignis makes explicit, and grounds as such, the absconced dimensional sense of “there” viz. da. What remains most striking is the singular manner in which Ereignis speaks in the “there.” This singularity, which clearly scinds the “there” from its German cognate Da, is indicated by the “there is” as the tune that silently tunes the “there” itself. The following traits characterize “the there” as a translation of das Da which bears in a unique, and this always implies, untranslatable, manner the say of the sake that the Denkweg has brought to the thinking of our wyrdly mother-languages: (1) As we have already seen, “the there” originally speaks from the “there is” (which silently tunes it). In turn, the “is” in “there is” does not indicate mere contingency (clashing extancy, “existence”), but, in the most unemphatic manner, beǺng itself in its sheer schismatic givingness,56 namely, in its aլording the openness for the crossing of the strife of world and earth and the countering of the god and man.57 This giving and aլording has the trait of withholding itself from showing (i.e. from disensconcing itself), in short, it has the trait of withdrawing. Such self-withholding giving, such initself withdrawing aլording of a fair spaciousness is what Heidegger calls schicken—we say: to weird. This weirding, that is, the trait of Geschichte as Geschick, characterizes both the “there is” and the “there” that is tuned by it. Hence, the “there” may now be determined as the weirded breaking of the time-play-space of beǺng, or again, as the weird openness of beǺng toward the selving of world-gathering things. This towardness deÎnes, on the level of beǺng as a “through-fare” for world and things, that which logical-linguistic analysis recognizes as the “preparatory” (or “anticipating”) character of “there (is)” (i.e. its “coming before”). The weirdness of the “there” is the Îrst sense in which, when we say “there,” we are already implying a relation of the thus named dimension to the being of man. 85

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

(2) The “there (is)” is the “clearing through absconcement” that constitutes the withheld schismatic nearness toward all cleared (clear-cut) abiding and oլbiding (Anwesen and Abwesen). As such it bears, and grounds in its truth, that which originally likes all abiding, in short, the likelihood. Logical analysis records this trait in phrases such as “there is no saying…,” where the negated “there is” implies “impossibility.” While the truth of beǺng as likelihood is in itself light- and soundless, beǺng weirds itself into the openness of light-and-sound, whose unity is a temper, that is, a grounded truth of likelihood itself, and thus (this weird temper is) the likely sphere toward the showing of things in the schismatic uniqueness of their sense: There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons— That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes— Heavenly Hurt, it gives us— We can Înd no scar, But internal diլerence, Where the Meanings, are— None may teach it—Any— ’Tis the Seal Despair— An imperial aծiction Sent us of the Air— When it comes, the Landscape listens— Shadows—hold their breath— When it goes, ’tis like the Distance On the look of Death—58 The likelihood of the “there” as the openness for all sense and thus as the ground for the gift of clear-cut ensconced abiding, is the second sense in which, when we say “there,” we are already implying a relation of this dimension to the being of man. (3) The “there” as biding, weird openness and clearance is soothing. This means: it is the truth of beǺng grounded into the open, so that in the “there” resounds the silently soothing word of beǺng. The trait of soothingness implies the “encouragement” that beǺng itself is in its truth. In what sense? In the sense that beǺng as sheer over-comingness restores or regenerates the world in its dis-ensconcing mirror-play and things in their ensconced selving, but (it so restores) never before over-turning, and thus freeing, the own being of man unto the absconced provenance of such over-coming. By virtue of this overcomingness, which avails itself of the being of man, all abiding is regenerated unto its own measure and 86

HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN

allay. The semantic analysis of the word “there” records this sense of soothing in certain interjectional uses of this adverb as well as in the verb “to there-there,” which means “to soothe or comfort by saying these words (i.e. ‘there, there’).” However, this trait of soothingness implies a further trait, the need for another kind of soothing that must now be made explicit. It is the soothing in the sense of the assenting that oլers a Îrmness and steadiness, that is, a borne ground, to the soothing in which beǺng itself consists. In other words, implicit in the soothingness, whose openness is the “there,” is a being in the rigorous sense of the out-bearing soothfastness that is own to the bidance of the truth of beǺng grounded into its openness. This soothfastness is a manner (or wise) of being (eine Weise zu sein), and in this sense a being (ein Seiendes). As a consequence, the “there” (in which speaks the “there is” of Ereignis) always already59 bears this wanted soothfastness as a wise or being that may be owned by man in a regenerating over-turn of his being. This (to-be-owned) being, wherein, by virtue of Ereignis, the truth of beǺng Înds its ground, may therefore be named “the there-being.” In accordance with the two senses of “being,” “there-being” is to be read both in the manner of “house-keeping” (or “sooth-saying”) and in that of “(an) earth-being.” The insight that sustains the minting of this diction is that, when we say “there”, and hear in this “there” the “there is”, we are already saying “ there < that is, the truth of beǺng in so far as it wants the assenting soothfastness of a> being.” The hyphen in the word “there-being” indicates the schism or cut itself, in so far as in the schism turns the generous mutuality of want (the claim of beǺng, or likelihood, for its borne truth) and oլered soothfastness (the be-lieving belongingness to the truth of beǺng). Hence, the hyphen60 is the schismatic trait that, swaying as the original oլ-ground of the mutuality of claim and belongingness, grants there-being as the unitary ground for the truth of beǺng, that is, of wyrd’s sheer coming, and thus as the ground for the over-comingness toward world and things. Again, both the “there” and the “there-being,” tuned as the ground of beǺng’s sooth, are be-fore in the sense of this towardness. The soothingness of the “there” in the sense of the overcomingness that onsettingly soothes all abiding, including the assenting abiding of man, unto its own allay, is the third sense in which, when we say “there,” we are already implying a relation of this dimension to the being of man. As the apparent redundancy of the preceding determinations indicates, all traits show into the same, namely, the unsaid Er-eignis holding sway in the “there.” By letting the “there” speak from the “there is” as its silent tuning, and thus from Ereignis, we have Înally minted the English translation of Dasein. This translation is “there-being.” This newly minted word now speaks not only as a genuine diction, but indeed as a mother-diction, as a “word of words” of the English mother-language, and has thus lost all traits of a merely formal 87

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

equivalent that to some extent replicates in English the semantic structure of Da-sein. Hence, “there-being” is not a more or less valid surrogate of the German word Da-sein, but a true translation of the Denkweg-word Da-sein, and this means: a schismatically unique, therefore itself untranslatable synonym of Da-sein in the many-voiced say of the other onset of thinking.61

88

CHAPTER 5

MINDING THAT “WE” CANNOT EVER NOT THINK BEȜNG

5.1 WHO IS “WE”?

This chapter grows out of a Îrst reading of the treatise Das Ereignis.1 Rather than providing a review of this treatise, it attempts to indicate a few motives that can be found in the treatise. The attempt is such also in the sense that, in interpreting the Denkweg, this chapter—perhaps even more daringly than the ones that precede it—attempts an English word for the saying of being. While most translations from Das Ereignis appearing in the present text are elucidated, or become clear, within their context, the last three sections of this chapter are devoted speciÎcally to the question of how Wesen, Da-seyn, and Aufmerksamkeit may be brought into English. The translations of several keywords of Heidegger’s thinking elaborated in previous chapters are not discussed here again at length. However, a brief reminder of the more signiÎcant among these translations might be helpful for the understanding of what follows. (1) Seyn is translated as “beǺng.”2 “Ǻ” is the M.E. “yogh,” whose sound is “y” as in “yes.” The same sign is also used to transcribe “gyfu,” the name of the Anglo-Saxon g-rune meaning “gift, generosity,” whose shape is that of an “x.” Thus, “beǺng” indicates the gift of ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝ en-owned as the ground for the crossing of the strife of world and earth and the countering of the god and man. (2) Geschichte is translated as “wyrd,” an O.E. noun belonging to the I.E. root *uer “to turn, plait” (cf. Latin vertere, German werden), which today is heard in the adjective “weird.”3 The same root yields the archaic verb “to worth” (“to become, come about; to turn to; to need, be necessary”). “Wyrd” indicates the “being” of beǺng, its enowned “becomingin-a-turning,” where this becoming is precisely not a becoming in the 89

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

90

ordinary, that is, ontic sense. “Becoming-in-a-turning” (i.e. worthing) refers to the en-owning of beǺng’s Wesung into the grounding of the truth of beǺng, that is, into Da-sein. The sound “wyrd” is a genuinely English echo to the German das Geschicht, an older form of die Geschichte that Heidegger uses in Das Ereignis but also in other texts.4 Schicken and Geschick, which are the same word as Geschichte, are also rendered on the basis of “weird,” which, as a noun, commonly means “fate,” “destiny,” or simply “occurrence.” Finally, when “weird” becomes a word of the saying of beǺng, the sense of which current English is mostly aware, namely, that of the adjective “weird,” indicates not merely a deviation from what is ordinary and familiar, but the unhomeliness and extraneousness of beǺng as enowning. The key for hearing “wyrd,” “weird,” and “worthing” as dictions of the saying of beǺng lies in the unspoiled root of the German werden, in so far as it indicates, in English, the pure “becoming” and the “genesis” of beǺng. This root, however, says and intones the “being,” or rather the bidance, of beǺng in its constitutive relation to man, in a manner that is not graspable within the domain deÎned by the metaphysical notions of “being” and “becoming.” Bergen is translated as “ensconcing,” and all related words (verbergen, entbergen, etc.) are rendered accordingly.5 Using this word of Latin derivation allows us to indicate the unity of the traits of “hiding” and of “recovering-preserving,” which (this unity) is said in the German word. It must be noted that bergen is immediately a “word of beǺng,” that is, it is a word that speaks free from ontic references. While there is no “value in itself ” in the mere accumulation of traits in a single word, the verb “ensconcing” is precious in that it appears to bear precisely this character of a “word of beǺng.” Vorhanden is translated as “contingent.”6 This word is to be heard etymologically (cf. Latin cum + tangere). In fact, it names a certain form of touching, namely, an impact. This impact, in turn, indicates a certain sense of being, namely, beingless being. When the sense of being is that of contingency (i.e. Vorhandenheit), a being immediately impacts on man (namely, on his “life” and “living”) in a pressing manner, that is, in such a way that the sense of this being remains obscure, indeÎnite, implicit, unquestionable, and unquestioned, while at the same time man’s constitutive capacity for sustaining sense remains, so to speak, inert, namely, limited to the prompt endorsement of contingency as such, and thus of the preeminence of beings over being. Möglich and Möglichkeit are translated respectively as “likely” and “likelihood.”7 The metaphysical notion of possibility remains tied to contingency, in fact, it indicates but an aspect of contingency (the possible is that which is not yet eլectively contingent). To be possible is the constitution of beings when they are forsaken by being itself and relinquished

MINDING THAT “ WE ” CANNOT EVER NOT THINK BEȜNG

unto contingency as their only likely being. On the other hand, Möglichkeit implies a discontingent liking or loving (mögen). Möglichkeit is that which likes in an original sense, in that out of its own Wesung it gives something its Wesen, and keeps (or wares) this thing within the provenance of its Wesen. While Möglichkeit is a synonym of Ereignis, and a diction that says the same as “possibility” only when its own Wesen is forgotten, “possibility” is a word of this forgottenness and therefore says merely the distempered being of that which is forsaken by Möglichkeit. (7) “Inscape” and “instress” are words Gerard Manley Hopkins Îrst heard in the English mother-language. In the present context they are, however, used as dictions of thinking, that is, in order to indicate traits of being.8 Inscape is the unique and accomplished inner form of something, in so far as this form has in itself the source of its self-shaping. This source, which bestows the likely inscape, and keeps it within its constitutive provenance, is the instress. The latter is not only the “inner accent” and “core” of something, but the trait of its “inlyness” (Innigkeit) with the extraneousness of beǺng and, as such, that which stresses (nötigt) thinking to suլer and ground beǺng itself thanks to the inbidingness (Inständigkeit) in beǺng’s truth. Finally, Hopkins also provides a welcome aid to our ear that may at Îrst resist to hear “sake” as a word that, in its own manner, responds to the German Sache. Quoting this “hearing-aid” oլered by Hopkins seems to be a Îtting conclusion for these introductory remarks and together with them a convenient introduction to the remarks that follow. Hopkins says: Sake is a word I Înd it convenient to use: … it is common in German, in the form sach [sic]. It is the sake of ‘for the sake of ’… I mean by it the being a thing has outside itself, as a voice by its echo, a face by its reÏection, … a man by his name, fame, or memory, and also that in the thing by virtue of which especially it has this being abroad, … as for a voice and echo clearness; for a reÏected image light, brightness; … for a man genius, great achievements … In this case it is, as the sonnet says, distinctive quality in genius.9 *** The word is the treasure that the onset ensconces in itself. Only at times beǺng itself clears itself. Then a searching for this onsetting richness goes through man’s wyrd; for in the word, beǺng is in the owndom of its truth in the temper of enowning. (p. 170)10 91

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Metaphysical man has overstepped the word and left it behind as a tool that he himself possesses and masters—̢ԗ̫̩ ̧ң̟̫̩ ъ̲̫̩. (p. 294)11 “Das Aufmerken auf das, daß ‘wir’ niemals das Seyn nicht denken können.”12 This quotation from the treatise Das Ereignis indicates, in a sense, the scope of the Denkweg that begins with the “Îrst attempt of beǺng-wyrdly thinking” (p. 296) that is Being and Time.13 Das Ereignis is the sixth of seven major posthumous treatises, and distinguishes itself as an important moment of the said Aufmerken, that is, the moment in which the German thinking of the other onset Înds its own-tempered (eigentlich) name: Aufmerksamkeit ist der künftige deutsche Name für die von den Deutschen gegründete kommende Weise des wesentlichen, d. h. anfänglichen Denkens. Der andere, anfänglichere Name für “Philosophie.” (p. 289) Aufmerksamkeit is the future German name for the coming wise of bidesome,14 that is to say, onsetting thinking grounded by the Germans. The other, more onsetting name for “philosophy.” I will come back to the meaning of this Aufmerken later.15 For now, let us mind the “we” of the quoted sentence. Who is this “we”? Is it “us,” as we happen to “be there” as the “thinking beings,” and who as such, it is suggested, “necessarily” “think” “beǺng”? Is the sentence implying that, concerning this given “we,” and therefore “ourselves,” there is—all other things remaining equal—a new piece of information to be added to our established notions, namely, that our thinking, and therefore our being, necessarily presupposes the thinking of “beǺng”? Does the “thinking of beǺng” have a status somehow analogous to that of the Cartesian cogitating I, which, as we know, is presupposed in all human cogitating as the absolutely true and certain subjective ground of all objective being? Is the “thinking of beǺng,” in this sense, the basis for a “new foundation of subjectivity”? However, in the quoted sentence the word “we” is placed between quotation marks. These marks suspend the obviousness of the “we.” They alert us that there is no given “we,” which we may analyze in order to work out an essential feature or unearth a hidden presupposition. They tell us that there is no we (and, in the Îrst place, no self as the sphere for a likely we), if not “in return for” the thinking of beǺng’s bidance (i.e. its Wesung) as enowning, which (this thinking), as yet unminded, remains absconced, in the onset, as the onset of man. There is no we but in the tempered wake of the instant in which, once again, the Ïagrant wantingness (or wanting Ïagrancy) of beǺng beholds and bespeaks the only being that, being native of this Ïagrancy, consists in bearing 92

MINDING THAT “ WE ” CANNOT EVER NOT THINK BEȜNG

and heeding beǺng’s truth, and which therefore, in so far as it is, cannot ever not think it. The saying does not state “what is the case” “no matter what” “we” do. It is itself the abrupt clearing of the foregone and unforegoable onset, and as such minds us that, whether or not there is a “we,” and whether or not we “are,” owes itself to the heedfulness with regard to that which, though we cannot ever not think it, we still do not think, but are instead unmindful and forgetful of. It says that, without the enowned Aufmerken, in the wake of which the thus awakened manhood may set out to become at last homely in the unhomeliness of beǺng, there is no thinking, and therefore no own-tempered humanity, and therefore no likely we. With this monition in mind, we turn to pondering the very element of this Aufmerken, namely, the word. 5.2 ENOWNING AS THE WORD

Das Ereignis ist das anfängliche Wort, weil seine Zueignung … das Wesen des Menschen auf die Wahrheit des Seyns stimmt. Sofern das Er-eignis in sich dieses Stimmende ist und weil als Ereignis die Stimmung sich ereignet, ist der ereignishafte Anfang (d. h. das in seine Wahrheit abgründende Seyn) die anfänglich stimmende Stimme: das Wort. (pp. 170–71) Enowning is the onsetting word, for its to-owning16 … tunes man’s biding to the truth of beǺng. In so far as en-owning is in itself what thus tunes, and since what enowns itself as enowning is the tuning, the onset in the temper of enowning (that is, beǺng, oլ-grounding into its truth) is the onsettingly tuning tune: the word. Enowning itself, as the onsettingly tuning tune, is the word. The word “is soundless” (p. 171). The soundless tuning tunes speech to its silent groundtone, thus bestowing on spoken sounds their capacity for saying (showing). Thus, if sound is sense (and sound is sense),17 this is thanks to the sound’s ground-tone being tuned to the truth of beǺng and ensconcing this truth. The word itself is therefore not speech or language, but that thanks to which the spoken words of our languages—each of which has its own-tempered ground-tone and its attuned sounds—say, show, let appear, that is, call and ensconce a being into the tune of the truth of beǺng, so as to let this being abide by itself within a faired whole of beings. We speak our languages, but we never mind that they show. We do not mind this showing as the freeing unto—and ensconcing within—a sense, that is, a cast18 and soothed truth of beǺng. Instead, the will to will wills to subjectively objectify any sense into bits of “information.” As a consequence, we speak of “meaning” as a character somehow carried by certain signs and of “signifying” as what these signs 93

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perform with respect to such meanings, and in reference to “beings” that, one does not know how, we come across as such, that is, as already “having a being.” We do not mind that when, in our speaking, we say something true, this is thanks to the thinking of beǺng and the in-biding in its truth. We do not mind that this truth is the in-between, whence we are gathered into our own-tempered silent voice that, in turn, sustains the appearing-in-sound of what we call “a being.” The word is not a language, nor the general form or structure, nor even the ontological basis of all languages. Rather, the words of our mother-languages are the resounding and ensconcing echoes of the tones and tonalities in which the onsetting tuning en-owns a world. The word, as the tuning tune, is the soundless biding of speech in that it instills in speech that it can show, that is, en-say and in-tone. Such instilling is itself the original showing, and as such keeps this showing in itself. In so far as this instilling is that thanks to which a language is let to its biding and kept in it, we may call the word the mother of speech and thus of our languages. The word of beǺng is one and only, for it is the same as Da-sein, which is always tuned, and itself tunes man’s biding unto the tune of beǺng, so that man may, in his song claimed by the truth itself, intone the resounding world-sense of things.19 The word of man’s speaking is, in its origin and biding, Antwort, literally, “against-word” (p. 155–6).20 The diխculty of minding and intoning the word in this manner, rather than as a human faculty and tool, is that we are still not capable of freeing ourselves from “polar thinking”: when we hear about the relation of Wort and Anwort, Sprechen and Entsprechen, our understanding sticks to the scheme of a source (e.g. “being”) issuing “something” (e.g. “speech”), which, on hitting “man,” triggers “something” (e.g. “words”) in reply. Such an understanding remains merely formal, failing to cast itself into the oլground21 and schism that is the element of beǺng-wyrdly thinking.22 What we need to mind in order not to fall into this fallacious scheme is simple: the biding of man awakes only within beǺng when beǺng is—and beǺng is not always. More precisely: the awaking of man’s biding belongs to the instant of the over-owning of the truth of beǺng, as beǺng owns itself over (i.e. disowns itself) into the oլ-break.23 This over-owning owning-over24 en-owns itself as word and tuning, so that the word of human speech bears as its native trait that of being the word of the nativeness of man’s biding in the word, and therefore of this biding’s be-tuned, attuned belongingness to the truth of beǺng. Owning this original belongingness, and thus minding that the word of human speech bides in and belongs to the word of the onset, releases us from the polar scheme. The word of human speech is in itself a “gain-word,” because as such—that is, as the soothing gain-saying, in short, as answering—it is enowned in the onset. Human speaking arises out of and as this enowned answering, and therefore within the tuned stance that the Denkweg calls Verantwortung. The latter is not a contingent “responsibility” of a given being, but the biding 94

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that constitutes human being as such. This biding is the in-gatheredness in the answer, which (this in-gatheredness), in turn, gathers itself in the word, and in this Îrmly owning gathering minds and heeds and keeps its stillness. The speaking that stems from this in-gatheredness in the answer—that is, from the stewardship for the word of the onset—is a mindful speaking. Such speaking is itself the holding-open of the openness or truth of beǺng; its biding is a seconding, soothing speaking, a “gain-speaking,” in one word, Entsprechung:25 Antwort ist das Wort der Sprache, das menschentümlich dem Wort des Seyns entgegnet. Die Antwort ist wesenhaft Entsprechung. Diese entspricht dem Wort des Seyns, d. h. der Stimmung, als welche die lautlose Zueignung und Aneignung das Wesen des Menschen zur Wahrung der Wahrheit der Anfängnis in den Anspruch nimmt. Diesem anfänglichen Wort entsprechen ist der Grundzug des Sprechens, aus dem die Sprache des geschichtlichen Menschen entspringt, insofern sie sich in das Gezüge der Wörter des denkenden Sagens und dichtenden Nennens entfaltet. (p. 156) Answer is the word of the speech, which (viz. this word) manhoodly gains [or counters] the word of beǺng. The answer bides in the temper of a gain-speaking. Such gain-speaking gain-speaks the word of beǺng, that is, the tuning as which the soundless to-owning and on-owning claims the biding of man for the keeping of the truth of the onsetness . Gain-speaking this onsetting word is the ground-trait of the speaking whence springs the speech of wyrdly man, in so far as this speech unfolds into the whole of traits of the words of thinking [thoughtful] saying and dighting26 [“poetical”] naming. Implicit in this thinking of the word is that the claiming as which enowning breaks itself to, addresses, and engages the (thus awakened) biding of man, enowns itself in the “speechless”27 (p. 171). This breaking-claiming is a bespeaking (beanspruchen, in den Anspruch nehmen). We experience this bespeaking of the onset—and thus our belongingness to beǺng as those who, in their biding, must mind its truth—in “speechlessness” (p. 172). Such speechlessness is not just the privative phenomenon we commonly know by this name. In other words, it is not an instance in which, due to some emotional shock causing a state of fright, joy, bliss, astonishment, “we” are temporarily deprived of our “natural” faculty of speech. Rather, in these tunings or attunements we are attained by “speechlessness itself in its biding as enowning” (p. 172), namely, as the onsetting element of the tuning of man’s biding to the truth of beǺng and therefore as the tuning of our languages’ speaking to the tune of beǺng itself. Thus, rather than being a suspension of the human faculty of speaking, 95

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speechlessness—that is, the word itself—is the Îrst tuning of speech, and thus that which tunes “us” to the ground-tone and the tonalities of “our” motherlanguages. The suխx “-less” in “speechlessness” has in fact the sense of “claiming” and “wanting,” so that “speechless” means: (the tuning oլ-ground and onset) claiming speech. The speechless is literally, and in the full sense of the word, the wanting of speech, that is, of what is ownmost to man.28 When we speak in answer to the tuning of enowning, that is to say, when our biding is in tune with the word of beǺng, we are in our own-temperedness, and thus ourselves. 5.3 THE WORD-TREASURE OF ENOWNING

The indication of the manner in which Das Ereignis thinks the biding of speech required several references to what appears to be the most remarkable part of this treatise, namely, §184, entitled “Das Ereignis. Der Wortschatz seines Wesens.” This section, which alone Îlls almost twenty-four pages of the book (pp. 147– 70), begins thus: Nach der folgenden Umgrenzung ist der sonst noch schwankende Wortgebrauch, der stets noch einen Spielraum der Übergänge behalten muß, eindeutiger zu beachten. (p. 147) For the sake of clarity, we translate as follows: After the following determination, the word-usage regarding Ereignis and related words, which elsewhere is not always constant in indicating the same trait with the same single word, is to be heeded in such a way that each single word indicates in a more clear-cut and stable manner a well-deÎned trait. However, this very usage must always maintain for itself a certain clearance, in order to allow for the free play of over-goings [transitions, crossings] between traits, which may imply that a certain trait is indicated, in diլerent regards, with diլerent words, or that the same word indicates diլerent traits. The passage sets forth how thinking builds its path, to wit, how the Denkweg builds itself. Here, beǺng-wyrdly thinking displays and determines the traitand word-richness of the simple unity29 of Ereignis in a single rigorous turn of thought and saying. In doing so it establishes an economy of the use of this and related words with respect to the traits involved. The economic principle that regulates this framing of the word-treasure of enowning’s biding can be indicated thus: in the Ïagrancy of the inexhaustible and absconced richness of the simple (i.e. the richness ensconced in the word of the word, namely, 96

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Er-eignis), this faired richness wants to be guarded as such thanks to a suխciently clear-cut and stable naming of its ground-traits. “Suխcient” means: such that the Denkweg is kept on the verge of proceeding to an ever freer, simpler, and more rigorous thinking of its only sake, and therefore without resorting to rigid or “exact” deÎnitions, which would be detrimental not only to thinking, but, in the Îrst place, to the absconced richness to which this thinking belongs and which it serves. Without a suխcient clearance, without, as it were, the essential agility that must characterize the rigor of indicating, this richness instantly withdraws, leaving us in a word- and beingless indigence. There is no likely economy—of any kind—if not in and from the richness of the oլ-ground. In short, the only economy is the economy of richness. The measure that guards the richness can only come from the very sake that demands to be economized. This sake yields the ̷̨̩̫Ȏ for the ̫Ѩ̦̫Ȏ, that is, for the word, and the entirety of words, that can shelter it. The law that rules the saying of beǺng is not based on values such as “unambiguousness” or its opposite. Therefore, the comparative eindeutiger does not refer to a certain degree of unambiguousness on a scale of (ideally “total”) formal-logical univocity, but to a measure in the steadiness of naming, in short, to a time-space of naming, of which logic ignores the source and the rules.30 For all likely Mitdenken (cf. p. 318), the richness of determinations—or rather, of intonations— given in this section implies the following: in so far as there is, in the Îrst place, an own-tempered, genuine attempt to think the onlyness of Ereignis, the whole of these elucidations constitutes a unique access to the speechless richness of Ereignis itself and its rigorous thinking. If, on the other hand, there is no such attempt, but rather the will to dispose of a handy dictionary that helps to “master the texts,” then this section of Das Ereignis is a formidable occasion for corroborating the inertness of thinking. Ereignis—not the vocable “Ereignis,” but Ereignis as the word of the word31— is the treasure of the onset. If we liken Ereignis to a crown (the gem of gems), we may call the eleven tuning-traits that constitute the “word-treasure of its (viz. of Ereignis) biding,” displayed in §184, the eleven gems. These gems are: das Ereignis, das Ereignen (die Er-eignung), die Ver-eignung, die Übereignung, die Zu-eignung, die An-eignung, die Eigentlichkeit, die Eignung, die Geeignetheit, die Ent-eignung, das Eigentum. Not least because of the caveat mentioned in the preceding paragraph, it is necessary to preface our brief notes on these gems with a remark concerning the translation of Ereignis.

5.3.1 Translating Ereignis

First of all, we should bear in mind that the translation of Ereignis into other wyrdly languages will not necessarily yield a word that, analogously to Ereignis, is the ground-word of the likely Denkweg within those languages. 97

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Diլerently put: the thinking of Ereignis is fertile among the wyrdly languages not in the sense that the diction eventually chosen for translating Ereignis will itself be the ground- or mother-word for accomplishing what is in store for the thinking of these languages. Rather, Ereignis sets free in other languages the “mindful search for [the] onsetting richness” of the word, and thus wises the own-tempered intoning of their own ground-word. As the ground-word of the German Denkweg, Ereignis is the wising-word for the likely Denkweg of other wyrdly languages. For the Denkweg of a diլerently tuned answer, it is necessary to hear the German word Ereignis in the speechless, more precisely, it is necessary for it to hear through this word the bespeaking of the speechless, and thus to translate itself into this answer’s ownmost word, in order to ground the resounding of what is this other Denkweg’s own ground-word.32 This is what actually took place in Italian.33 Here, Ereignis and its translation as addicenza and accortezza wised—and is still wising—the attempt of translating the Italian language into its ownmost word (i.e. its biding as an answer to the word of beǺng) in the wake of the beǺng-wyrdly intralingual translation of what (thanks to the thinking of Ereignis) Înally showed and became audible as the ground-word of the onsetting Italian thinking, namely, nulla.34 Consequently, the wising-words addicenza and accortezza are related to—and dependent upon—the German word Ereignis in a diլerent manner than the ground-word nulla. The latter, remaining thankful to Ereignis, stands next to it as a lone star next to another in the fair constellation of the untranslatable ground-words of the wyrdly languages. With this in mind, what is there to say about the attempts to translate Ereignis into English? Concerning the translation of Ereignis as “enowning” there is to say: this is in fact an attempt, and as such it bides its time. In other words, it is a translation that is testable—not as an operative tool, but as a seed. What can test the fruitfulness of this seed is only the ownmost word of the English language and the attentiveness of those who have an ear for this word. But who does have an ear for this word? Only he who minds Ereignis from out of the fertility of the speechless, where the oլ-ground bespeaks and tunes the biding of man for the gain-speaking that keeps its (i.e. the oլ-ground’s) clearing in words that in-tone the tune of beǺng. But, one might object, is not any translation an attempt—more or less likely, more or less suխcient, destined to last or to be soon abandoned? Let us see. Another suggested translation of Ereignis is “event of appropriation.” This expression combines the meaning of the common German word Ereignis, “event,” with the element of “making proper.” “Proper,” in turn, renders the German eigen, and is the basis for translating related words, such as Eigentum, eigentlich, and so on, which, according to present-day etymological knowledge, are not linked to Ereignis. “Event of appropriation” indicates a happening or occurrence whose content is “appropriation.” It does so in an unambiguous and comprehensible manner. With some study we can accommodate 98

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a number of informative values in this expression. For instance, we can say: among other things, “event of appropriation” indicates the happening by which the essence of man is “appropriated” by the truth of being. We can further state that “event” in some way indicates the suddenness of this happening, that is, what the Denkweg experiences as Geschehnis-Charakter of Ereignis. And so on. These semantic values, with their unambiguous informational content, everybody can readily register, “comprehend,” and store for future use. Each new meaning that can be found in “event of appropriation,” or traced back to it, adds to the value of this expression: it is a value-added, and as such corroborates the eլectiveness of the translation. What does “eլectiveness” mean in this context? It means that the translation is manageable and, at the same time, thanks to the semantic range of its components, “does well” in covering the problems of “translation” posed by the texts containing Ereignis and related words. Its being manageable, and scoring high in covering the complex of Ereignis-terminology in English, make it eլective as a legal currency for historical and “critical” (cf. p. 287) discourse. To sum up: the expression “event of appropriation” makes readily available a complex of semantic-informational values that, to some extent, allow to eլectively restate in English what is stated in and on the basis of the German word Ereignis, in so far as the latter is, in turn, heard as a complex of such values. In the light of this assessment, “event of appropriation” is a “valid” translation of Ereignis. What a translation is, is here decided on the basis of a semantic-informational computation performed by common sense. But is such a computation not the only legitimate method of translation, at least in the domain of rigorous knowledge? Who would want to suggest that we should rather resort to vague impressions, assonances, taste: in other words that we leave everything to “subjective” criteria? However, we know that in the domain of beǺng-wyrdly thinking the only likely criterion for the truth of an answer is Ereignis itself as the onsetting word. This criterion has nothing to do with comprehensibility, or manageability, or availability, or, in general, with eլectiveness, or with semantic-informational values, and cannot be grasped in these terms. In other words, it has nothing to do with what is spoken and heard in ordinary, that is, beingless, language, and graspable in the terms of this language. Ordinary language is the language of contingency, that is, of beingless beings, in other words, of beings, Seiendes, whose Seinlosigkeit, beinglessness, is unbroken. The computation of informational values has nothing to do with the economy that belongs to the richness of the oլ-grounding word and its treasure. In fact, only where this richness is passed over, only in the resulting indigence of the word, does language appear as a stock of calculable semantic values. A word-treasure (and its rigorous economy) is one thing, a stock of bits of information (and its exact computation in a regime of informational scarcity), is another. As a consequence, the computed informational aծuence of the expression “event of appropriation” is never rich. The degree to 99

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which it “covers” the nuances of the semantic domain of Ereignis is separated by a chasm from the suխciency of an answer. The propositional content it expresses is at best “comprehensible” (i.e. computable and operable), but it is not a thought. Its phonetic values are not sounds tuned to the silent tune of the onset. It speaks, but it doesn’t say beǺng. In short, “event of appropriation” remains a surrogate for a missing word and an unthought sake. However, the expression “event of appropriation” is not only a surrogate. Being part of an operation, and thus itself operative in nature, it explicitly aխrms this operative character of speech. The diլerence between an attempt at translating and an operation of transposition of lexical units is that this operation has already overstepped the word, while that attempt never does. The attempt bides the speechless. It bides in the word and minds the word, while the operation deals with words as informational values and tools of expression. The attempt owns to the word and soothes the truth of beǺng, while the operation calculates eլects where the word has never broken. The words of the attempt counter, that is, hold themselves against, the speechless tune of beǺng, while the terms of the operation are not only untuned, but actually implement the distunedness of language and therefore the thoughtlessness of thinking. They do so in a manner that is the more deceitful the more their construction enhances and secures their operative expediency. The distunedness of words cannot be demonstrated. “Distuned” means: not broken to the tuning weirdness of that which is never a being, that is, Unterschied. Ereignis is not “ein Ereignis,” is not an “event.” Das Eigene does not have to do with the property or propriety of something. The variety of possible tones and meanings of “event” and “appropriation” remains conÎned to the beingless. And combining two distuned words does not result in the word of a tuned answer. Therefore, translating Ereignis and the word-treasure of its biding on the basis of “event of appropriation” implies that, what should be the wising-word for translating the English language into its temper as a wyrdly answer of beǺng, becomes an occasion for distuning this language. Such distuning, and the oblivion of any tune, yields a readily operable implement, by means of which one can comfortably articulate the mechanics of “Ereignis” without leaving what Heidegger somewhere calls the “historical balcony,”35 and reconstruct, or even further develop, this mechanics without ever entering the dimension of thought.

5.3.2 The tuning-traits of enowning

The “backbone” of what §184 unfolds as the word-treasure of enowning’s biding is said in the Îrst four gems, to wit, Ereignis, Er-eignung, Ver-eignung, and Übereignung. Their oneness and interplay tune the fair fugue of the groundtraits of the bidance of beǺng. These traits refer back to previous treatises. 100

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For instance, Anfang and Abschied, Abgrund and Unterschied, refer to Über den Anfang (HGA 70). The same is true for Verwindung, whose sense is, however, more richly displayed in Das Ereignis itself. For Anfang we say “onset,” for Abgrund “oլ-ground,” for Abschied “oլ-break.” For Unterschied we have suggested, amongst others, “schism.”36 A more productive translation of this word may be found, provided we mind that Unter-schied indicates itself a trait of enowning’s biding, and not a phenomenon obtained as a result of the action of unterscheiden (i.e. “distinguishing, separating”) being performed by, and on, something given (e.g. by “being” and on “beings”). As a consequence, any word that remains attached to the idea that something is distinguished or separated from something else, is not suitable as a translation.37

En-oneing In what sense do the Îrst four traits constitute the “backbone” of the wordtreasure of enowning’s biding, and hence of enowning itself? Answer: in the sense that the interplay of these traits grounds the speechless, manless and divineless, world- and earthless, Înite bidance of beǺng as en-owning. The simple word Ereignis indicates die eigens sich lichtende Anfängnis des Anfangs. Die anfanghafte Wahrheit des Seyns wahrt in sich als anfängliches Ereinigen die anfanghafte Einheit des Ereignens und des Ereigneten. Das Wort “anfänglich” bedeutet stets: aus dem Anfang ereignet und der Anfängnis übereignet.38 (p. 147) the of-own clearing-itself onsetness of the onset. The onsettempered truth of beǺng keeps in itself, as the onsetting en-oneing, the onset-tempered oneness of the enowning and the enowned. The word “onsetting” always means: enowned from out of the onset and overowned to the onsetness. The other onset of thinking is the same as the Îrst and only onset, but it is this Îrst onset cleared and minded in its onsetness. This enowned clearing is what constitutes its otherness: Das Ereignis erlichtet die Lichtung des Anfangs dergestalt, daß er nicht nur aufgeht und mit ihm Anfängliches zum Scheinen kommt wie im ersten Anfang, sondern daß der Anfang als der Anfang sich der also gelichteten Wahrheit seiner Anfängnis übereignet. (Ibid.) Enowning enclears the clearing of the onset in such a manner that not only it [scil. the onset] arises and, together with it, an onsetting inscape comes to shine, as in the Îrst onset, but that the onset as the onset overowns itself to the thus cleared truth of its onsetness.”39 This enowning is the enowning of the one or “en-oneing” (Er-einigen). The sense of this en-oneing is indicated in the explication of the word Er-eignung, en-ownment, which involves the traits of Unterschied and Abschied. These traits are, in turn, tuned as Ver-eignung and Übereignung. The thus tuned traits show the en-oned oneness as the sharpest cut.40 In order to see the “structure” of this cut, which is, so to speak, the condition for the open bidance of the one, we must mind that the en-ownment (das Ereignen, die Er-eignung) is “in sich gegenwendig aus dem anfänglichen Aufgang, der zugleich Untergang in den Abgrund ist” (p. 147), “in itself with-wending41 from out of the onsetting arising, which is together an under-going (into) the oլ-ground.”42 Unterschied bides as this tuning with-wendingness. Unterschied, the schism, is a trait of enowning and as such bides entirely in the onset. It bides in schisming itself, namely, the with-wending arising, from that which comes to shine in the open of this arising, namely, a being:43 Aufgehend unterscheidet sich das Aufgehen von dem, was in seinem Oլenen zum Scheinen kommt … [das] Ereignis ist unterschiedhaft. (Ibid.) In its arising, the arising schisms itself from that which comes to shine in its openness … enowning is schismatic [schism-tempered].44 However, in the wyrd of metaphysics not only does the schism itself not appear together with that which comes to shine and appears in the open that the arising yields. What remains in the Îrst place absconced is the onsetting enowning of the schism, to wit, that in which resides its onset-character, and therefore the ultimate safekeeping of the onsetness of the onset, namely, Abschied, the oլ-break. The oլ-break is the inmost instress of beǺng. In other words: beǺng is in so far as it schisms and it schisms in so far as it breaks oլ. That from which and towards which the schism schisms itself comes to shine only thanks to this schisming, that is to say, it is not already “there” as “something” with respect to which a schisming is performed, while the schisming itself as en-oneing is nothing but the bidance of the one. Similarly, that from which the oլ-break breaks oլ clears itself only thanks to the oլ-breaking, whose sense is precisely this clearing. In other words, it clears itself only in the abruptness of the oլ-break, and as the “from which” of the oլ-breaking itself and its tuning. What does this imply? It implies that now ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝ (i.e. disensconcing, Entbergung) bides wholly and entirely within the onsetting schism that enowns itself as the oլ-breaking 102

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onset. What enowns itself thus is the clearing toward any appearing of a being (an appearing schismed from this clearing). A being comes to shine thanks to the schismatic (i.e. onset-tempered) biding of this onsetting disensconcement, which consists in and is over-owned to the oլ-break into the onset’s undergoing. This is what it means to en-think ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝ of-own, and not just have it as the unminded and ungrounded ground-tune of the arising (̸̱̮̥Ȏ) of “beings” (and, eventually, as the true beingness of “beings” bestowed by the ̡Ѩ̠̫Ȏ). By this back-grounding of ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝—that is, of the with-wending of arising and under-going—into the schism over-owned to the oլ-break into the onset’s under-going, the other onset of thinking schisms itself from the Îrst onset. This schisming, in which the other onset consists, is the oլ-grounding of the cleared onsetness of the onset, that, together with the onset itself, ensconces and safe-keeps ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝. Another manner of characterizing the other onset with respect to the Îrst onset and its wyrd is the following: Der im Abgrund noch nicht abschiedlich geborgene Unterschied, der, nur aufgehend, im ersten Anfang sich verstrahlt, durchwaltet das Wesen der Metaphysik. Wenn aber der Unterschied als solcher, d. h. zugleich im Abschied, sich lichtet, ereignet sich die Verwindung des Unterschieds in den Abgrund. Aus ihr wird die Überwindung der Metaphysik gestimmt… (p. 148 et sq.) The schism—not yet oլ-breakingly ensconced in the oլ-ground— which, as a mere arising, beams in the Îrst onset, sways through the biding of metaphysics.45 However, as soon as the schism clears itself as such, namely, together in the oլ-break, the up-winding [in-winning] of the schism into the oլ-ground enowns itself. Out of this up-winding [in-winning] is tuned the over-getting of metaphysics…46 Only in the clearing of enowning: kommt … der Unterschied zum Seienden in die Lichtung und zumal ereignet sich die Lichtung des Abschieds in den Untergang des Anfangs. Damit kommt auch erst der Unterschied in seine volle Wesung, da die Lichtung sein Eigenes ist und ihm keineswegs nur wie eine Art des Bekanntwerdens anhängt. (p. 148) the schism toward a being comes into the clearing and at once the clearing of the oլ-break into the onset’s undergoing enowns itself. Only thus does the schism Îrst come to its full 103

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bidance, as the clearing is what is own to it [viz. the schism], and is by no means merely attached to it as a kind of becoming-known. What is at stake in enowning as this in-winning of the schism, is to allow the full bidance of the schism itself, namely, its own clearance as the clearing of beǺng (which is at once the enowning of “the clearing of the oլ-break into the onset’s under-going”). This brings us back to the Îrst-onsetting name of the (un-enoned) one and (unthought) schism, that is, ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝: Das Ereignis wendet die Verbergung in den Abschied zum Abgrund und wendet in einem die Lichtung in den Unterschied zum Grundhaften, d. h. dem Seienden. Aus dieser ereignishaften Wendung ist es gegenwendig. (Ibid.) Enowning wends the absconcing into the oլ-break to the oլground and in one wends the clearing into the schism towards the ground-tempered, that is, a being. Out of this enowning-tempered wending, it [viz. enowning itself] is with-wending. We are now prepared for a conclusive look at the tuning-traits Ver-eignung and Übereignung. Their elucidation is introduced thus: “Die Ereignung enthält die Gegenwendigkeit des Ereignisses in den beiden, den Unterschied und den Abschied stimmenden Weisen der Ver-eignung und der Übereignung” (p. 149): “The enownment implies the with-wendingness of enowning in the two wises of in-owning and overowning, which tune the schism and the oլ-break.” What does this mean?

In-owning and overowning Die Ver-eignung ist die abschiedliche Verwahrung des Ereignisses in den Abgrund seiner Innigkeit mit dem Anfang … Die Ver-eignung weist in das Eigenste des Ereignisses, das der Anfang ist. (Ibid.) In-owning47 is the oլ-breaking safekeeping of enowning into the oլ-ground of its inlyness with the onset … In-ownment shows into what is ownmost to enowning, that is, the onset. In-owning is the most original trait of enowning, in that it tunes the safekeeping and absconcing of the onset as such. Enowning itself is a tuning, but not the tuning “of something,” not even “of itself.” How could there be “something” for enowning to perform its tuning on? Enowning is itself only as the 104

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abruptly onsetting tuning. Enowning is the stirring-tune of the onset, which, in turn, is what is ownmost to enowning as the latter en-says itself as its own word and as the word of the word. What in-owning consists in, is the oլ-grounding of the sake named “absconcing.” This oլ-grounding is the safekeeping of the onset in its worthiness. In-owning absconces the onset into its oլ-breaking onsetness, and this and only this in-owning-tempered absconcing is, in turn, cleared as such and safe-kept in its enowning-tempered biding. As a consequence, dis-ensconcing (ж-̧ҟ̡̤̥̝) is now the cleared self-absconcing as the clearing of the onset. Such disensconcing is schismed from disensconcing as it bides in the Îrst onset, namely, from disensconcing constrained in the overwhelming sway of ̱ҥ̮̥̭: Die Ver-eignung verbirgt den Anfang in seiner Anfängnis so, daß die Verbergung gelichtet ist und dadurch in ihrem ereignishaften Wesen gewahrt, nicht etwa in eine Entbergung aufgelöst. Die gelichtete Verbergung läßt die Einzigkeit des Anfangs in seiner unantastbaren, weil ganz ihm eigenen Einfachheit aufgehen. (p. 149) In-owning absconces the onset in its onsetness in such a way that the absconcing is cleared and thereby kept in its enowningtempered biding, and not ever dissolved into a disensconcing. The cleared absconcing lets the onlyness of the onset arise in its onefoldness [simpleness], which is untouchable in that it is wholly own to the onset itself. “Equally onsetting,” and also—though in its own temperance—the ownmost of enowning (i.e. of en-oneing in its schismatic bidance), is the tuning-trait of Übereignung or overowning: Sie [scil. die Übereignung] ist die Ereignung in der Weise, daß das Ereignis die Lichtung als das Inzwischen des Zeit-Raums wesen läßt, so daß sich das Da ereignet und das Da-seyn als die Wesung der Kehre (das ist: die Wahrheit des Seyns als Seyn der Wahrheit) ist. Die Übereignung ist das wesende Da-seyn. Dieses selbst ist erst, wenn die Anfängnis des Anfangs eigens sich lichtet. Vordem, und somit in aller Metaphysik, aber auch noch im ersten Anfang, west das Da-seyn nicht. Gegenwendig entspricht dem Da-seyn im Ereignis der Untergang dergestalt, daß im Da-seyn erst und hier allein der Untergang geschichthaft wird. (p. 150) It [scil. overowning] is the enownment in the wise that enowning lets bide the clearing as the in-between of the time-space, so that 105

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the there48 enowns itself and the there-beǺng is as the bidance of the turning (that is: the truth of beǺng as the beǺng of the truth). The overowning is the biding there-beǺng. There-beǺng itself is only when in the Îrst place the onsetness of the onset clears itself of-own. Previously, and thus in all metaphysics, but also still in the Îrst onset, there-beǺng does not bide. That which gain-speaks to there-beǺng in the with-wending biding of enowning is the undergoing, in that only in the there-beǺng, and here alone, the undergoing becomes [worthes] wyrd-tempered. The overowning indicates an oլering, but again not the oլering of “something” by “someone” (or “something”) to “someone” (or “something”). It does not involve the handing over of anything, least of all the conveying of “something” to “man.” The sense of the oլering, wherein overowning consists, resides entirely in beǺng’s weirding itself into its own clearing, and in this weirding, in turn, being the enowning of the there. Overowning is not a “movement” involving a “from” and a “to” in “space,” but the onsetting tuning of Da-seyn’s biding, which is in itself turning or turnsome, in that it is itself the biding of the turning, Kehre, and this in the temper of enowning. Do we see what Kehre means, namely, that which here and elsewhere is indicated with the formula die Wahrheit des Seyns als das Seyn der Wahrheit?49 The Îrst sentence of the quoted passage spells it out: [Overowning] is the enownment in the wise that enowning [i.e. the of-own clearing-itself onsetness of the onset] lets the clearing bide as the in-between of the time-space [i.e. as the truth of beǺng], so that the there enowns itself [i.e. beǺng “is” its own truth] and the there-beǺng [i.e. the there-beǺng as, in turn, the there-beǺng] is as the bidance of the turning (that is: the truth of beǺng as the beǺng of the truth). Overowning is not an instance of conveying (i.e. of a property passing from A to B): it lets bide the clearing as the truth of beǺng, so as in turn to let beǺng bide in its enowned, that is, tuned, there. For a Îrst, albeit insuխcient elucidation, we can indicate the turning as consisting in two “moments,” where “moment one” is the enowning of the clearing, tuned to the schism as oլground, while “moment two” is the absconcing of beǺng into its thus cleared enowning-tempered truth. Or, with a short formula: “as beǺng clears itself 4 the clearing Ǻs,” with the symbol “4” indicating the turning.50 Overowning “is the biding there-beǺng” that, in its turnsome biding, stands in the with-wendingness to the under-going into the oլ-break, and thus tunes the there to the onsetness of the onset. The only sake of the Denkweg is the thus enowned clearance of the onsetness itself. 106

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Enowning and man The tuning-traits of enowning, which we characterized as the “backbone” of enowning itself, do not contain any reference to man. When enowning enowns itself, this enowning is not human. We said, it is in itself “manless.” However, meanwhile we have learned to hear the suխx “-less” as the indication of a wanting and therefore of a claiming. Indeed, the non-human unfolding of overowning contains, as such, an only reference to man, whose sense is that of a want and a claim.51 As enowning is the tuning tune, this want and claim must, in turn, concern man in the form of a tuning. The following passage, which concludes the treatment of overowning, indicates the enowning-tempered origin of manhood: Das anfängliche Ereignis der Lichtung läßt jedoch die Lichtung des Seyns nie nur überhaupt und im Unbestimmten wesen, wenn anders das Ereignis als Vereignung die Einzigkeit seiner Wahrheit wahrt. Daher muß auch in der Übereignung anfänglich eine Einzigkeit sein, der gemäß sich das Ereignis als Übereignung einem einzigen Wesen zu-eignet. Das anfängliche Ereignis der einzigen Übereignung ist / Die Zu-eignung. Dies Wort sagt, daß das Ereignis sich dem Wesen des Menschen über-eignet und allem Seienden zuvor sich diesem Wesen anheimschickt. (p. 150) The onsetting enowning of the clearing, however, never lets the clearing of beǺng bide “in general” and in the un-be-tuned, if, on the other hand, enowning as inowning keeps the onlyness of its truth. This is why in the onsetting trait of overowning, too, there must be an onlyness, according to which the enowning as overowning to-owns itself to an only biding. The onsetting enowning of the only overowning is / The to-owning. This word says that enowning owns itself over to the biding of man and, before any being,52 weirds and entrusts itself to this biding. The want and claim that concerns man as a tuning is related to the onlyness of enowning and its truth. This onlyness implies that the clearing of beǺng cannot bide im Unbestimmten, we say: in the un-be-tuned. Das Unbestimmte is not the same as das Ungestimmte, the untuned. For indeed the clearing is already tuned—in fact, it is itself the tuning-ground. What, then, is this want or need of biding in the betuned? In order to answer this question, we must ask what the onlyness of the truth of enowning implies. This truth is one-of-a-kind in a sense of “one-of-akind” that is itself only. The text says how and whence this is: “… wenn anders das Ereignis als Vereignung die Einzigkeit seiner Wahrheit wahrt.” The onlyness of the truth of enowning is kept in the trait of in-owning, that is, as we have 107

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just seen, in “the oլ-breaking safekeeping of enowning into the oլ-ground of its inlyness with the onset.” Enowning itself, in its inlyness with the onset, and enowning as onset alone, is: das Einzig-Eine, the only. That which keeps this onlyness, namely, in-owning, is itself a tuning-trait, namely, in the Îrst place, the tuning of the oլ-break. However, the tune of the oլ-break that safe-keeps in the oլ-ground the onlyness of enowning as the onset, in one word, the tune of the onsetness of the onset, is itself the want of a biding that, as such, bide and soothe the word of this onsetness. Thus, this only, in itself wanting tune be-tunes a biding as a likely only answer to the oլ-breaking onlyness of enowning.53 Because the in-owning wants a be-tuned onlyness, “in the onsetting trait of overowning, too, there must be an onlyness, according to which the enowning as overowning to-owns itself to an only biding.” The to-owning clears this only biding, and this clearing has the form of the turning that “lets the indraw of man’s biding into beǺng enown itself ” (p. 151). That man’s biding is cleared only in the enowning of this indraw54 means that “this biding is not extant in itself, but the onsetting oլ-setting55 of this being enowns itself only in the to-owning.” This ‘oլ-setting by in-drawing’ consists in this, “that man’s biding Înds itself in the inbidingness that takes on itself the heeding and the mindership for the there-being within a being, that is, only in this being” (ibid.; my emphasis). The to-owning, as the enowning of man’s biding’s indraw into beǺng, is the enowning of the irrevocable bearing of the onset on man’s biding, though “not on any biding of man and not on man in general, but on the only (der Einzige) of the one wyrd of beǺng itself ” (ibid.). This indraw into beǺng must necessarily together be an indraw into that which beǺng itself is wound up into, namely, the oլ-break. Hence, the to-owning is together an on-owning (Aneignung) in precisely the following sense: Indem das Ereignis die Wahrheit des Seyns in das Wesen des Menschen über-eignet, eignet es sich den Menschen in dem also erweckten Wesen an, sofern das Ereignis den geschichtlichen Menschen dem Anspruch zugehören läßt, der in der Zueignung den Menschen ins Wesen triլt. Die An-eignung weist den Menschen in die Vereignung und stimmt ihn für die Zugehörigkeit in den Abschied. Hier verbirgt sich die im anfänglichen Wesen des Seyns verwahrte Notwendigkeit, daß der Mensch und zwar als geschichthafter in einer einzigen Weise zum Tod sich verhält, so daß der Tod jeweils der Tod des geschichthaften Menschen selbst ist, indem sich ein Abschied zum Seienden innerhalb des Seienden ereignet … Dieser einzige Tod reicht in die “äußerste Möglichkeit” des Seyns selbst. Er “ist” niemals ein Ende, weil er stets schon in den Anfang gehört. (p. 152)

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By over-owning the truth of beǺng into the biding of man, enowning on-owns man to itself in the thus awakened biding, in that enowning lets wyrdly man belong to the bespeaking that, in the to-owning, cuts man to the quick of (his) biding. The on-owning shows man into the inowning and tunes him for the belongingness into the oլ-break. Here absconces itself the necessity, safekept in the onsetting biding of beǺng, that man, and precisely wyrd-tempered man, bears himself in an only wise towards death, so that death is bidingly the death of wyrd-tempered man himself, in that an oլ-break toward beings enowns itself within beings … This only death reaches into the “utmost likelihood” of beǺng itself. It “is” never an end, for it always already belongs into [is ingenite in] the onset. The elucidation of what we referred to as the “enowning-tempered origin of manhood” comes to a provisional end with the characterization of the awakening of man as the only being who is wyrd-tempered, that is, mortal, by the instress of his very biding. This biding, in so far as it is natively on-owned by enowning, bears in itself, and out-bears, the oլ-break, and is thus itself wound up (in-won) into the onset. The to-owning and on-owning, thanks to which awakens man’s oլ-breaking biding, enowns itself as the turnsome bidance of there-beǺng, so that man Înds himself indrawn into the weirding of beǺng (i.e. beǺng weirding itself as en-owning), in the sense that his biding is open to, and consists in, having to bide this weirding itself. In other words, the only man minds himself as him who, within the whole of beings, bears the oլ-break. His biding has to bide of-own the openness for the enowning-tempered, and therefore turnsome weirding of beǺng, in other words, it has to bide this openness as beǺng’s own haunt and abode. The enowned, and thus itself weirded openness for the weirding of beǺng we call: the weirdness of beǺng. “Weirdness of beǺng” is thus a synonym of Da-seyn as the bidance of the turning. Consequently, “biding the weirdness of beǺng” is a beǺng-wyrdly determination of the instress of man’s being in the other onset. At this point we interrupt the discussion of the word-treasure of enownment’s biding. The rest of this chapter will be devoted to a brief explication of how, in light of the so far elucidated Îndings, Das Ereignis helps us think and say Wesen, Da-sein, and Aufmerksamkeit in English. 5.4 TRANSLATING WESEN

§291 of the treatise (“Seyn und Wesen”) oլers useful directives for understanding the word Wesen as a word of beǺng-wyrdly thinking. Having called to mind 109

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the “word” as the onsetting tune of enowning, we should be in a more favorable position for understanding these directives. But what is there to understand? Is it not, by now, a philosophical commonplace—and thus legal currency in historical discourse—that Heidegger, when he uses the word “Wesen,” hears this word in a “verbal” sense, that is, as the nominalized form of the verb wesen? Indeed. As a consequence, when it comes to commenting on Heidegger’s thinking, the historical reÏex makes sure that the word Wesen is never used without the due addendum “(verbal),” which, after all, we Înd in Heidegger’s own writings. Just what does “verbal” mean? The common idea has it that the verbal understanding of Wesen means that the traditional notion of essence, which is characterized as “static,” is to be amended and replaced by a more “dynamic” or “active” notion. Hence, in view of an English rendering of Wesen, we need to either create a somehow “dynamized” variation on the theme of “essence” (e.g. the verb “essencing”), or resort to an entirely diլerent word that expresses the kind of “activity” we think Wesen is. But does “the verb” have to do, in general, with some form of dynamics, activity, or movement? Are “static” and “dynamic” not both and equally merely determinations of contingent conditions in contingent timespace? How can we hope to “escape” contingency by “dynamizing” something “static”? Have we forgotten that contingency cannot be broken by “doing something to it”? What if, instead, we pay heed that verbum is the word, and that the word is the tuning tune, that is, en-owning as the safekeeping of the onsetness of the onset? Then the expression “Wesen (verbal)” would imply that Wesen is to be understood in light of enowning as the word of beǺng, and indeed as the temper of this word: Das Wesen des Seienden denken, das kennzeichnet die Art der Philosophie und Metaphysik. / Das Wesen des Seyns denken, das weist hinaus in den anderen Anfang. / Aber wenn das Wesen gedacht wird, sei es das Wesen des Seienden, sei es das Wesen des Seyns, jedesmal ist im “Wesen” doch schon die Wahrheit des Seyns entschieden (Wesen ist seynsgeschichtlich Wesung—Kehre). / Und im anfänglichen Denken, das das Wesen des Seyns denkt, haben sich Seyn und Wesen auch in einer einzigen Weise gefunden. / “Wesen” ist da nicht einfach Seiendheit als das ̷̦̫̥̩̩ des Seienden, sondern ist “Wahrheit”. Und Wahrheit ist ihrerseits selbst zugehörig zum Seyn selbst. / Wo aber das Wesen nur das Generelle bleibt, da erhält sich der Vorrang des Seienden … / Aber nirgendwo enthüllt sich das “Wesen”, d. h. das Sein des Wesens. / … Nirgendwo kommt das Seyn selbst zum Wort. / … Das Denken des Wesens des Seyns denkt nicht das Seyn und dann noch das “Wesen”, sondern denkt das Seyn als die Wesung, als die Wahrheit 110

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des Seyns, die zum Seyn als Ereignis und Anfang gehört. / “Wesen” ist seynsgeschichtlich stets er-eignishaft gedacht als die Wesung— das “isten” des Seyns, das allein “ist”. / “Das Wesen” gründet je schon in der Wahrheit des Seins und “ist” sie. (p. 264) Thinking the Wesen of a being is what characterizes the manner of philosophy and metaphysics. / Thinking the Wesen of beǺng shows out into the other onset. / But whenever Wesen is thought, be it the Wesen of a being or the Wesen of beǺng, each time in this “Wesen” the truth of beǺng has already schismatically cleared itself (beǺngwyrdly, Wesen is Wesung—turning). / And in onsetting thinking, which thinks the truth of beǺng, beǺng and Wesen have Înally found each other in an only wise. / In light of the schism, “Wesen” is not simply beingness as the ̷̦̫̥̩̩ of diլerent beings, but it is “truth.” And truth, in turn, belongs to beǺng itself. / However, where Wesen remains merely the general, there the preeminence of a being remains in place … / But nowhere reveals itself the “Wesen,” that is, the being of Wesen. / … Nowhere beǺng itself comes to the word. / … The thinking of the Wesen of beǺng does not think beǺng and then, in addition, the “Wesen,” but it thinks beǺng as the Wesung, as the truth of beǺng, which belongs to beǺng as enowning and onset. / BeǺng-wyrdly, “Wesen” is always thought in the temper of en-owning, namely, as the Wesung—as the “ising” of beǺng, which alone “is.” / The “Wesen” always already has its ground in the truth of being and “is” this truth. “Be it the Wesen of a being or the Wesen of beǺng,” in the other onset Wesen is never beingness, no matter if this beingness is thought as “static” or “dynamic.” In fact, we can turn beingness around and upside down, stretch it, squeeze it, set it in motion, remodel and remold it as we wish: it will always remain beingness, that is to say, contingency. But Wesen, “thought in the temper of en-owning,” speaks “verbally,” and this means: it is the biding of the word as the source of all tones, and thus is the truth of beǺng, and this “is” itself is Wesung, and Wesung is Kehre, and Kehre is Da-seyn: Wesen, “be it the Wesen of a being or the Wesen of beǺng,” speaks as the word of Da-seyn, and thus “never in the un-be-tuned,” but only in tune with the onset that has already bespoken and on-owned the Wesen of man. This amounts to saying the following: the German word and sound “Wesen,” in saying the truth of the oլ-breaking turning of enowning, already contains a constitutive reference to man in the onset of his manhood. Thus, in Wesen is heard the non-human onset, the schism, in its onsettingly be-tuning relation to man’s biding, in short, as soon as we say Wesen, we have already said man. Neither the English sound and word “essence” nor its “verbal” variant 111

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“essencing” says the enowning-tempered Wesen, that is, Wesung. On the other hand, the word and sound “sway” does speak in the sense of Wesung, in that it says not a “beingness in movement,” but the in-itself turnsome “being of Wesen.” Finally, we must leave it as a question whether or not the simple word “biding” is a suխcient translation of Wesen. “Biding” is staying and dwelling; but it is also the in-itself Îrm waiting, and waiting is “biding the time,” and time is the truth of beǺng. Biding says of-own the bearing of the truth (the time-space) of beǺng, namely, the truth of beǺng itself in its (turnsome) bearing that, as on-owning, has already in-drawn man into the oլ-break. Man’s biding consists in the bearing of Da-seyn, which awaits man, so that, in the instant of en-owning, he may Înd himself as the in-biding minder of the truth of beǺng and the out-bearer of the oլ-break within the whole of beings and for the enowned wholeness of this whole. 5.5 TRANSLATING DA-SEYN

Once the word “biding” has gained its fuller sound as a word of beǺng, the previously heard indications on Da-seyn should, in turn, sound more distinctly: “… and Da-seyn is as the bidance of the turning (that is: the truth of beǺng as the beǺng of the truth). The overowning is the biding Da-seyn. Da-seyn itself is only when the onsetness of the onset clears itself of-own.” The word Da-seyn (rather than Da-sein) says: the Da (i.e. the truth, the clearing) of Seyn, and this clearing of Seyn as the turning that is itself with-wendingly wound up into the oլ-ground. Just like Da-sein, but more oլ-groundingly so, Da-seyn is therefore not a name of “man” or of “man’s being,” but a name of beǺng, in so far as its bidance and enowned truth bears in itself the “erotic” want of man’s biding, in other words, it is a name of beǺng in its inclination toward man: beǺng on-owns [man]56 thanks to the enowning-tempered “between” named Da-seyn, while man belongs to beǺng by the be-spoken, steadfast Inständigkeit, or inbidingness, in Da-seyn, and the be-tuned Wächterschaft, or mindership, of the onset. In §224, entitled “Das Seyn—als das Da-seyn,” we read: [Das Seyn—als das Da-seyn /] Der letzte Gruß des in den Anfang verwundenen Seyns in die Wahrheit als Lichtung des Ereignisses. / Das Dasein—nicht nur als Da-sein, sondern das Da-sein als das Daseyn. / Das Da-sein nicht nur in die Inständigkeit des Menschen, sondern Da-seyn als Wesung des Ereignisses. (p. 209) [BeǺng—as there-beǺng /] The last greeting of beǺng, wound up [in-won] into the onset, into the truth as the clearing of enowning. / Dasein—not only as Da-sein, but Da-sein as Da-seyn. / Da-sein not 112

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only into the inbidingness of man, but Da-seyn as the bidance of enowning. The Da of Da-seyn is “the truth as the clearing of enowning,” in which bespeaks the “last greeting” of beǺng “wound up [in-won] into the onset.” In §227, “Da-sein und ‘Oլenheit’,” we read the following: “Da” in this beǺng-wyrdly grasping does not have the indicative character, according to which it distinguishes itself from “dort” [“there”] (da und dort [here and there]). The Dort, too, is a Da, more precisely, it is in the Da (Da z ibi and ubi) … The Da means the enowned open—the enowned clearing of being. (p. 211) Thus, the Da is neither the “here” nor the “there” nor the “then.” It is also not the general form or the unity of these “spatial” and “temporal” determinations, but the biding in-between of the time-space of beǺng toward any betuned here and there, now and then, thus and other. Diլerently put, the Da is the tuned and tuning, enowned spaciousness, claiming to be out-borne by man’s inbiding, for all geeignetes Anwesen (cf. p. 161 et sqq.), we say: for all i-owned abiding, of that which abides. Which English word says this onsetting spaciousness for all abiding? The dimension for all timely and spatial and modal tonalities and tones of Anwesen? Which is the word of the tuned “oխng” itself of beǺng wound up into the onset, and claiming man as its minder? It seems that the word of the English language—that is to say, this language, in so far as it is an answer—has elected the sound “there” for intoning this onsetting dimension. This “there,” however, is not the “there” that speaks in “here and there,” thus indicating points of a contingent time-space intended by a man who, in turn, “is there,” that is, Înds himself “existing” in this given time and space. Which “there” must we think of? Answer: the “there” that already speaks as the sound of the silently tuning openness of beǺng, when the English language says “there is,” and thus also “there will be” and “there was,” but also “there has been,” “there had been” and “there will have been,” but also “there should be,” “there might be,” “there could be,” and so on. In the sound “there” there bespeaks, in a silent greeting, the “ising” of beǺng, as whose enowned openness and truth the “there” itself bides. There-beǺng is then the English name for the turnsome enowning—in-drawing man’s biding—of this “there” toward all abiding, so that we can say: Da-sein is not only as therebeing, namely, as the thrownness into the truth of being that man himself bears in his being; but Da-sein is more originally there-being as there-beǺng, that is, the enowning of the there of the world as the last greeting of beǺng wound up [in-won] into the oլ-break.

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5.6 MINDING THE MIND

The greeting of beǺng is the be-tuning to-owning of beǺng’s truth to man, so that man himself, in his thus awakened biding, is on-owned to enowning, and thus belongs to the be-speaking, which, in that to-owning, cuts him to the quick of (his) biding. This cutting is the abrupt Ïagrancy of the schism ending in the oլ-break, and, together, the Ïagrancy of man’s on-owned biding ending in the onset. In this cutting, man is “eyed” by beǺng itself in an “eyeing” that shows him into his belongingness to the manless oլ-break. The “eyeing” Ïagrancy of beǺng is the sense in which in Er-eignis speaks the trait of Er-äugnis57 that, catching man in the (thus Ïashing) quick of his biding, on-owns him as the mindful keeper of the truth of the onset. Man’s thus awakened keeping is, in turn, an “eyeing,” namely, a “keeping an eye” on, this truth. The onsetting eyeing and, together, the eyed (and thus oլ-set) keeping-an-eye, is what Das Ereignis calls: aufmerken. This word, and the related words aufmerksam and Aufmerksamkeit, set the tone of the entire treatise entitled Das Ereignis.58 Subpart B of part XI, which bears the title “Der Anfang und die Aufmerksamkeit” (cf. pp. 288–93), is devoted to aufmerken. In §323, “Die Aufmerksamkeit,” (p. 290), the verb merken, which commonly means “to notice, to realize, to perceive,” and “to remember,” is elucidated as erfahren, betroլen werden (“to experience something, to be struck or concerned by something”), but also as “Anwesenheit spüren; ̷̩̫̭, innewerden—(Innigkeit)” (“to sense abidinghood; ̷̩̫̭ [noos], to become aware [realize, notice, awake to]—(inlyness)”). Heidegger gives these Latin and German synonyms for “merken”: “notare, animadvertere, memoria tenere, observare, attendere, Achthaben [to watch], Achtsamkeit [attentiveness], Achtung [attention]. Im Gedanken behalten [to keep in mind]. Merkung: consideratio.” Aufmerken itself commonly means “to attend to, to pay attention,” but also “to sit up and take notice, to prick up one’s ears” (in German: aufhorchen, in die Höhe hören), almost with a sense of starting up (cf. the above mentioned “to sense abidinghood”). When Aufmerksamkeit is elected as the name for “the onsetting thinking in the other onset” (p. 289), this word says at once: (1) the abrupt minding of the onset as it clears itself as the oլ-breaking end; (2) this minding as, in the Îrst place, an oլbreakingly-onsettingly minded minding, in the instantaneous reciprocity of an eyed eyeing or beheld beholding in the oլ-ground; (3) this minded minding as a being touched in the quick of the thus en-owned and Ïagrant biding; (4) this biding as a gathered answering, bespoken by the onsetting minding for the silent gain-minding of the onset’s soundless word; (5) this gain-minding, in its inlyness with the onset, as a calling for the inbiding of an owning mind; (6) this inbiding as the Îrm, upstanding stance of the mindful bethinking of the onset’s truth; (7) this bethinking as the minded suլering that bears witness of the enowned onlyness of the manhood of man as the bearer of the smart of the oլ-break. The only tone 114

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of Aufmerksamkeit is that of a mindsome thinking tuned to the oլ-breakingly eyeing weirdness of beǺng, in whose soundless word man Înds himself bespoken as beǺng’s claimed minder. Aufmerksamkeit is “the future German name for the coming wise of bidesome, that is, onsetting thinking grounded” “by the Germans,” namely, in the Îrst place, Hölderlin and Heidegger. It is the German word by which the bespeaking speechlessness calls “us” unto the thinking of beǺng in the unprecedented likelihood and space of an onsetting and as yet absconced dialogue between the wyrdly languages. In English we say “minding” for aufmerken and “mindsome” for aufmerksam. What is “the mind”? Is it a complex of conscious or unconscious “cognitive operations” and “processes” performed by the (human) brain and studied by the “cognitive sciences”? Or is the mind the likelihood of man’s greeted inbidingness in the truth of beǺng, and thus the schismatic inscape of the “all-awakening experience” of ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝ (p. 280), which claims and in-owns man into the smart of the onset? If mindsomeness is the wise of the bidesome, that is, more onsetting thinking, and therefore the more onsetting name for “philosophy,” then only a mindsome thinking can and must mind that today the truth of thinking falls under the formating scrutiny of the “philosophy of mind,” which, rather than being a philosophical discipline, is the title of the planetary unmindfulness with regard to any onset and tuning, that is, the title of a distuned knowledge that, having long ago overstepped the word, is now cut oլ from it. On the other hand, mindsomeness knows the mind as the whole of man’s up-woundedness into beǺng, which is the worthiness of man. The mind is not a faculty “we” “have.” It is the diadem whose still glowing absconces the only man when the enowned clearing of the wreath of beǺng releases the glamour of the world.

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CHAPTER 6

THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH

The following is an attempt on speech and its origin in relation to therapy. What is a therapy? A therapy is a treatment that aims at healing or relieving from disease. Disease itself is, literally, a disturbance or the absence of ease. The fact that a therapy heals from disease means that it takes away the burden which is constituted by the absence of ease. Therapy disburdens from disease by restoring the ease in its capacity for easing. What kind of ease are we talking about? Who is, in the Îrst place, the diseased? The diseased is modern man, that is to say: each one of us. Modern man is diseased in the sense that he is deprived of the ease to which his being originally belongs and whence this being Înds its native temper. We are not at ease in that we are excluded from the easing, liberating element—the element which, in the Îrst place, eases into human selfhood. This element, which relieves from disease, thus easing man into human selfhood, we call Da-sein. Before we try to clarify the relation between Da-sein, as the originally easing element, and the origin of speech, we need to address an objection that could be raised against the approach we are taking. The diseased, we said, namely, the one whose ease is to be restored, is modern man. Assuming that this is true, the following question arises: what is the relevance of indicating this ease-restoring element for psychotherapy, which, one should assume, attempts to heal not modern man as such from a general disease, but speciÎc diseases aլecting the mind of individual human beings? The question is legitimate: as a matter of fact, the thinking of Da-sein does not entail any useful consequence for psychotherapeutical practice—to be true, it does not entail any useful consequence at all. Therefore, in the perspective of application, this thinking is useless and irrelevant. On the other hand, we could suggest that a word that aims to heal or soothe a human being cannot be spoken if it is not in some way tuned to that which disburdens man’s being into its original ease. To indicate this unburdening element, so that those who attempt to heal may, in 116

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turn, mind this element and modulate their attempt accordingly, is therefore the only contribution phenomenological thinking can make to therapeutical reÏection and practice. 6.1 DA-SEIN AND THE DE-HOMINATION OF MAN

We said before that the element which eases man into human selfhood and thus relieves from disease is Da-sein. What is Da-sein in the Îrst place? A straight handbook answer to this question is: Da-sein is, since Being and Time, Heidegger’s determination of the being of man. However, this answer, in its compactness, is at least insuխcient, if not untrue. In fact, it involves the risk of a fundamental misunderstanding and thus of a fatal distortion of the phenomenon indicated as Da-sein. This distortion consists in the fact that unawares the human being is taken as obviously given and unquestionably established precisely in regard to his being, and that this obviously given being is then seen to be endowed with the features that, according to Sein und Zeit, are characteristic of Da-sein, for instance, openness to sense, thrownness, beingtoward-death, and so on. How is this a distortion? The distortion consists in the fact that the human being we take as unquestionably given before “applying” to him the characteristics of Da-sein is precisely the diseased man, that is, man secluded in a contracted form of humanity or humanness. However, once the disease is posed as the obvious givenness of man, it is, so to speak, too late for Da-sein. That contracted form of humanity cannot be decontracted and healed, namely, restored in its own selfhood, by merely reinterpreting it according to the emendations or supplements to “human nature,” which, supposedly, are suggested in Being and Time. The contraction of humanness that constitutes the disease of modern man Heidegger calls die Vermenschung des Menschen—we say: the homination1 of man. This expression indicates that man is conÎned into a manner of being, which we call hominal, in which the basis for any encounter with things and with himself is the lived impact or lived clash (Erlebnis) with contingent circumstances, that is, with matters of fact. On the other hand, Da-sein is itself a form of being—not, however, the being of man or even man himself. As strange as it may sound, Da-sein, as a form of being, is the Îrmness of a knowledge, in other words, the temper of a “wit” of being, which is itself not human, but which concerns man in such a way that this concerning, in so far as it is owned and taken on in man’s being, implies a healing from homination. This healing we therefore call the “de-homination” of man (die Entmenschung des Menschen). What is at stake throughout the Denkweg is this de-homination. It is clear that, if we tacitly take as obviously given and therefore as “normal” the diseased or contracted form of humanity—that is, man excluded from Da-sein—and then look for ways to relieve this man of whatever appears to be his disease, such 117

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relieving is bound to come too late for an ease-restoring healing. The reason for this is that, from the point of view of the diseased and his normality, the phenomenon of Da-sein necessarily remains invisible and unthinkable, while all that is thinkable is a normalized (read: subjectivized) form of it. Therefore, if Da-sein is the element in which the transformation referred to as die Entmenschung des Menschen can take place, Da-sein itself needs to be carefully but sharply detached from man and his given being, namely, from what we have referred to as the lived impact. However, is such a detachment likely, and, assuming it is, is it tenable in the light of that which Heidegger says about Da-sein? In fact, this detachment is not only likely and tenable, but indeed necessary, if we are to understand the fundamental scope of the book Being and Time and of its successive deepenings. In §2 of his path-breaking work, Heidegger coins the word Da-sein as the name for the “being that we ourselves each at a time are and which, amongst others, has the likelihood of being that consists in interrogating.”2 It must immediately strike us that it is not said that Da-sein is “us,” but—and this diլerence is decisive—Da-sein is the being that we “ourselves each at a time are,” where this “time” is precisely the time of interrogating in answer to the Seinsfrage. In other words, whenever we (viz. each one as himself) interrogate in answer to the Seinsfrage, this implies that we already are, that is, sustain, bear, suլer, the being named Da-sein. Therefore, if we ask: “To whom is the ‘we’ of the quotation referred?” the answer must be: certainly not just to any man as he “is there,” nor to the human being in general. In fact, the “we” refers in the Îrst place to those who bide in the likelihood of being that is interrogating and, more speciÎcally, to those who attend to the interrogation of the one and only concern of thinking, namely, being itself.3 This is not the same as saying that a few men are, by virtue of a certain bearing, namly the “activity” of interrogating, or even by some sort of “anthropological diլerence,” endowed with the distinguishing features of “Dasein,” whereas others—the “majority”—unfortunately are not. The very fact that we are inclined to think in this manner shows that we are still stuck in some uninterrogated givenness of man, which bars us from the thinking of Da-sein. The fact that the “we” is referred not to anybody, but only to those who interrogate being itself and as they interrogate, oլers a decisive phenomenological hint, which can be formulated thus: that which Heidegger calls Da-sein (Da hyphen sein) becomes Ïagrant only in the Ïagrancy of being itself. In other words: Da-sein as a likely grounded wit of being itself comes into sight only from out of and within the concerning regard of being itself and its openness. But how does this regard concern and whom does it concern? Before turning to this question we need to gain a provisional understanding of that which, since Being and Time, is the one concern for thinking, in other words, die Sache selbst, namely, being itself. As we know, “being itself ” does not mean: being, understood according to an indeterminate sense of “presence,” 118

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taken “by itself,” that is, in some form of absoluteness or detachedness with respect to the totality of “beings.” In fact, absolute “being” or “presence” is precisely the concern of metaphysical thinking. What should retain our attention in the expression “being itself ” is, in the Îrst place, the word “itself.” We need to hear in what this word says a beckoning that abruptly translates from being as the ground-giving beingness of beings unto the in-itself swaying oլ-ground whence, in so far as it is owned as such, both the being of beings and the selfhood of man arise in their reciprocal relation. This oլ-ground Heidegger calls ontological diլerence. Ontological diլerence is not a diլerence in the common sense of this word. SpeciÎcally, it does not indicate a distinction between “being” on the one hand and the many “beings,” including man, on the other; rather, ontological difference is the element which keeps in itself the provenance of man’s being, and from out of which being itself as diլerent (or scinded) with respect to beings stems. As a matter of fact, ontological diլerence is the same as being itself, in other words, being as such is the originally “diլerentiating” element for being as diլerent with respect to beings. Instead of speaking of a “diլerence,” which in English, when this language needs to speak in the wake of the Denkweg, is not a primary word, we will call the oլ-ground that the ontological diլerence names: schism. The word schism comes from the Greek word ̮̲ҡ̴̢, which is the same as Latin scindo and German scheiden and means “to split” (cf. schizophrenia). Being itself as the ontological diլerence is the schism. Being itself is the oլ-ground, that is, not a mere absence of ground, but the withdrawing and thus denied schismatic element which in an original fairing holds apart things as things and the world as world. The Ïagrancy [openness, truth] of this schism is what Heidegger calls Da. The schism constitutes itself in its Da [Ïagrancy, openness, truth] as schismed from beings, which, in turn, appear as such only within the Da. In fact, the appearing of beings owes itself to a letting appear, and this “letting” is nothing else than the schisming schism itself, which, in its Ïagrancy or openness, schisms itself from that which comes to appear in its (namely, the schism’s own) absconced openness and clearance. The regard of the schism concerns in its beholding Ïagrancy. The latter shows a constitutive trait: the Da, the openness or Ïagrancy of being itself, is wanting. What does “wanting” mean?4 To want, which today we understand as “to desire, to wish for,” actually means “to be lacking, to be deÎcient.” In turn, this lack or deÎciency consists in a withdrawing or giving ground: the I.E. base *eue-, from which the verb “to want” stems, actually means “to leave, to abandon.” Thus, “to want” means “to wish, to desire,” where this desiring, however, comes from a lack or a need that, in turn, originates in a withdrawal. The Ïagrancy of being itself is wanting, in that being itself not only withdraws or retreats, but consists in nothing but biding withdrawal. However, what is this withdrawal in want of? Answer: the schism is in want of being suլered (or borne) and raised as such in its own truth. This want is what, in 119

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the Îrst place, interrogates “us” with regard to “our” likely being and awakes “us” to that likely being, in order for us to oլer our being to that being “which, amongst others, has the likelihood of being that consists in interrogating,” namely, Da-sein. The bearing, which suլers and stands the Ïagrant withdrawing and thus grounds and raises the truth of being itself, is the sense of the verb -sein in the word Da-sein. This -sein, the bearing of the wanting Da, or, in other words, the bearing of the longing Ïagrant schism, is not at all the being of man. However, the wanting Ïagrancy of the schism, while it shows this bearing, beholds a “who,” showing him into his belongingness to this bearing; by this showing and beholding, this “who” is called upon and called for to oլer himself, namely, his being, to the wanted bearing, thus owning his native belonging to being itself. The “who” called upon, called for and beheld in the longing Ïagrancy of being itself is the Ïagrant form in which man as such, namely, human man (i.e. homo humanus as schismed from homo animalis) consists. In so far as a man oլers his being to Da-sein as the form of being engendered by the schism itself for its (viz. the schism’s) own biding in truth, this man is himself. Having returned to his native being, he is originally eased into his ownmost and only temper of selfhood. In the Ïagrancy of a concrete “who” wanted for suլering the openness of the schism, that is, for oլering himself to Da-sein, another easing takes place: the Îrm oլ-grounding sway, in which claiming want and claimed bearing concern each other, in one word, the sway of longing and belonging, Înally engenders and keeps the wholesome sphere within which every thing is eased into its ensconced abiding. In other words: the Ïagrancy of being itself, in so far as it is Îrmly grounded in and as Da-sein, not only implies that man is ab origine released into his tempered selfhood, but simultaneously originates the wholesome temper of that which Heidegger calls das Seiende als solches im Ganzen, namely, beings as such in the whole. Why is it important to insist on the origin of Da-sein from out of the dehominizing schism? Why is it essential to know that Da-sein is not just a new deÎnition of human existence, namely, a deÎnition pretending to substitute or emendate the traditional deÎnitions of man as the living being endowed with speech or as the rational animal? Answer: it is essential because otherwise we risk understanding what Heidegger says about speech merely as a new determination of a well-known “faculty of man,” namely, the faculty of verbalizing ideas. However, speech in its schismatic biding is not at all just a human faculty, but originally a phenomenon belonging to being itself and thus to Da-sein. Man speaks only in so far as he shelters in words the wanting stillness of the schism’s Ïagrancy. This, however, implies the following: der vermenschte Mensch, the hominized man, speaks and yet does not speak, in other words, the diseased as such is, in a sense, excluded from speech. Only a rigorous understanding of Da-sein allows us to think speech and silence as the resort and abode for the 120

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healing of the diseased, and the healing itself as a regeneration of man as the speaking being. 6.2 THE TEMPER OF SILENCE

In order to gain an orientation with regard to the phenomenon of speech as originated in being itself we shall brieÏy turn to one of Martin Heidegger’s lecture courses of the early thirties of the twentieth century, now published in volume 36/37 of his Gesamtausgabe. The title of this volume, which contains the two lecture courses Heidegger gave during his time as a rector of the University of Freiburg, is Sein und Wahrheit.5 The passages we will be referring to are taken from the lecture course of the Winter semester 1933/34, where speech is discussed in the context of the problem of truth. Next to these passages I will also make explicit or implicit reference to later reÏections on language and speech contained in Beiträge zur Philosophie (HGA 65) and in Unterwegs zur Sprache (HGA 12). The two key propositions concerning the origin and sense of speech are the following: Schweigen: die gesammelte Aufgeschlossenheit für den übermächtigen Andrang des Seienden im Ganzen. (p. 111) Silence6 [being silent, keeping silence], that is, the in-gathered openness [Ïagrancy, decontractedness] for the overpowering surge of beings in the whole. Das Schweigenkönnen als Verschwiegenheit ist Ursprung und Grund der Sprache. (p. 112) The capacity for silence [for being silent], as the temper of silence, is the origin and ground of speech. Thanks to our preliminary considerations on the relation between being itself, Da-sein, and man, we are better prepared to place the phenomena of speech and silence in their proper dimension, namely, the dimension from which, as we said, the diseased is excluded. Silence, intended as being silent or keeping silence, not only is not merely a negative mode of speaking. Silence is, in the Îrst place, not a behavior of man as the “living being (that is, today, the active social animal) endowed with speech,” where speech, in turn, is intended as the capacity for uttering articulated sounds. In other words, silence (being silent, keeping silence) does not indicate the situation in which the being that possibly could speak, namely, “man,” refrains from doing so and thus remains mute. What, then, is silence, 121

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if it is not primarily an action performed by man? Answer: silence (being silent, keeping silence) is the ground-tone of the very bearing of Da-sein, so that, while keeping silence, we are the Da-sein. More precisely, silence is the temper in which the bearing of the schismatic openness consists. This temper tunes the Ïagrant in-gatheredness into the withdrawing schism for the coming of beings in the whole. The Ïagrant in-gatheredness bears and raises the withdrawing schism in its truth. While bearing the withdrawal it holds back, keeps retired and, in turn, withdrawn. The attunement of silence as the bearing of such holding back Heidegger calls Verhaltenheit. The holding back keeps silent and quiet, in other words, it maintains the silence and quietness in which the claiming (“ringing”) stillness of the schism is Îrmly ensconced. The original stillness is Ïagrant, that means, this stillness is broken. The fact that the stillness is broken does not imply that the stillness goes away and is replaced by some sound or noise, while the stillness eventually comes back as soon as the sound or noise, which interrupted it in the Îrst place, ceases. The fact that the stillness is broken means: the already broken stillness irrupts, breaks as such into its own Ïagrancy. This breaking breaks the ground, or rather the easing openness for the gathered appearing of beings in the whole. The ways or paths of such easing, namely, the paths along which beings come to the light in their wholesome sphere, are paths of broken stillness that are, in turn, tempered and kept in the temper of silence. The sounding shelter of such a path of stillness, in fact, this path of stillness itself, in so far as it bides as a sound that is tuned to the original stillness through the borne temper of silence, we call a word. We have proceeded very fast—too fast, in fact. Therefore we need to resume our way with a more precise characterization of the capacity for silence as the “origin and ground” of speech. First of all, we need to stress once more that the capacity for silence or for being silent is not the origin of speech in the sense that the faculty of not uttering signifying sounds is a precondition for the occurring of such uttering, which each time proceeds from that “zero-speech-situation.” In other words, indicating silence as the “origin and ground” of speech does not imply that the possibility of speaking depends on the fact that, in the Îrst place, there must be the capacity for “silence,” intended as a privative mode of speaking, namely, as speech in the mode of a non-actualized potentiality. The capacity for silence, intended as Verschweigenheit—we say: as the temper of silence—is the origin or source of speech only in so far and as long as this capacity preserves silence (being silent, keeping silence) as such, that is, in its provenance from and in its being tuned by the original stillness, and this means: as long as it preserves silence as the very temper of this stillness’s Ïagrancy. The ordinary meaning of the German word Verschwiegenheit is discretion or secrecy. Zur Verschwiegenheit verpÏichtet sein means to be sworn to secrecy. Somebody whose nature is to be verschwiegen can be trusted to keep a secret, in that his entire being is inclined to the silence that keeps and ensconces the secret in the Îrst place. What is a secret? Commonly, a secret is a held-back 122

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knowledge, namely, the knowledge of a fact or a circumstance. To keep a secret is a manner of preventing others from knowing this known fact or circumstance. Here, however, the secret to be kept is not a known fact, that is, an information which must remain undisclosed. The secret is the in-itself retiring broken stillness as which bides the atoning and tuning schism. Keeping this secret means preserving the atoning and tuning schism itself in its knownness. Verschwiegenheit, the temper of silence, bides as the highest keeping and preservation of the broken, and in this sense known, stillness as such. This being broken and known is not some kind of formal knowledge, nor is it a knowledge generated by man. Rather, it is the original alertness or awareness, in which the stillness itself is Ïagrant. The brokenness of the secret that is kept in the temper of silence is the Ïagrancy of the stilling stillness. This alertness or awareness bears the beholding of the wanting stillness that “catches sight” of the “who” that it needs in order to be grounded as Da-sein. The “who” is required to be silent, that is, to keep silence. Keeping silence he suլers the temper of silence that grounds and preserves the Ïagrant stillness. The “who” is by himself not capable of silence. The capacity for silence is not a human faculty; it is nothing human in the Îrst place. Man can be silent only thanks to the fact that in the Îrst place the wanting stillness, for its own grounded biding, calls for silence and likes silence and thus engenders a temper of silence and Înally beholds a “who,” whose likely being is tuned as the keeping of silence.7 The temper of silence is itself the likelihood of silence and keeping silent. The “who,” in turn, is likely to keep silent only in so far as, in answer to the most absconced call, he bears the silent Ïagrancy of stillness. The likelihood of silence as the temper of silence—das Schweigenkönen als Verschwiegenheit—is between man and being itself, or rather, it is, as was said above, the ground-tone of the in-between that is Da-sein. Just as Da-sein in a sense enlikens Da-sein, the temper of silence as the tuned in-between enlikens the in-gathered, inbiding openness in which silence consists. In such enlikening the temper of silence keeps the in-gathered openness in its provenance in the wanting stillness. Only in so far as his being is in-gathered in the temper of silence, and thus tuned to the original stillness, man can speak. The temper of silence is the origin and ground of speech by virtue of the enlikening that tunes man’s entire being, his likely being silent, to that stillness. Silence itself, that is, being silent or keeping silent, is not a state or an action performed by man, but “[das] Geschehnis [der] ursprünglichen Verschwiegenheit” (p. 111): “the Geschehnis of the original temper of silence.” The Geschehnis of the original temper of silence is the grounding of the original tune of stillness into a biding Da-sein. Silence is not the factual absence of any utterance, but a Geschehnis. This latter word in ordinary speech indicates an ontical event, that is, something that occurs. However, Geschehnis, as it speaks in schismatic German, refers to the breaking of the oլ-ground as the abrupt coming of the broken stillness into the thus originated ground of schismatic time-space. Only 123

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as a consequence of this breaking of time-space can something like “events” and “occurrences” take place. For our present purpose, we translate das Geschehnis as “the worthing” (“to worth” = “to come to be, to come about, to become”). In the worthing speaks, as its original instress, the weirding weird, whose fuller name is: das Er-eignis.8 Das Geschehnis der ursprünglichen Verschwiegenheit is the worthing of the original temper of silence, in which Da-sein consists. Verschwiegenheit, the temper of silence, is the ground-temper, tuned to the tune of stillness, which (viz. this temper) bides as the origin and ground of speech, that is, of the showing ensconcing of beings in the whole, and of each single being, into what is their own. The word “temper” implies the traits of Îrmness and measure. On the very last page of Beiträge zur Philosophie (composed between 1936 and 1938), Heidegger writes: “Speech is grounded in silence. Silence is the most absconced measure-keeping [the most ensconced moderation]. Silence keeps the measure in that, in the Îrst place, it sets the gauges (Maßstäbe) ” (p. 510). Silence sets the gauges for all measuring. Which measures are kept thanks to the gauges set through silence? On the one hand, silence sets the gauges for all world-measures, that is, the measures that preserve the fairness of the world, namely, of the fourfold mirror-play of sky and earth, divine and mortals. The fairness of the world grants the wholesome selving of things, which, in turn, gather the mirror-play of the world. On the other hand, and simultaneously, silence sets the gauges for all thingmeasures, namely, the measures that trace and clear the inscape of things, namely, of their allowing and biding the time-space for human dwelling. The inscape of things gathers the fairing of the world, which, in turn, releases things into the wholesomeness of their thinging. The simple unity of world-measure and thing-measures is each time the gauge for all human building and dwelling. This unity for all world-measures and thing-measures, and thus for things to selve where the world fairs, and for the world to fair while things selve, consists in an each time unique tone of broken stillness ensconced in tempered-tempering silence. Silence as the original measure-keeping, that is, as the setting of the gauges for all measuring, keeps both world-measures and thing-measures thanks to the fact that it is itself tuned to the stillness that carries apart these measures in an original joining. The stillness is the absconced easement that stills world and things into their measured biding. Silence keeps the measure not in the sense that it holds on to it; rather, silence (being silent) keeps the measure by holding back into the withdrawing schism that, through this silence, absconces itself in the measured and “easy” interplay of world and things. The stillnes eases into the light, that is, it shows. Showing, allowing to be seen, is the sense of the verb “to say.” The showing stillness says, in other 124

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words, the soundless and lightless showing of broken stillness is the initial saying—it is: the say. The saying of the say, the showing by which the broken stillness, ensconced in the temper of silence, eases into the light, is the biding of speech. Speech is grounded in silence not in the sense that it originates from an absence of speaking. Silence is the origin and ground of speech in that, being originally engendered as the worthing of the temper of silence, it preserves the biding of speech, that is, the saying of the say, in its provenance from the original stillness. Therefore, silence itself is already a manner of speaking, in fact, it is the most original speaking, in that it bides as the ground-tone of the speaking that answers the ringing-beholding-ingathering claim of wanting stillness. The worthing of the awareness, in which this beholding is grounded, shows everything out into its own. Heidegger calls this showing awareness, the awareness of this original beholding: Ereignis—the enowning. Ereignis is the worthing of the silence-borne temper of silence as the grounding of the Ïagrancy of broken stillness. The bearing of the temper of silence is Da-sein. The enowning of Da-sein eases man into his ownmost being, which is keeping silence. Man is eased, that is, freed from disease, in so far as, keeping silent, he bears the source that tunes the speaking of speech to the enowning say. This bearing is the sense in which man as such ceaselessly speaks. Human speaking, which answers the word of being, that is, the schisming of the schism, consists in silently bearing the biding of speech as the showing-enowning stillness. However, doesn’t speaking have to do, in the Îrst place, with uttered words and sentences? We understand speaking as an instance of the more general category of action called communication. Communication, in turn, is the transportation of units of meaning from a transmitter, via a medium or channel, to one or more receivers. Such transportation requires, in the Îrst place, that something meaningful be expressed. An articulated sign expressing the inner idea of a thing through sounds or their written symbols is what we commonly call a word. Speaking is uttering words as a manner of expressing an encoded meaning in such a way as to make this meaning Ît for coded transportation and decoding reception. The ordinary concept of what a word is has its roots in the understanding of speech as a manner and instance of communication, which today means: as an instance of exchanging lived impacts. The insight into Da-sein as the being that “we ourselves each at a time are,” shows how speech begins long before a sound is uttered or written symbols are traced. Speech is the element for the engendering of sense, and thus the mother of sense. Speech as the mother of sense has its origin and ground in silence. Silence is the enowning of the temper of silence that ensconces the tuning stillness. What, then, is a word—a word in the schismatic sense? Heidegger says: “The word breaks the silence, but it only does so by becoming a witness of that temper of silence, and it remains a witness as long as it is still a truthful word” (p. 111). The word is a witness. What is a witness? To witness something 125

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is to see it happen. A witness gives evidence in recollecting, that is, in gathering himself on what he has witnessed. He can be a true witness only in so far as he keeps witnessing, that is, as long as he holds himself within the wit of what he was there to witness. A word breaks the silence. This now says: it breaks the worthing of the temper of silence. It does so by becoming a witness of that temper of silence, namely, by guarding the tuned wit (that is, the knowledge or the awareness) of the broken stillness that the worthing of this temper ensconces. A word obtains its measure and ground-tone from the observance of the temper of silence. It is a truthful word not “in general,” but as long as it keeps witnessing this temper. A word says, that is, it shows schismatically, in so far as it keeps the wit of the showing schism tuned (viz. this wit) in the temper of silence. A truthful word is not merely a well-performing sign or an eլective image of a thing, but the thing itself, namely, the thing in the gathered Ïagrancy of its enowned inscape. A word is the temper of truth of the thing itself, its inscape-fairing tone of silence. When a still path of Ïagrancy, when the showing-enowning stillness is borne in silence, it is time to en-hear, from the soundless speaking of language, a sound, tuned to the enowned awareness, that can shelter the traits of this showing—in other words: it is time to coin a spoken word. A word shows in so far as it guards the silence that tunes it. “Speech breaks the silence, that is to say: it words it (bringt dieses zum Wort). (…) The word does not simply eliminate silence, but keeps it in itself, that is, it becomes in its turn a Ïagrant wit (ein Aufschluß), which breaks into sharedness, whether there happens to be a listener or not. Each word is spoken from out of the Ïagrancy (Aufgeschlossenheit) of beings in the whole, no matter how apparently narrow and undetermined this sphere may be” (p. 113). The following passage allows us to resume, in conclusion, in what sense speech and silence are, as stated above, “the resort and abode for the healing of the diseased”: [D]as Schweigen ist der ausgezeichnete Charakter des Seins des Menschen, aufgrund welchen Seins der Mensch ausgesetzt ist dem Ganzen des Seienden (…) Das Schweigenkönnen als Verschwiegenheit ist Ursprung und Grund der Sprache. (p. 112) Silence is the eminent character of man’s being; on the ground of this being man is exposed to the Ïagrant whole of beings (…) The capacity for silence, as the temper of silence, is the origin and ground of speech. The being of man consists in bearing the wanting Ïagrancy of the schism to which this being natively belongs. Man is enabled to, or rather, enowned into such bearing, that is, into being the Da, by virtue of the worthing of the 126

THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH

temper of silence. Only this worthing enlikens silence, which is the groundtone of being (bearing, suլering, holding open) the Da. Man owes his being to enowning. The temper of silence, and the silence that bears it, is the origin and ground of speech. Man is in so far as he speaks, that is, in so far as he bears in words the silent openness of the schism. Man speaks in so far as he oլers his being to the temper of silence, thus Înding a stance in the unprotected Ïagrancy of the oլ-ground. Man is in so far as his enowned being keeps the absconced origin of speech. Just as the true word is a witness of the temper of silence, man himself is a witness—a sign—of the beholding stillness to which he belongs. Owning this belongingness, thus granting the measured biding of things within the soothing measure of the world, is what worthes in human speaking. As long as we talk or remain mute far from silence, the source of speech does not spring and our being is burdened and lacking its onsetting ease, in one word, our being is diseased. But at times it happens that we speak or remain silent in such a way as to guard the nearness of the showing-enowning stillness, so that our being is relieved from disease. Only as the stillness springs in words of silence is man’s being put at ease.

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EPILOGUE SEVEN QUESTIONS

1. Seyn being as the absolute transcendental horizon of presence or the bidance of the oլ-ground fairing the crossing of the countering of the god and man and the strife of world and earth—named beǺng? 2. Geschichte the sequence of occurrences involving the essencing of being and truth or beǺng itself weirding a manhood unto the openly absconced ground of its selfhood in the Ïagrant worthing of the bidance of the truth—named wyrd? 3. Unterschied the diլerence between what is a cause and ground of beings and what is merely a being or the wyrd itself breaking as the pure coming of the in-itself oլ-breaking atoning cut—named schism? 4. Da-sein being-there as the situational and existential determination of man’s conscious and unconscious life or the schism itself openly biding in the grounding of beǺng’s clearing and truth—named there-being?

129

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5. Ereignis the event of appropriation or there-being itself worthing as the in-itself turning sway of beǺng’s on-owning call and man’s in-owned belongingness—named enowning? 6. Wort the human faculty of uttering articulated sounds or enowning itself speaking as the soundless tune that tunes man’s being to the temper of silence, thus gathering a manhood into the saying instress of its mother-language—named word? 7. Welt the totality of naughtless beings in the nearnessless of the will to will or the word given in the onset to be kept in the enowning of the clearing whose day is the mirror-play of sky and earth, divine and mortals–named world?

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APPENDIX “PUTTING IN THE SEED” “Saying again” or “approximating” and other questions concerning the interlingual translation of Heidegger’s keywords

Parvis Emad and Ivo De Gennaro In the spring of 2009 a conversation on the question of Heidegger and translation took place between Parvis Emad and Ivo De Gennaro.1 The background out of which that conversation grew is shaped in part by De Gennaro’s most recent works on Heidegger.2 As he shows in these works, De Gennaro conceives the task of the interlingual translation of the keywords and phrases of Heidegger’s thought as consisting in “saying again” or “saying anew” that which they indicate. As shown largely but not exclusively in his On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy, Parvis Emad conceives the task of the interlingual translation of the keywords and phrases of Heidegger’s thought as consisting in “approximating” those keywords and phrases as these emerge from out of Heidegger’s own intralingual translations. Having realized that there are signiÎcant diլerences in their views regarding the task of an interlingual translation of Heidegger’s keywords and phrases, they embarked on a conversation on this topic as follows. However, before presenting the text of that conversation, it may be helpful to give a preliminary idea of the presuppositions that each conversant brings to this conversation. In one of his recent works, De Gennaro alludes to the presupposition upon which his part of the conversation rests when he articulates the following possibility: “Should ever man regain a mortal stance; should ever a ground for the Ïashing of the godliness of gods be restored; should ever beings return as world-bearing things, the preparation for this ‘with-fall’ (Zu-fall) requires a thinking that owns to man’s belonging to the ‘onlyness’ and ‘apartness’ of be-ing” (Heidegger Studies Vol. 25, 2009, p. 118).3 The preparatory character of this thinking consists in its oլering itself for the raising of a ground capable of entertaining the mentioned “with-fall.” However, this ground is a said ground and it is said as the truth of “the say” (die Sage) in which being as Er-eignis consists. A thinking that seconds this “say,” according to De Gennaro, sustains (and is in turn sustained by) the “saying again” which in his view addresses the task faced by the 131

THE WEIRDNESS OF BEING

interlingual translation of the keywords and phrases of Heidegger’s thought. Accordingly, with his choice of words such as “biding,” “likelihood,” and “there-being,” to name only a few, De Gennaro attempts to “say again” what is said in such keywords of Heidegger’s thought as Wesen, Möglichkeit, and Dasein. The presupposition upon which Emad’s part of the conversation rests may be summed up as follows. The interlingual translation of Heidegger’s keywords and phrases should take its orientation from the intralingual translation that de facto occurs when Heidegger endows familiar and ordinary German words with new meanings and uses these newly framed but familiar and ordinary words as keywords and phrases of his thinking. Taking its orientation from Heidegger’s own intralingual translations, the interlingual translation of the keywords and phrases achieves the status of an “approximation.” Accordingly, with his choice of words such as “enowning,” “ownmost,” and “abground,” to name but a few, Emad “approximates” Heidegger’s Ereignis, Wesen, and Abgrund.4 *** Parvis Emad: In various communications, discussions, and queries you and I have had over the years concerning the issue of Heidegger and translation there has been a number of questions that we did not deal with. Foremost among these is the question concerning the absolute or the approximate transfer of Heideggerian keywords into English. I would like to take up this question, because I assume that as far as the translation of the keywords is concerned you depart from a presupposition which is diլerent from the presupposition from which I depart. A signiÎcant point to keep in mind is that it is neither you nor I that occupies center stage in this translation endeavor, but Heidegger. This point presents a signiÎcant entry into the discussion we want to pursue. You suggest for instance that Heidegger’s keyword Möglichkeit not be translated as “possibility” but as “likelihood” or “likeliness.” You also suggest that another keyword, Geschichte, not be translated as “history” but as “wyrd.” Here the question that troubles me is this: when we translate Möglichkeit not as “possibility” but as “likelihood” or “likeliness,” are we actually transferring Heidegger’s word Möglichkeit in the absolute sense into English or are we transferring it into English in an approximate sense? If it is a matter of absolute transfer then the English words “likeliness” or “likelihood” are no longer referentially dependent upon Heidegger’s keyword Möglichkeit since “likeliness” or “likelihood” would be substitutes and exact replacements of this keyword. Not being referentially dependent upon the word Möglichkeit, renditions such as “likeliness” or “likelihood”—should they be understood—do not need to go back to Heidegger’s keyword Möglichkeit: both are divested of their referential dependency on that keyword of Heidegger’s. 132

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Ivo De Gennaro: I don’t think I would address this issue in terms of transfer at all. So it is neither an approximate transfer nor an absolute transfer. Least of all is it a replacement. It is a “saying again,” or “saying anew” that which has been indicated and says itself in those German words. This “saying again” must therefore accord with the unique likelihood of the language into which the translating takes place, that is, with its own manner of indicating what needs to be said and spoken. And that which needs to be said and spoken is not a semantic content, or even a conceptual content, but it is itself a “saying,” namely, “the say” (die Sage) whose stirring trait is being itself as Er-eignis. This “say” has originated and shaped for itself (i.e. for its Ereignen) the speaking of our languages, and it speaks in these languages as their very biding. In so far as thinking consists in assenting and oլering a ground to this “say,” its task can be indicated with a fortunate formula that we Înd in Unterwegs zur Sprache: “die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen.”5 The word Möglichkeit and other keywords are in an eminent sense those words in which and thanks to which this Bringen—the Bringen in which Ereignis itself consists—takes place. These keywords are those words on which the attempt of the Denkweg primarily stands. So in translating Möglichkeit into English we need to do just this: having experienced the manner in which die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen takes place in and as this word, we attempt such a Bringen according to a certain trait that the English language aլords in one of its words. In all of this, there is no preoccupation with a transfer. As Möglichkeit is a zur Sprache bringen, it does not “have” anything that could be translated or transferred. In other words, we are in a situation of strict untransferability, untranslatability. What appears as a loss (namely, the fact that in English we cannot say what is said in Möglichkeit in the same manner as it is said in German) is in fact the trait of refusal (Verweigerung) which belongs to die Sprache als die Sprache, and which is constitutive of the uniqueness of the words wherein the zur Sprache Bringen is accomplished. Translating implies preserving this uniqueness and untranslatability, and the only manner of achieving this is by another unique and untranslatable word. Thus, it is not a matter of not having to go back to Möglichkeit. In some sense, the contrary is true and I feel I would want to make the point of going (or turning) back even stronger. A translation that truly speaks English (without referential dependence) is the accomplished recognition of the indispensability of the German Möglichkeit. But this is in no way the end of the story: when in English we say “likelihood,” then the Germans (those who think, anyway) will think: “This is surprising! How does ‘likelihood’ say again what Möglichkeit says—and to what extent can Möglichkeit, in turn, say again what ‘likelihood’ indicates?” For in fact likelihood has diլerent implications, it names what is to be said according to a diլerent trait and in a diլerent tone, and this might prompt a richer understanding of Möglichkeit or the need for another German word. In other words: as soon as a translation is there, a retranslation 133

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is needed! This is what we may call the colloquy or speech between languages, from out of which each language is what it is. I don’t see what exactly we are referring to when we talk about approximative or absolute transfer. What is transferred in this transfer? If it is not a semantic or conceptual content, something that is possessed by the German language, then there is no reason to talk about a transfer at all. Approximative translation as I understand it presupposes that there is an “entire thing” there, of which only parts can be carried over, that is, reproduced in English (hence the dependence), while absolute translation means the entire thing can be recreated and possessed in English (hence the replacement). However, it seems to me that this is a misunderstanding, because there is no “entire thing” in the Îrst place. The idea of absolute translation, which implies the substitution of one language with another, is a rather worrying thought. It is just like wiping out the other language. As to approximate translation, I can only intend it as a “we are not there yet.” To say it with an image which illustrates my own experience: we are still limping, thus we have to use the German word as a sort of crutch. But once we can stand and walk on our own, we can relieve that word from being used—and treat it as a guest. The relation between the Denkweg and metaphysics is paradigmatic in this respect: in so far as there is another Anfang—another onset—with its own need, something like the “Îrst onset” can be experienced and originally posited (freed) in its otherness, and the enduring need of the colloquy with this onset can be acknowledged. P.E.: I respond by making three closely interrelated comments. The Îrst one concerns “die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen.” Primarily what interests me in this statement is not its hermeneutic phenomenological content but the very fact that this statement is said in German. The fact that it is said in German and it is not said in English or French or any other language points to another very important fact, namely that Martin Heidegger is the one who articulates this statement and is responsible for it. This points to his role in this whole drama, if I may use these words. I want to push this point just a bit further and ask what would have happened if Martin Heidegger after abandoning the Seminary and obtaining his Doctorate had been killed in a car accident or WWI had wiped him out? We would then have no Sein und Zeit, no Beiträge zur Philosophie, and so on. If this scenario had been enacted then what would have happened to the formulation you Înd fortunate and quote, namely die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen? I make my second comment when I say that if we take the fact seriously that these writings are in German and in a particular and peculiarly unique German to boot, then I believe we would have an idea or an image of the fundamental “otherness” (к̧̧̫̭, alter) of the German language that came into the world of philosophy with the writings of Martin Heidegger. This fundamental “otherness” is extremely important since its emergence confronts us 134

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with the demand to come to terms with the task of an interlingual translation of Heidegger’s keywords. Because I take this “otherness” and uniqueness seriously I am concerning myself with the issue of transfer and with the issue of approximation. But approximation need not be denigrated as a “limping” and the need for a “crutch” thus implying that “we are not there yet.” You completely misunderstand the notion of approximation when you take it as indicating “not being on target,” “limping,” and “needing a crutch.” What drew me to this word and endowed it with a phenomenological meaning was the core meaning of this word, ad-proximare, proximity, nearness and nearing that never comes to an end by becoming identical with the thing “neared.” Needless to say this “nearing” has nothing to do with a gradual diminishing of a pregiven and traversable distance. This is the same “nearing” to which Heidegger refers in various analyses. The word enowning grows like a seed planted near Ereignis without ever relinquishing the distance it has to Ereignis, without ever becoming identical with Ereignis. That is why the word enowning is an approximate interlingual translation and not a replacement, or a substitute of Ereignis. When you say that really there is no transfer but merely a saying again in eլect you detach these writings from the fundamental “otherness” of the language in which they are written. You give this body of writing an independent status that has no referential dependence upon the original language in which it has been written. In fact I would go so far as to maintain that by denying that there is a transfer you actually deny the very existence and necessity of an interlingual translation of this body of writings from German into English. By denying the referential dependence of this body of writings upon Heidegger’s German, you imply that it matters little that these works are written in German. The fact that die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen is written in German loses its signiÎcance. But the undeniable fact is that die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen is exclusively written in German, and must be interlingually translated into other languages. So, this is the reason why I take this fundamental “otherness” seriously, in which case there is a transfer. It is not just a matter of saying again. It is a matter of reading these texts, pondering, and struggling with the task of bringing their keywords into English by subjecting the words of this language to certain rigor, steering away from the prevalent ways of meeting this task. Because I take this fundamental “otherness” seriously, the moment you say there is no transfer but merely a saying again, I conclude that you simply abolish the need for an interlingual translation. What exactly are we referring to when we talk about “saying again” what the keywords indicate? In my view, the thing to which “saying again” refers is not an interlingual translation of these words but an interpretation of what they indicate. By emphasizing the “saying again” you sidestep the issue of interlingual translation. I oլer my last comment when I say that in contrast to your stated position that in the interlingual translation of Heidegger’s writing we are not dealing 135

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with a semantic content or conceptual content, you yourself rely on a semantic and conceptual content when discussing your interlingual translation of Möglichkeit. You say “when translating Möglichkeit into ... English” we must trace this word “back to the original sense of möglich” and draw upon “the verb mögen, from which möglich and Möglichkeit are derived ...” (see above, p. 16). Is there any way of looking at this allusion to möglich other than to take it as a hint at the semantic and conceptual content of Möglichkeit? Isn’t this content that prompts you to translate Möglichkeit interlingually as “likelihood”? I.D.G.: I admit that I hadn’t considered the notion of approximation in the way you have just clariÎed it. What you say about proximity leaves me with a distinct sentiment that there is ein Selbes we are both committed to and looking at, and encourages me to further clarify my own attempt. First of all, with respect to the question of what would have happened if Heidegger had not been there, I would say that of course we don’t know what would have happened, and possibly nothing would ever have happened. Incidentally, the same is true for the philosophical tradition as a whole: there is no necessity to it, it could also have never happened. But does the fact that there is something like the Denkweg imply dependence in your sense? I think the uniqueness of the German of the Denkweg is an echo of an otherness and extraneousness which is the otherness and extraneousness of being. What we hear in this unique German is a speaking such as being itself has originally attuned and shaped for itself. We cannot Înd this uniqueness in the German semantics or syntax or morphology taken by themselves. What that formula says is relevant for our question because it is a deÎnition of translation: the bringing it names is the bringing (ferre) of translation (transferre). The question I ask when I read is: what is the trait of being that is said, zur Sprache gebracht in this word? This is what the reference to mögen, and so on, means. At this point, having (re-)translated Möglichkeit into a word of being, I can ask: which English, which Italian word can be, in turn, translated from its metaphysical or current sense in order to let it say (as it already does) this trait, so that now English or Italian in turn accomplish that original translation, that original Bringen? When it occurred to me to translate Möglichkeit into Italian, none of the words having a close semantic aխnity with mögen seemed to be Ît for such a translation. But the word that eventually showed itself (namely, attendibilità) proved instantaneously to be a synonym-in-translation of Möglichkeit. As such this word was of some guidance in the attempt to Înd an English translation as well. The main concern of translating Heidegger’s writings as I understand it is learning from the Bringen they accomplish so as to otherwise preserve and renew that “otherness” in the translation—the “otherness” of which the Denkweg is a unique German echo. We, who learn from the Denkweg, therefore turn to the German of the Denkweg, because from this German we learn die Sprache 136

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als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen, and in this precise sense we can say that all thinking and speaking in the wake of the Denkweg “speaks German.” This preserving and renewing prevails over a more immediate, visible “Îdelity to the original,” which, in itself, does not imply the zur Sprache bringen. What concerns me when I say there is no transfer is that the source of this “otherness” is not in any language in the sense of a possession. Even though it is oլered to us in German, it is not a German source, and is not an English source and is not an Italian source. This saying-source is a soundless silence. Therefore, the notion of transfer is problematic for me in so far as it implies taking and bringing the German language into the English language, which cannot be done since German is German only thanks to Ereignis and Ereignis cannot be transferred but only seconded in its (sich) zur Sprache Bringen. Now it sometimes happens that when we translate Heidegger into Italian, we Înd ourselves using in Italian a German manner of saying, for instance, an expression with an article followed by a complex adjectival phrase and then the noun, which in common Italian sounds weird. But we do it nonetheless, not because we want to imitate a German sentence structure and hope that this will “do the job,” but because Italian as a language of Ereignis, because DenkwegItalian says: this is Îne, in fact, this is a way for me to indicate and speak that “otherness” which has been learned from reading the German of the Denkweg; it is a way for me to word that phenomenon in my own way. P.E.: Let me make two comments on what you just said. First, regarding the issue of transfer I would say that I never intended, or used this term in the sense of taking a vorhanden content from German and bringing it into English. What I have primarily in mind when I use the word transfer is the referential dependence of the interlingually translated Heideggerian keywords and phrases upon the German original. By denying that there is a transfer you not only deny this referential dependency but also deny the very existence and necessity of interlingual translation. Furthermore, by insisting that there is no transfer but only a “saying again” you abolish the distinction between the translator and Heidegger. But as translators you and I have the distinction of working at the service of Heidegger’s thinking: we are not Heidegger. Here the distinction between “author” and “translator” is paramount. To make this point more palpable consider this: if Heidegger had been born in English Sprachraum and had written all his works in English, we would not face the issue of transfer. This issue arises only when we are concerned with the interlingual translation of the keywords. A case in point is the need for translating Ereignis as enowning. When I bring Ereignis into English as enowning, this word enowning remains referentially dependent upon Ereignis and its German “otherness.” Without this enduring referential dependence upon Ereignis, enowning has absolutely nothing to say. Someone who reads the English translation of Beiträge without having 137

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a clue as to what has been happening in the German domain of the word Ereignis very probably has also no inkling of what enowning is all about. This is another way of saying that enowning is not a substitute or a replacement for Ereignis. That is why I characterize the interlingual translation of Ereignis as enowning by saying that this translation is not an absolute transfer but an approximation. Let me go back to what you said about preserving. It is precisely the concern with preserving that gives meaning to the whole idea of transfer. To indicate that preserving is implicated in an interlingual translation that is marked by approximating Heidegger’s keywords such as Ereignis, let me stress one point. I reject absolute transfer in the sense of Ersatz, replacement, substitution at the same time as I hold on to the referential dependency of enowning to Ereignis. This dependency bespeaks of preserving. I.D.G.: We don’t need to address any further the point of substitution except perhaps to clarify the following: when are we safe from putting the matter of translation in terms of substitution? When has a translation attained the likelihood of not being a replacement? As I see it, the answer is: in the moment in which it is itself a translation of die Sprache als die Sprache into English, Italian, and so on. If you say that the English translation of Ereignis is referentially dependent upon the German word Ereignis in the sense that, in itself, it is not a zur Sprache bringen in the said sense, then we would have to conclude that it is not a true translation, in other words, it is not, so to speak, Ereignis-English, and therefore also not capable of freeing the German word into its Ereignisstirred saying (on the contrary, it will burden it with its dependence, with its limping and needing a crutch). If, on the other hand, by saying “dependence” you mean that “enowning” is said in the wake of Ereignis (while both are said in the wake of that which Ereignis names), and lastingly points back to Ereignis as a Denkweg-word, I agree with you. The more we listen to what speaks in that unique German, the more we learn to speak without referential dependence upon that German, the more we acknowledge the need that prompts us to keep turning to that German, i.e. to deepen the speech with its word. We should perhaps mention that this is true for native German-speakers as well, who easily fall prey to the temptation that Heidegger himself (one should think, not without uneasiness and occasional impatience) often calls to heideggern. This temptation—the temptation of not translating—belongs to being itself in so far as it often bides as “the say.” When Heidegger talks about translating his works into other languages,6 he points out that one should oլer a primary and genuine understanding of the Sache, and translate in a productive manner that which is thought into another language. It is not important for the translation, he adds, which word is chosen, now or in ten years time. What is important is that the chosen word be commensurate with the way in which that language speaks into which 138

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we are translating. Commensurate means: such that the Sache, which here he names Unterschied, is readily understood and the word thus proves to be a seed that can grow and become a small plant, attuning the entire language as a language of Unterschied. Now, Unterschied—“diլerence,” or, as I suggested, “cut” or “schism”—is another name of Ereignis. This is, I think, a Denkwegunderstanding of translation. Just as an author produces Werke while a Denker attempts Wege (namely, of saying being), in translating we are not authors of a translation but attempt such Wege in another language. Judging the translative likelihood of a word requires that we hear it from out of the need of translating die Sprache als die Sprache into the spoken word of a language. There is, apart from (and within) the ear for the sounding word, this ear for the “say.” Concerning the word “enowning,” I cannot give a deÎnite answer as to its being commensurate to the speaking of English. As it is, I cannot think of a more commensurate translation, while I can partly see and partly sense the strengths of this one and why other translations such as “appropriation” and “event” are clearly insuխcient and represent cases of mis- or non-translation. We must also remember that in this dimension of language often words at Îrst sound repulsive. An example of this is Gino Zaccaria’s Italian translation of Dasein with adessere. But the words of being are patient and eventually educate our thinking ear, so that meanwhile adessere is audibly one of the Îrmest sprouts of the Italian Denkweg. Perhaps we have yet to learn how the word “enowning” speaks! But let us assume that “enowning” satisÎes the criterion stated by Heidegger. Then, someone who really understands this word and the need that speaks in it would say “I need to learn German.” Similarly the German speaker who reads the English word “enowning” would say, “I need to learn English.” Here, the sense of “I need to” is: I understand and feel the need of die Sprache als die Sprache as it speaks in this word and in this language. This twofold need of learning both languages points to the speech of languages, points to the fact that whenever there is a true “saying” and a genuine translation there lies a seed for the colloquy to which Hölderlin alludes when, in his hymn Friedensfeier, he says “seit ein Gespräch wir sind....” P.E.: Let me understand this because the colloquy between languages brings new light to the issues of absolute transfer and approximate transfer. Would you agree that this is what that colloquy accomplishes? I.D.G.: Very much so. You see, any human being is born into the dimension of the colloquy between languages in a unique way. This uniqueness is the unicity of what we call our mother-language, which is never simply the numerical oneness of a given language. Dasein as a “likelihood” of human being means to be born into that colloquy, to belong to it according to an unknown weird (which is how I translate Geschick). We speak all languages in so far as any 139

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language is a language of being, i.e. is ereignishaft, therefore each single one of us is (or isn’t) a unique translator. Wilhelm von Humboldt implicitly refers to this when he says that any language contains a totality that corresponds to the unlimited human capacity of Bildung, so that, if we only look close enough, any human sense can be said in any language. Clearly, this is not an empirical statement but something like an ontological judgment. Giacomo Leopardi, on the other hand, emphasizes that any free language, once it has attained its accomplished form, contains virtually all other languages, though it cannot contain even a single one of them substantially. Finally, Heidegger says: “Jede Sprache des Menschen ist in der Sage ereignet und als solche im strengen Wortsinn … eigentliche Sprache … Jede Sprache ist geschichtlich.”7 Ereignis and Sage are the dimension of the colloquy between languages and also the dimension of translation. Each language speaks from out of “the say” of Ereignis, and therefore from within the colloquy, in a unique wise. Thus we would have to say that die Sprache als die Sprache is both “in” each language, as its abiding and weighing source, and in-between languages so to speak. This in-between that gathers our languages by releasing them into their irreducible uniqueness, this Zwischen, to speak with Heidegger, is die Sage. The thinking of Ereignis is a break-through in that for the Îrst time it opens the most original and inapparent dimension of the speech or colloquy between languages. This dimension is the oլ-ground or schism that, reaching through these languages, holds them apart. The new light that from here falls on the issue of translation is the following: translating—and in the Îrst place the translating in which the mentioned zur Sprache Bringen is at stake— implies a leap into this gathering-parting oլ-ground, so that both the other language is experienced in its foreign “otherness” and our own language and its words are learned anew in their uncanny homeliness, in other words, in their Eigentlichkeit or Geschichtlichkeit or weirdness. Now we can see that the transfer is in fact this stance in the in-between through which there may be this experience of learning. The leap implies that we let go of all given and transferable meanings and learn our languages anew according to their oldest “saying.” In your book you speak of “hidden resources” in this respect. However, we should be always aware of the temptation of relying on the spoken word in its Vorhandenheit, that is, the temptation of doing without the leap. This temptation is there, in diլerent forms, both in an intra-German reading and in intralingual translating. In German we remain blindly caught—often in a very learned manner—in the familiar speaking of words and in the speech of contingency. In intralingual “translation” we often Înd translators Îercely clinging to dictionary meanings. And so on. In all these cases there is, so to speak, no Gelassenheit towards the in-between. P.E.: I want to bring up and address an issue, which I think is pretty much involved in this colloquy. If we absolutize the dimension of this colloquy and 140

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attribute to it a measure of authority or authoritativeness that would determine the outcome of the interlingual translation of Heidegger’s keywords and phrases, then what happens to the criterion or criteria respectively, for distinguishing translation from mistranslation? What happens to this colloquy when in a recent book entitled Hopkins and Heidegger,8 the author translates Ereignis as “appropriation” although since 1999 the rendition of Ereignis as enowning is available to him? Is the so-called colloquy in a position to point out that this translation is a mistranslation? We must be careful not to attribute a measure of determinative authority to this colloquy, but if we do then we need to show how this colloquy might set such mistranslations right. There is no doubt that there are mistranslations, which leads to the question as to how to identify them, which in turn leads to the question concerning the criteria we should use to do just that. If this colloquy in its entirety comes out of Ereignis, comes out of this verborgener Grund or Quelle, then whence the criterion in view of which we can identify an interlingual translation as a mistranslation? The case in point is the mistranslation of the keyword, Wesen. Over the past forty years this keyword has been insistently and persistently brought into English as essence. And the immediate outcome of this mistranslation has been the view that Heidegger’s is a philosophy of essentialism. It is obvious that this is a complete misunderstanding; that those who criticize Heidegger’s essentialism actually are beating the straw man. Thus we must ask how does the aforementioned colloquy enable us to detect, and correct this total abuse of the word Wesen? I.D.G.: Well, I think that once we have looked at this question in terms of translating from Ereignis, which is the dimension of the colloquy, then Înally we have a criterion for identifying a mistranslation. This is given by what Heidegger says about a productive translation. A true translation is productive and fertile, it is a seed of the plant of Unterschied, while a mistranslation is sterile and can even be sterilizing. Now I am sure you agree with this but I am just going to say it. The criterion in question cannot be an external or an “objective” criterion. So the criterion is this: does a given choice of word accord with the measure of the English language, the measure by which die Sage speaks in this language, so that the bringing is genuinely accomplished in English? P.E.: Actually this is precisely what the fabricators of essentialism claim: they too view “essence” as a seed that can become a plant, they too claim that it is a word commensurate with die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen. I.D.G.: If they actually make this claim, that is astonishing, but we must renounce that we can prove that to be wrong. Because there is no external criterion for establishing whether or not the bringing is taking place. The 141

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attempt to establish an external criterion amounts to violating the most fundamental law of philosophical thinking, not to speak of Ereignisdenken. Here we need to remember that we are not translating for the general public but only for being itself and, if for anybody, then for other thinking human beings, for those who dare to take a few steps in this direction. And it is something we do in a collaboration and in a colloquy. Even if there is nobody there, we collaborate with the unborn or the already dead. And certainly for those who today or tomorrow are engaged in an attempt to think, it will immediately appear that they cannot prescind from dealing directly with the Denkweg and that therefore they need to learn German. If we consider the external circumstances not only for this attempt, but in the Îrst place for the kind of transformation of our relation to language that this attempt has in view, these circumstances seem to be rather unfavorable.9 This is why our principal preoccupation must be to devote ourselves to the task of thinking rather than catering to the demands of the editors, the public, and the universities. P.E.: I am not suggesting that we should appeal to something external and alien to the task. I am reaխrming one of the central thrusts of the philosophical discourse, that is, demonstrability. When in the course of philosophical discourse we come upon certain blockages, obscurities, when there is a deliberate conÎrmation of, and a persistent attachment to utter ignorance, then it is incumbent upon us to unravel those blockages and obscurities. The moment we are presenting the works of Seinsfrage as a version of essentialism we are unmistakably creating a blockage. The philosophical discourse that has carried Seinsfrage to this point suddenly stops. It doesn’t go anywhere. There ought to be a criterion, or criteria respectively. Heidegger gives us ample directives in this regard when, for example, in the early pages of Sein und Zeit he places the word Essenz between quotation marks and later on makes explicitly clear that in his writings the word Wesen has a verbal meaning such as währen and refers to das Eigenste einer Sache. Oլering such criteria he seems to speak against renunciation. Far from renouncing any attempt to remove such blockages, we must do whatever it takes to unmask them. Not only Heidegger’s own directives but also philosophical discourse require that we do not give in to renunciation. When I face my students in a seminar, and I am reading a text of Heidegger’s with them, that blockage has to be removed. I need to be able to tell them, sitting there right in front of me, that this way of speaking, this way of treating the works of Seinsfrage in English is illegitimate, is not justiÎable, and is utterly misleading. In short, on the pedagogical and practical level of enacting philosophical discourse, renunciation is not an option. We have to be quite capable of pointing out to a criterion or criteria respectively within the colloquy between languages. 142

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I.D.G.: On a certain level, the issue of renunciation is a matter of measure: when have I done enough? On another level, that of thinking, there can in fact be no renunciation: it is never enough. Perhaps I can clarify this by saying: what we need to renounce is a criterion for thinking that prescinds from thinking itself. With regard to criteria, the Denkweg itself as Denkweg is one huge critical enterprise. The unfolding of the Seinsfrage itself shows and “is” the insuխciency of thinking in terms of essence and so on. It shows this insufÎciency, both implicitly and explicitly, when it grounds the likelihood of the other onset and thus the unlikelihood of thinking in terms of essence, and so on. The point is: all of this can only be an originating and a showing of what is to be thought and an originating and a showing of the thinking that proves to be insuխcient. As thinking, this showing must be nachvollziehbar (how can we translate this word?) and in this sense accessible, but it can never be a demonstration (which is only a format of that Nachvollziehbarkeit) and pursue the aim of being intelligible to all. Those who say that Wesen in Heidegger means essence are utterly wrong. But one cannot demonstrate this. Demonstrating this wrongness or falseness is as inessential as demonstrating the rightness of saying that wesen means währen, and so on. That Wesen must be intended in this manner, and not as essence, is today, in informed philosophical circles, a commonplace, everybody knows it, everybody can demonstrate it by referring to the relevant “quotations.” But who of those who know and repeat this— understands it, that is, thinks? There is no criterion independent of thinking for showing who does and who doesn’t. So when you are with your students, in some sense what you do all the time as you think “for them to see,” is providing criteria, in so far as you are daring enough to attempt Da-sein, “therebeing.” In Beiträge Heidegger says: “Das Da-sein ist die Krisis zwischen dem ersten und dem anderen Anfang.”10 If only we are daring enough, in the worst case we provide our students with a vivid example of what it is to fail in thinking. But this “worst case” is an invaluable gift to those who one day might think! P.E.: When Heidegger places Essenz between quotation marks, when he emphasizes that Wesen has a verbal meaning such as währen and refers to das Eigenste einer Sache, when he points out that Geschichte does not mean Historie, to mention a few, he is not oլering a series of external criteria. This should be obvious. And yet to relegate everything to the workings of the Denkweg, although in the long run a reliable approach, in the short run seems to sidestep the issue of mistranslation occurring in interlingual translation. I think we need to diլerentiate between criteria in the sense of external yardsticks and criteria that we can use as Heidegger’s own directive. Certainly Heidegger’s own directives formulate criteria that are not external. Closely connected to sidestepping the issue of mistranslation is also the view you expressed above when you stressed that the interlingual translation 143

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is not done for the public, for the editors, and for the universities. Essentially true and appropriate, these views nevertheless expose you to the charge of elitism. Again, however essentially true and appropriate, these views overlook the thrust of philosophical discourse, which from Socrates to the present-day university is always directed at the public. In the same vein, privatization of the interlingual translation seems to run against the claim of hermeneutic phenomenology, as the corollary of Seinsfrage, to general accessibility (die allgemeine Zugänglichkeit). If we do not attend to this point, willy-nilly we reduce hermeneutic phenomenology to a set of private opinions. I.D.G.: The critical work you allude to, which includes the issue of translation and therefore of mistranslation, is in fact necessary and ineludible. And not only out of a practical pedagogic concern, but in the Îrst place because the Sache itself demands it. As an example of this kind of work let me once again refer to the Italian translation of Dasein. In a book we wrote together,11 Gino Zaccaria shows with the utmost rigor that the common Italian translation of Dasein, esserci, is a mistranslation that not only impairs any understanding of the Denkweg, but in fact reinforces the prevailing of beings over being itself: esserci is, so to speak, the silver bullet of contingency! Now, all this cannot be shown in a neutral language. You say this more than once in your writings. The “saying” itself must be such that it satisÎes the criterion. Another way of putting it is to say that the criterion is not between essence and another translation of Wesen but this other translation of Wesen is itself the criterion. Der Unterschied, the schism, is not, in the Îrst place, between metaphysical thinking and seinsgeschichtliches Denken; rather, the latter consists in originating and ensconcing the schism. This is to say that whatever diլerences we can establish they come from such thinking, which in the Îrst place originates and grounds metaphysical thinking in its “otherness.” The moment in which we translate the keywords productively, we are raising the criterion. Then we cannot only clearly see the insuխciency of essence, but we actually free ourselves from this insuխciency. As to being exposed to the charge of elitism, and so on, I would say that “private” vs. “public,” “private opinion” vs. “general accessibility” are not relevant categories here. From what I can say, thinking is originating and saying the truth of being, that is, that which is by deÎnition accessible to any human being. The more we oլer ourselves to this task and this task only—alone or, if we are lucky enough, in a living coalescence with others—the more truly we contribute to preparing the ground for other thinking men to access this truth by themselves. Elitism implies an element of preference and choice that is alien to the domain of thinking. Therefore, the charge of elitism is either a misunderstanding or a matter of pure arrogance. In fact, what often speaks in this charge is the resentment against being, and the killing instinct against the poverty of thinking, which holds the Wesen of man. In one of his TV interviews 144

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Heidegger says the new method of thinking he sees as necessary in our time can only be learned in a direct speech from man to man, that this method needs a long exercise, and so on, and that therefore at Îrst it can only be “enacted” (I feel we still don’t have a productive translation for vollziehen) by few human beings. But then it can, in a mediated manner, that is, via the different domains of education, be communicated to other human beings. He gives the very telling example of the physical laws at the basis of the working of a radio or a TV and of the methods needed to research these laws: only Îve or six physicists have a profound understanding of those methods, yet everybody can operate a radio or a TV without having a clue of the underlying methods and laws. P.E.: You see, taken superÎcially, the other side too would say the same thing about translating Wesen as essence and arriving at essentialism. The other side would simply claim the same thing; the essentialist believes he is doing the right thing. I.D.G.: Fine, to that I would say that we have to renounce repudiating the essentialists. There is no cure against the blindness for being. And those who are not blind know that errancy is the very element of thinking. P.E.: I understand that too. But, you see, in the pedagogical context of a philosophical seminar and an exchange with students, we cannot simply be satisÎed with renunciation. Because the essentialists too can claim that when Wesen is translated as essence they too bring “die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache.” They too can say that they do not see why they have to translate Wesen as ownmost, or to use your own preference, as biding. The important point here is that whether for Wesen we say biding, or ownmost, we no longer say essence. And this points to the level of the discussion. The level of discussion between you and me is not the same level of discussion that takes place in my seminar. In seminar I have to start from the basics and I have to go back to the basics. I have to do that because every minute the students are exposed to another philosophical position which potentially can introduce certain obstacles. And the result is confusion after confusion after confusion. By seeking recourse in renunciation, you seem to overlook the entire pedagogical possibilities within a seminar. I.D.G.: This is an important point, because pedagogical responsibility necessarily goes together with the responsibility of thinking. How do we meet our pedagogical responsibilities? What is, so to speak, the point of safety, the point of suխciency where we can say: I have done all I can for seeding, that is for freeing a pupil into the likelihood of his or her own thinking? This point, I think, requires that we ourselves set an example of thinking, that we ourselves are 145

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this example. Setting an example presupposes enacting a thinking for which essence as a translation of Wesen is insuխcient, and doing so—in diլerent manners and modalities—within a colloquy. The suխciency of this example must be what we attempt, and of course this includes all sorts of explicit indications, warnings, hints, caveats, and so on. Here pedagogical success means that someone who was, so to speak, on the verge of thinking (and, in a sense, all human beings are, as such, on the verge of thinking), is encouraged and stirred by this example to attempt to think himself. Proving apodictically that Wesen cannot mean essence, so that nobody can, without breaking the laws of reason and thus excluding himself from public discourse, argue this thesis anymore, is, I would say, not only of limited use, but it misguides those who are on the verge of thinking, because it suggests that such demonstrating is what thinking is about. If, however, after we have done our best in setting an example, someone comes and says, look, I don’t see why we cannot say possibility, why we cannot say essence, and you cannot prove me wrong, well, correcting such positions is exactly what we have to renounce. We cannot force someone to be educated. In this respect Aristotle says: uneducatedness means to mistake that which does not need a proof with that which needs a proof and demonstration.12 It basically happens everywhere and at all times. The one who does not want to be educated, the one who keeps saying I want a proof and as long as you don’t give me a proof I say that essence is a proper rendition of Wesen, he attests to his own uneducatedness, and we have to leave it at that. Again, all I can do is to raise a dimension of thinking in which all Vorhandenheit and essence have collapsed. And this always takes place in some form of colloquy. P.E.: By mentioning Vorhandenheit you provide me with the opportunity to address your translation of this keyword as “contingency.” To a large extent all the things we have been talking about so far relate to this translation of Vorhandenheit as contingency. And yet a signiÎcant issue we have not yet addressed is the line of demarcation between translating this keyword and its interpretation. But we need to look into this demarcation because the proposal to translate Vorhandenheit as contingency is provocative, and promising. Now the question needing to be addressed is this: is contingency a translation or is it an interpretation of Vorhandenheit? Which one is it? Although I acknowledge this translation as promising and provocative, I am still puzzled by it. When we say that Vorhandenheit means contingency where does the translation of this keyword and where does its interpretation begin? I.D.G.: Let me Îrst say that this translation of Vorhandenheit is something that comes from Gino Zaccaria’s work of opening and grounding an Italian Denkweg. The Italian translation of Vorhandenheit is contingenza. I should add that, as a translation of Vorhandenheit, this word speaks otherwise than it does in the metaphysical tradition. 146

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In order to make clear the sense of my suggestion that Vorhandenheit could be translated as contingency, it might be helpful to mention that German—a German with Italian echoes in it—is my mother-language, that is, the language in which I am born into the colloquy of languages and in which my attempt has its roots. How does this relate to the Italian translation of Vorhandenheit? This translation has been for me exactly an instance of productive colloquy between languages. In fact, this Italian translation helped me to see traits that are implicit, but not, or not as clearly, indicated in the word Vorhandenheit. I think as contingenza speaks in Italian it presents a genuine enrichment for the attempt to think and come to grips with the enigmatic issue that Vorhandenheit and contingenza name. And now what am I doing? I am writing in English. And the question is: can the Italian rendition be of any guidance for a likely English translation? Finding myself having to say in English what Vorhandenheit and contingenza name respectively in German and in Italian, it seemed to me that perhaps by saying contingency this would help to introduce an awareness of certain traits that will eventually lead to Înding a productive English translation of this keyword. The transformation of our relation to speech that the Denkweg has inaugurated is as simple as it is unprecedented. No wonder that often renditions which appeared to be suխcient at one point have later been abandoned in favor of more commensurate ones. In this domain we must be ready to renounce in a second what we may have achieved in the span of ten years. The faintest idea of the novelty of the task we face should free us from the temptation of clinging to insuխcient words! The sooner somebody comes and says: “I see what you were indicating by suggesting ‘contingency’ as a translation of Vorhandenheit, and I think a more productive translation of this word is …,” the better it is. What every language says it says by ensconcing an inexhaustible, withdrawn source according to a certain trait. Thus translating the keyword Vorhandenheit also implies such an ensconcing of the source. “Contingency” is perhaps a contribution to Înding this kind of word. However, I would not view this word as a seed for the plant of Unterschied in the sense that, perhaps, “likelihood” is. P.E.: It is far less enigmatic. I.D.G.: In the best case, the enigmatic quality of “likelihood” is an echo, or a taste, of the “say” and its weirdness. An issue that should be addressed in this context is the extent to which Latin words are capable of bringing die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache in English. I remember that this was one of the Îrst things you told me when I published an article in 2000. You said that in your experience you Înd that it is the Germanic words that are more helpful in the task of translating Heidegger into 147

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English, or, in the terms of our present conversation, that these are the productive words for what we may call the English Denkweg. The English language is very particular in that it has a very old and, in some sense, living Germanic mother-language and at the same time an early and rich Latin inÏuence. Who knows what all this implies for the “likelihood” of English as a language of thinking! At any rate, I can hardly say to what extent contingency is a fruitful translation. But I would expect it to be fruitful for a translator, that is, for someone who attempts to think in English, to consider the traits this translation indicates. How can we think in English if we don’t have a suխcient translation of Vorhandenheit? To elicit such considerations is by itself a contribution. P.E.: The issue is not whether you elicit such considerations and thus make a contribution. The issue is whether the decision you make, which I endorse, to translate Vorhandenheit with contingency is a translation or an interpretation. To put this more pointedly, I must repeat my question: at what point does the translation of Vorhandenheit and at what point its interpretation begin when you say Vorhandenheit means contingency? I.D.G.: I cannot see interpretation and translation as distinct moments. They are like a wave and its crest. All thinking and speaking, no matter if only one language is involved or two or many, implies translating, implies auslegen. I interpret Vorhandenheit, i.e. I translate it (and myself) into the phenomenon that says and translates itself into this spoken word according to a certain trait, and from there I come back to Italian and ask for a word that can, in turn, indicate this phenomenon in a manner commensurate with the Italian language. It is an exercise of Da-sein. However, these phenomena and these traits are not things or contents but the always new Ïashing of Unterschied. P.E.: I must disagree. Translation and interpretation are distinct moments because by translating Wesen as essence (one moment), we have the interpretation called essentialism (another moment). Had we avoided that translation, we would have no essentialism to contend with. Translation and interpretation are distinct moments because there are instances where misinterpretations come to the fore that are direct consequences of the failure to engage in an intralingual translation. Consider, for example, the interpretation of die Rede taking it as the third existential of Dasein in Sein und Zeit. This interpretation came to the fore in part as a consequence of failing to translate intralingually the word Rede. Consider also the interlingual translation of die Kehre as reversal leading directly to the untenable interpretation of Heidegger’s thought according to the distinction between a “Heidegger I,” and a “Heidegger II.” Heidegger’s own translations of certain Greek words points clearly to the distinction between translation and interpretation. Consider Heidegger’s translation of Ѣ̠̙̝ or some other keyword of the Greek thinking. 148

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I.D.G.: I agree that we can identify diլerent moments within the work of interpretation and translation, yet I am not sure I can see in what respect you deem it necessary to maintain a fundamental distinction. Doesn’t the translation of Kehre as “reversal” imply an interpretation? And isn’t this interpretation an instance of translation (or non-translation)? Probably, in order to advance in our mutual understanding, we should state more precisely what gives to interpretation and translation their meaning in the context of the Denkweg—namely, the preparation of the other onset of thinking—and what this implies in terms of saying and language. Concerning your last example, let me just remind us of the fact that the Auseinandersetzung with Greek thinking has a unique status, in that there and only there we Înd, in its “exclusive” otherness, the Îrst onset of thinking, i.e. ̸̱̮̥Ȏ, and the saying it implies, i.e. ̷̧̟̫̭. Translating Ѣ̠̙̝ implies interpreting what is unsaid in this word, and this interpretation implies translating the word explicitly into the other onset of thinking. P.E.: Given the analysis that we have gone through so far, would you agree with what I am about to say? Namely, that rather than thinking of translation as a means leading to interpretation we necessarily have to think of translation as a permanent, and perhaps as a thrust powerfully present within the process of interpretation. I.D.G.: Yes. P.E.: Let us set aside what we have been saying so far about what I have referred to in another context as interlingual translation. I shall leave the domain of interlingual translation and move into another domain, examples of which I shall provide Îrst. We Înd these examples in Heidegger’s readings of major Îgures of the history of Western philosophy, speciÎcally, German thinkers. Certainly there are some intralingual translations taking place in these readings although as far as Nietzsche, Hegel, Schelling, or Kant are concerned those translations are not readily distinguishable. Heidegger hints at those intralingual translations when he says explicitly that what is very diխcult is to translate the text of a thinker into his own language. What he actually has in mind is an intralingual translation of, say, Nietzsche into German since translating the text of this thinker into his own language is a translation that takes place within German language itself. Now let us consider Nietzsche: my question is where is the beginning of Heidegger’s interpretation of this thinker, and where is the beginning of the intralingual translation of this thinker? We know how Heidegger interprets the keywords of Nietzsche. We know how he interprets the keywords of Kant. We know how he interprets the keywords of Hegel and Schelling. But where does his translation, where does his interpretation start? 149

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I.D.G.: Your drawing our attention to those intralingual translations comes at the right time. For it forces us to lay open a point that has remained implicit in what we have been saying so far, and that, as long as it is not explicitly considered, makes an understanding more diխcult and may cause some confusion. Let me introduce this point by dint of a terminological distinction. With interlingual translation we refer to the translation from one language to another, say, from German to English. However, when we say that, distinguished from this translation, there is an intralingual translation, then we are using this term in two senses. You referred to the Îrst one when you mentioned a translation occurring from German into German. The second and more fundamental one is the translation that is speaking itself. In the speaking of the Denkweg, this translating becomes explicit in the form to which Heidegger alludes when he says “eine Sprache in ihr eigenstes Wort übersetzen.” Das eigenste Wort is the word in which a language says the truth of being. Thus, such intralingual translation is the same as that which the Denkweg calls Entwurf, or, as you say, “projecting-open.” However—I am necessarily speaking in a very concise and therefore somewhat dogmatic manner here—we know that this Entwurf is itself thrown, it is er-eignet. Therefore, this Übersetzen as Entwurf is itself Ereignis, in other words: Übersetzen in this original sense is the Übereignen and Zueignen of Ereignis. When this intralingual translation is freed into its own sway, speaking becomes sagenhaftes Sprechen—a manner of speaking of which we have exactly one example in the entire tradition of thinking. Now, all interlingual translation as well as all intralingual translation in the Îrst sense implies—in some way or another—an intralingual translation in this second sense. And here I can clarify: it is with respect to this second sense that I don’t see the necessity of determining where the interpretation and where the translation starts, nor that of distinguishing, in general, between interlingual and intralingual translation (in the Îrst sense). By saying this I am not denying diլerences, which I do also see, but I am stressing Geschichtlichkeit as a primary reference for the thinking of the Denkweg and the otherness it deals with. The Auseinandersetzung with the Greek onset and with the tradition of metaphysics has, I think, the fundamental sense of a schismatic translation. Translation and interpretation, including intra-German translation and interpretation, obtain their meaning from this hermeneutic situation. With this I mean that they consist in translating the Îrst onset into the unthought schism as a manner of grounding the schism itself. This is the meaning of thinking deutsch-er, griechisch-er, and so on: the “-er” indicates the schism, that is, Er-eignis! P.E.: The trouble is that the key for grasping the Auseinandersetzung, this die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache Bringen, is formulated in German and is subject to all the syntactic and linguistic rules and principles governing this language so much so that even when translated interlingually into English 150

APPENDIX : “ PUTTING IN THE SEED ”

as “bringing language as language to language” makes little sense unless it is read and understood in conjunction with Heidegger’s views on language. I return to this point because I want to stress that by simply stating this formula, you have not addressed its “otherness” which presupposes an interlingual translation. I.D.G.: True, there is an “otherness” there, but I wouldn’t say that it is to be found in syntactic and linguistic rules as such. In fact, these rules rather cover the “otherness,” and the attempt of the Denkweg is to translate “German” into the more original, other German of the “otherness” of being. The “otherness” of being has its haunt in each language and in the speech of our coalescent, yet schismatically parted languages. “Bringing language as language to language” does indeed make little or no sense. But the same is true for die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen—unless we have an ear for the “say” as the ownmost of language. Only in so far as we have this ear, we become aware of the fact that the word Sprache (in which we can hear the broken silence of the “say”) speaks otherwise than “language.” To this we must add that, as far as I know, English doesn’t have the current expression etwas zur Sprache bringen, so that we cannot replicate the weirdness of Heidegger’s formula. As a consequence, in translating we will possibly not be using the word “language” three times as in the German formula, in which Sprache indicates each time a diլerent phenomenon (namely, Sprachwesen, Sage, and verlautendes Wort).13 Thus, the weirdness of being will have to say itself otherwise, in other words, we cannot just substitute a dictionary translation of Sprache, but we will have to struggle for a rigorous formulation. But isn’t this what thinking does all the time, and don’t we always depend on the gift of language for ensconcing in words that which is to be thought? So of course there are diլerences. For example, if we look at the word Möglichkeit, which is so important in Being and Time and relates to Kant’s Bedingung der Möglichkeit, we Înd something very interesting. When Kant hears Möglichkeit, he thinks metaphysically and thus the Unterschied, which Möglichkeit itself is, does not emerge for him. And yet, when he is speaking about the Bedingung der Möglichkeit der synthetischen Urteile a priori, what does he hear? Is he talking about the conditions that make these judgments “possible” or is he talking about the conditions that make these Urteile a priori likely (in a sense of the word “likely” that emerges from translating the Denkweg)? As far as I can see, Möglichkeit here does not mean possibilitas, and I don’t think one should translate it as “possibility.” (Incidentally, I suspect “condition” is not an appropriate translation of Bedingung either, at least in Italian.) In this case, however, the mistranslation of Möglichkeit, that is, “possibility,” is not as momentous as when we translate Möglichkeit in seinsgeschichtliches Denken, or even in Sein und Zeit, as “possibility.” Because here this word is explicitly a word of Unterschied, a schismatic word, so that translating with 151

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“possibility”—which, as far as I can see, is not a schismatic word—actually implies that thinking remains within the schemes of metaphysics. Now if someone disagrees with this, I cannot prove him wrong, I cannot convince him. I can show him these things and in so doing I can try to show that these are issues for which probably we need to introduce a diլerent style of collaboration in thinking, a collaboration across languages and the oլground that divides them. Because Heidegger’s thinking, in responding to the call of being, is itself a huge invitation to such a collaboration. As Maurizio Borghi, the Italian translator of Einleitung in die Philosophie (HGA 27), once put it: the Seinsfrage is a gigantic call for papers that gets two or three submissions every thousand years! So let us hope that by giving an example of this diլerent kind of exchange we help educate a new generation of collaborative thinking human beings. P.E.: It was actually in the spirit of this collaborative thinking that I welcomed this exchange, hoping to work out the diլerences in our approaches to the question of Heidegger and translation. Concluding this conversation, let me make a number of observations relevant to it. (1) In the wake of Humboldt and Leopardi, I want to say that not everything can be said in every language as there are certain words that are not common to all languages: English does not have a word for Wesen, for Ereignis, for Abgrund, and for Geschichte, to name but a few. (2) Implicit in everything you said in this conversation as well as in everything you have written so far is the claim of receiving that which following F. -W. von Herrmann, I must call “be-ing’s enowning-throw” (der ereignende Zuwurf des Seyns). This claim is implicit in the passage I quoted from your work at the beginning of this conversation where you speak of “regaining a mortal stance, Ïashing of the godliness of gods and returning of worldbearing things.” Acknowledging that this claim cannot be made the subject of a discussion and philosophical demonstration, I must leave it to others to judge who amongst us today could claim to have been favored with such a receivership. One thing I am almost certain about is that we would be at a loss to estimate, let alone to come to terms with, the depth and depravity of today’s chaos, if we were to assume that humans in general are favored with such a receivership. Certainly there are exceptions: Martin Heidegger was such a recipient. His work and legacy demonstrate at each step of the way his receiving “be-ing’s enowning-throw.” (3) Having made this caveat regarding the receivership, I want to leave you with one thought. Had it not been for reading, translating, and interpreting Heidegger’s work in German language and thus had it not been for being exposed to the inter- and intralingual translations endemic to this work, you would have been probably hard put to explain how you can come up with the passage I quoted above. Is not that passage a precise distillation from Heidegger’s main being-historical pronouncements? Perhaps the response to this question requires another conversation. 152

NOTES

PREFACE 1. On this word see p. 186, note 23.

1. WHY BEING ITSELF AND NOT JUST BEING? 1. The sense that the word “weirdness” assumes in this context is illustrated below at the end of §1.3. See also above the end of the Preface and, i.a., p. 109. 2. The words “past” and “format,” here, indicate the same sense of being. “Format” is derived from (liber) formatus, “(a book) formed”; in other words, “format” is a truncated form of formatus, which, in turn, is the past participle of Latin formare, “to form.” In this truncation we should in fact hear the interruption of sense, that is, as will become clear below in §1.3, the interruption of the relation between the onset that has already become and the being of man. However, this interruption is itself constitutive for the kind of seizure whose truth is, precisely, an operative truth (a truth that consists in operative eլectiveness and its enhancement). Hence, a format, in grasping and “arranging” something in an “operative sense” (i.e. in a manner that assures that it can be processed historically), is strictly speaking itself the past of sense. (“Epoch of formats” and “epoch of the past of sense” are concordant names for indicating our time in its constitutive trait.) Concerning the sense of the formating of books that makes them “readable” by the scanning “eye” of the computer, see Maurizio Borghi, “Knowledge, Information and Values in the Age of Mass Digitisation,” in Ivo De Gennaro, Value. Sources and Readings on a Key Concept of the Globalized World (LeidenBoston: Brill, 2012), p. 415 et sqq. 3. On Das Ereignis see Chapter 5 of this volume. 4. The Îfth volume of the pentalogy is Die Stege des Anfangs. One can extend the unity of these Îve texts to comprise also Geschichte des Seyns (HGA 69) and Metaphysik und Nihilismus (HGA 67), in which case one would speak not of a pentalogy, but of a heptalogy of posthumous treatises (see p. 92). 5. The word “issue” (from Latin exire “to go out, to exit”) is here to be taken literally: in fact, Heidegger’s thinking is nothing else than an attempt to own, and thus to preserve and ground, that which shows itself as a way out. The Îrst and in many ways decisive

153

NOTES

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

154

metaphysical Îgure of (philosophy as the striving for) the way out (from contingency) is, of course, the exit of the Platonic cave. In the other onset of thinking, the way out becomes much simpler, but also much harder to prepare and to follow. Even in a historical time, however, there may be those who, instead of joining in such keeping at bay, engage in a free dialogue with the thinker; one of these free men is the French philosopher Jean Beaufret, the addressee of the Letter on Humanism. When language becomes the house of being, it wants to be borne in the dialogue of these diլerent homesteads. This awareness is, for the being of man, literally inescapable, that is, it deÎnes the likelihood of our humanness. On the other hand, Socrates’ trial is emblematic of the fear vis-à-vis the anguish that is proper to the thinking that consists in sustaining the unknown beingness of beings (the Ѷ̩[on]-Frage). When the word Seinsfrage is written without an article, the word or title itself is in view; on the other hand, the expression “the Seinsfrage” refers to the matter that the same word indicates. In English, the German words Sein (substantivized inÎnitive) and Seiend(es) (substantivized present participle) not only both sound “being,” but are the same word (see below, p. 160, note 36). Ein Seiendes in English sounds “a being,” while we have trouble distinguishing, in English, Seiendes and das Seiende, which imply, respectively, a general reference to that which is and the entirety of that which is. On the other hand, Seiendes and das Seiende correspond to Greek Ѷ̩ (on) and ̯Ң Ѷ̩ (to on). We can translate Ѷ̩ and Seiendes with “a being” or with “beings” and ̯Ң Ѷ̩ and das Seiende with “beings.” In so doing, we should, however, note how both the Greek and the German language, in indicating “beings,” already point towards that in which these beings consist as such, that is, whence they are what they are, namely, the genus and the entirety or whole. In other words, in Greek as well as in German beings are already named in their constitutive reference to being. In fact, the metaphysical titles Ѷ̩/̯Ң Ѷ̩ and Seiendes/das Seiende do not have a plural (with the diլerence that German does not even have the corresponding word-form, while Greek does have the plural form ̯Қ Ѷ̩̯̝ [ta onta]). Therefore, what speaks in these words, and even more audibly so in the German words, is a unity and a whole, namely, das Ganze, in its constitutive trait, namely, Sein. On the other hand, this reference to being is less explicit when we say “a being” or “beings.” A further aspect to be considered in this context is that the substantivized forms Sein and das Sein immediately (this means: in their very shining and sounding Ïagrancy) bespeak of a diլerence with respect to that which is, and this for the simple fact that the sound /sein/ as a rule does not indicate something that is. The same is not true in English (cf. being–a being–beings), in Italian (cf. essere–un essere–degli esseri) or in French (cf. être–un être–des êtres). On the other hand, while Greek ̡Ѩ̩̝̥ (einai) also does not indicate something that is, in philosophical contexts instead of saying ̯Ң ̡Ѩ̩̝̥ we can also say ̯Ң Ѷ̩. This attests to the peculiar, speciÎcally metaphysical undecidedness between being/Sein and beings/Seiendes in Greek thinking, where that which is appears in the Ïagrancy of its being, so that in fact the latter is that which appears, that is to say, is, in the Îrst place, while this appearing and being is, in turn, always the sphere of appearance of beings, that is, a sphere related to beings in their immediate encounter. This latter observation should by itself suխce to show that the scope of previous comments is not merely linguistic and grammatical, but eminently philosophical. In fact, any attempt to initiate a dialogue with the Seinsfrage in English would have to explicitly address these matters and settle them in such a way as to gain, in the Îrst place, the truly English formulation of the Frage as such.

NOTES

12. The preposition nach (after, to) is related to nahe (near, close) and Nähe (nearness, closeness, vicinity). 13. The fact that thinking is not primarily an activity of man is already in some sense seen when it is said, in Greek thinking, that man is a ̢ԗ̫̩ ̷̧̟̫̩ ъ̲̫̩ (zĮon logon echon), that is, a living being that, in so far as it is, holds itself within the capacity of logos. However, this remains, in a decisive sense, a determination of a contingent living being named “man.” On the other hand, in Being and Time we do not at all have a new determination of the peculiar living being called “man” (as the historical format would have, according to which in Being and Time the “essence of man” is determined as Dasein). Strange as it may seem, there is no such thing as a contingent human being, which, next to other things, could enact the thinking of Being and Time. Why? In the Îrst place, Being and Time is precisely the instant of an onset that originates from and as being itself— that is: as being itself with its truth (Da-) and with the want of a steadiness (-sein) that bears this truth. This onset, however, instantly interrupts the contingency of man as a living being. “Those who interrogate,” then, are not contingent human beings that, for some reason, engage in the activity of “thinking being itself ”: what “they” are is a who awoken to taking on, as a stance or bearing (ы̪̥̭ [hexis], the Greeks would say), that unique steadiness. Again, such interrogating is what “rational human life” is by its own constitution incapable of carrying out. This is why something like a new determination of the essence of “human life” (e.g. in terms of a new version of “subjectivity”) does not and cannot belong to the scope of the interrogation carried out in Being and Time. The reason for this is not that Being and Time is “not interested” in “human life,” but that this book tries to take a stance in having owned—in response to the enigma “Sein selbst” in its broken Da—the enigmatic character of humanness in an unprecedented manner. Summarizing: the breaking of the Seinsfrage implies that the ̢ԗ̫̩ ̷̧̟̫̩ ъ̲̫̩ (and its lineage from the animal rationale to the subject of the Will to Power)—and this means: the assurance given by the somehow supplemented contingency of human life—has already collapsed, so that there is no “human life” left to be determined in its “essence.” 14. See Being and Time, §2, as well as above, p. 118, the elucidation in Chapter 6, and p. 89 et sqq. (§5.1, Who is “we”?). In attempting to understand what Being and Time indicates as Da-sein, a hasty reading easily falls prey to what we might call the “egological temptation,” or the “temptation of identiÎcation,” namely, the temptation of identifying Da-sein with “me who is reading.” In other words, we tend to think: “Da-sein, i.e. me,” or “Da-sein, that is, who and what I am,” where “who and what I am” means: the living being that coincides with me, the being that “I am.” However, Da-sein can in no way be made to coincide with “me.” In fact, a suխcient understanding of Being and Time as an analytic of Da-sein—which, in turn, is at the service of the guiding interrogation of the sense (or truth) of being—depends on our capacity to keep Da-sein itself, as it were, at a “security distance” from the contingency of human life, and, more speciÎcally, from the givenness of the “I.” The immediate obviousness with which “I” can state that it is “me” who is Da-sein, and aխrm that the Da-sein is always “mine,” is a temptation of Da-sein and therefore of being itself, namely, of being in so far as, according to its ground-trait, it retires into forgottenness and remains forgotten (cf. Sein und Zeit, pp. 54–5). Plainly stated, the temptation consists in the following: it is tempting to take the unquestioned and apparently assured “I” as a starting point for envisaging Dasein, thus extending the apparent assuredness of the “I” to the phenomenon Da-sein. However, the ontically given “I” (“I—the thinking, living being—am given as such”) does not at all grasp the “who” of Da-sein: in fact, this “who,” and therefore the genuine saying “I,” only emerges from out of the Ïashing of Da-sein itself and in an instant of Da-sein, that is, in an instant in which the being of a man abruptly shows in its

155

NOTES

15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

156

native belongingness to the truth of being and this man owns this belongingness, thus being born as a “who” that may eventually say “I.” On the other hand, to take the obvious givenness of the “I” as an initial evident access to Da-sein, in such a way that all structures of Da-sein are to be obtained by means of a reÏection of the given “I” on its own constitution and acts, is to place the existential analytic in the domain of unquestioned contingency. Whatever we may unearth, on this basis, as “existential traits” of the “human being” will be nothing but emanations and variations of the “living I,” and therefore speak the language of ontical relations between contingent beings. As a consequence, the true existential dimension remains entirely covered by the arrogance of the “I,” and therefore unattempted and unthought (cf. on this §25 of Being and Time). Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1028 b 2–4. (̛̯ ̯Ң Ѷ̩; What is any being as a being, namely, with regard to its beingness?) See Being and Time, §2. “Are,” here, means: (“transitively”) sustain, take on, bear, suլer, and thus raise and ground; the “are” in no case identiÎes a contingent being, or even the “we ourselves” of interrogation, with Da-sein. Again: Da is the Ïashing of Sein itself, which (viz. this Ïashing) is sustained in a steadiness or Îrmness of being (-sein) that is originated by and thus ab initio oլered to Sein itself, and therefore, so to speak, is native in it. The being of man, then, is decided in the manner in which he takes on (or not) and opens himself (or not) to this native being that awaits him. “Was wir mit ‘Dasein’ bezeichnen, kommt in der bisherigen Geschichte der Philosophie nicht vor” (Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche I (Pfullingen: Neske, 19895), p. 278: “That which we indicate as ‘Dasein’ has never emerged in the hitherto Geschichte of philosophy.” N.B. Superscripts on years indicate the number of the edition: 19895 = 5th edition, 1989. This distinction is suggested, in similar terms to the ones elaborated for the present elucidation, in: Ivo De Gennaro and Gino Zaccaria, Dasein : Da-sein. Tradurre la parola del pensiero (Milan: Christian Marinotti Edizioni, 2007), p. 149 (hereafter DD). We are thus indicating in the language of metaphysics a non-metaphysical insight into the hidden “Bedingung der Möglichkeit” (i.e. the “condition of possibility”) of metaphysical interrogation. The temporal sense of the a posteriori–a priori scheme is the following: when the beingness of beings Ïashes (e.g. in the form of the Platonic idea), the contraction (the refusing itself, the slipping away and thus the forgottenness) of the cut has already taken place. The temporality implied in this “when …-already …” is of a peculiar kind: in fact, there is not a succession (Îrst the contraction, then the Ïashing), but a strict instantaneous simultaneity, according to which the Ïashing of beingness consists in the hidden breaking of the already become contraction of the cut (see below §1.3 for a more comprehensive elucidation of this original temporality). “Excessive nearness” is that which holds sway where the dimension of nearness itself (the world) is contracted, so that time and space are reduced to operative implements for a domain of contingent beings-to-power together with their contingent relations (i.e. the beings and relations that modern science, and in the Îrst place mathematical physics, grasps in its operative theories, which aim at penetrating and explaining the functioning of what has been formated [sic] for the purpose of such penetrating and explaining). In a context of sense, an excess of nearness is tantamount to the disruption of nearness itself, which is why a sphere of excessive nearness can be called nearness-less. Neither the words “schism” or “cut,” as translations of Heidegger’s word Unterschied, nor the word “contingency,” as a rendition of Vorhandenheit, will be justiÎed here. The case for these translations (which in no way pretend to be suխcient, but rather try to indicate in English the dimension from which the German words speak) is made below

NOTES

23. 24.

25.

26.

in Chapters 2 and 4. The following aspects should, however, be kept in mind: (1) “cut” is not intended as an ontical cut (i.e. a cut in the domain of contingency), but as the original, primal, discontingent, oլ-grounding dimension, whose breaking implies the collapsing of all contingency; this collapsing, however, is not the result of an action the cut would perform on contingency; rigorously speaking, we must therefore say: in the very instant in which the cut breaks, the domain of contingency has already collapsed; (2) “contingency,” in turn, is to be intended neither in opposition to (logical) necessity, nor in the common sense of “casual, unpredictable event that may occur,” in other words, it is not to be intended according to its primary or derived metaphysical sense; “contingent,” here, means strictly: that which—on the basis of a hidden contraction of the cut as the original provenance of sense—abides merely by and through its immediate impact, that is, without an explicit decision concerning its sense, and thus without a decision involving the being of man (insofar as this being belongs to that provenance of sense), taking place, and which therefore admits—and oլers to be thought—as its explicit “sense” only a sphere that can, ex post, ground this cut-less abiding; in other words, contingency only admits a “sense” of (i.e. functional to) such abiding-by-direct-impact. (This is, in the most succinct terms, the sense of Heidegger’s diagnosis of the “dominance of beings over being” in the domain and tradition of metaphysics: thus, what this tradition knows as “being” is, again, only an ex post or a posteriori or, so to speak, a post festum grounding of contingent beings: an a priori being that, since it is, in a decisive sense, already a posteriori, is never that which, in the order of origination, comes Îrst.) The single inverted commas are not quotation marks but are meant to indicate the unity of the saying they delimitate. The word “open” comes from the idg. root *upo, “up from under, over” (cf. English up, Latin sub, Greek ѿ½ң [hypo]). Open does not simply refer to the contingent state of not being closed or shut (open door—closed door). The meanings plain, unobstructed, unimpeded, disencumbered, accessible, generous, genuine, frank, etc., show that open implies more than an indeÎnite, indeterminate space or the indiscriminate quality of giving an access and allowing a passage: a house is “open” not because all doors are unlocked, but thanks to a capacity for welcoming and giving hospitality (see p. 23, on the openness of the house named “possibility” in Emily Dickinson’s poem I Dwell in Possibility); a mind is “open” not because it absorbs whatever is presented to it, but thanks to the fact that it can critically assess and thus admit, or reject, new ideas or viewpoints; the relationship between two human beings is characterized by “openness” not because everything is laid bare, but when both of them grant each other the unsaid and unknown source of their freedom, in such a way that whatever has to be said in order to preserve this freedom, can be said; the sky is “open” (clear, spacious) in that it soothes the soul that, in turn, is open to it; a face or an expression is “open,” that is, friendly and such as to inspire conÎdence and trust, in that, in some way or another, it shows the unobstructed but invisible source of the humanity of man, etc. What is open is not at all merely accessible and readily available; on the contrary: constitutive for the open as such is a trait of integrity, of being impenetrable and in itself sheltered, insofar as, in turn, the open shelters the coming of what remains “impregnably” withdrawn. In most instances, the German words anwesen and wesen are translated, respectively, as “abiding” (“to abide”) and “biding” (“to bide”). On this translation see p. 170, note 24. Occasionally, for saying wesen and related words, I also recur to “swaying,” etc., which is the rendering introduced by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly in their translation of Beiträge zur Philosophie (see p. 162, note 51). The manner in which being as Seyn (i.e. Unter-Schied) is the being “of ” beings, that is to say, for or toward things, is indicated in the following quotation from Unterwegs zur

157

NOTES

27.

28. 29.

30.

158

Sprache: “Der Unter-Schied für Welt und Ding ereignet Dinge in das Gebärden von Welt, ereignet Welt in das Gönnen von Dingen” (Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache [Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985], p. 22 (HGA 12). The distinction of the three meanings of Sein is not intended to introduce ready-made formats that should henceforth be substituted, as needed, whenever we Înd the word Sein in Heidegger’s writings; what they should do, however, is to provide a rough measure of the degree of familiarity we need to acquire with the Sache des Denkens in learning to be students of the Denkweg. This is of course an abbreviated manner of speaking: in a more detailed exposition we would, in the Îrst place, have to distinguish the diլerent fore-names of Seyn (e.g. to start with, original time). On beǺng as a rendering of Seyn see p. 34 et sqq. The word “Ïashing” indicates, in its own manner, the same as the words “breaking” and “clearing.” To Ïash means: “to break forth or out so as to make a sudden display,” and, in a transitive sense: “to cause the sudden appearance of something.” When we say “the sun Ïashed from behind a cloud,” we mean that the sun, which was previously hidden behind a cloud, suddenly broke forth and “made a display.” An attentive consideration shows that the word “Ïashing” indicates two distinct traits: (1) an inapparent breaking, and, in this breaking and thanks to this breaking, (2) the sudden making a display. When we use the word “Ïashing” in the context of the Denkweg, that is, as indicating the same as Lichtung, we must intend it according to the Îrst of the two mentioned traits. Lichtung, the clearing, is a Ïashing not in the sense that the clearing itself “makes a display”; rather, the Ïashing is the sudden, light- and soundless breaking that tempers light and sound in such a manner that, in the clear temper of light and sound, beings can make a display, that is, show and appear. The appearing of beings is always released and ensconced in a broken avenue of clearance, and this releasing and ensconcing broken avenue of clearance is precisely what the word “Ïashing” indicates. With reference to light the following holds true: Ïashing is the “essence” or the constitutive trait of light, in other words: light bides as Ïashing. This does not imply that light always “Ïashes” in the sense that any light is a “Ïashing light,” namely, a sudden, and possibly intermittent, emission of light from a source of radiation. In fact, even the most quiet and constant light bides as Ïashing. The reason for this is that light as such is becoming light, irruption of an in itself withdrawing and absconcing clearance through which any thing may appear. In other words, light is the breaking of the clearing of absconcing and therefore, in any of its modes and tones, a Ïashing. That which “appears in the light” is not a given object illuminated by “beams of light,” but rather that which, in turn, is Ïashed and only thus, in the Îrst place, abides and is. “A being” is that which appears, that is, that which is Ïashed (cleared, lightened) in the light as that which Ïashes. Once we mind the Ïashing as the constitutive trait of light, we understand that sound, too, Ïashes. Flashing is the biding of sound insofar as sound assumes its clear, Ïashing temper—namely, the temper by virtue of which in its turn it Ïashes that which is resoundingly Ïashed as a being. Beings Ïash in and as sound, that is, thanks to the fact that sound is at a time the temper of the light- and soundless Ïashing, that is, of the breaking clearance. The fact that, in reference to the phenomenon of Lichtung, we also speak of the “Ïagrancy” (for the Îrst time, see p. 35) becomes intelligible if we keep in mind precisely the trait of Ïashing. (On the relation of light, sound and the clearing, see DD, p. 61 et sqq.) The word “keeping-away” indicates the dimension of that which Heidegger, in Beiträge zur Philosophie, calls Ab-Grund: literally, the ab-ground (as Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly translate) or (as I am suggesting we say) the oլ-ground, in the sense of das Wegbleiben des Grundes, and this, in turn, as a trait of that which is, in some sense, the guiding phenomenon of the entire Denkweg, namely Verbergung (“hiding”

NOTES

31. 32.

33.

34.

or “concealment,” neither of which, however, is a suխcient English translation of this word; for a diլerent translation see p. 172, note 41, et passim). In this context, the verb “to keep,” which, being presumably based on a root meaning “to look, to behold,” is close to the German wahren, appears most promising a word for an English thinking that engages in the Seinsfrage. It might indeed be worthwhile considering in what manner this verb could indicate (in a truly English and thus itself untranslatable manner) that which the Denkweg thinks in the words wahren and bergen. The sense in which the way out from our cave implies that metaphysics becomes unmöglich should become clear from the discussion of Möglichkeit in the second part of this chapter (see §§1.4 and 1.5). What motivates the resistance to acknowledging the unity of the Denkweg, the unity given by its only thought? No doubt, what resists in this resistance—namely, what resists to the Seinsfrage as such—is the historical eye, that is to say, the eye that does not think. Clinging to the historical eye and recognizing the Denkweg as the Weg of that one and only thought are mutually excluding stances. Therefore, what can indeed be said in favor of this unity does in no way intend to establish a particular historical image of Heidegger’s thinking; in other words: the unity of the only thought is not a historical value. Indeed, the eլort of historical invasiveness will soon have forged a historical format for this very unity (if it has not already done so). The problem for thinking, on the other hand, is in the Îrst place this: unless we leap into the unity not so much of Heidegger’s thinking, but of the (in its Îrst onset, Greek) issue of thinking as such—we simply never start to think. However, once we do start to think, we will want nothing but to follow—for the sake of thinking itself and as far as we can—the numberless indications that Heidegger himself gives, all along the way, concerning the manner in which, what is still contracted in and for Being and Time, Înds its way to itself in the attempts of the subsequent decades. The manuscripts of the thirties and forties (as well as, presumably, the critical notes on Being and Time that are still to be published) give invaluable hints in this respect, thus also helping to better understand the indications that Heidegger gives in several famous but scarcely pondered texts that were published during his lifetime—from the Letter on Humanism to the Letter to Richardson. Chevrons in quotes indicate additions which should help to clarify the meaning of a certain passage or expression, often by making explicit what is implicit in the passage or expression itself. These additions become part of the passage or expression, that is, there is a continuity between what is outside and what is inside the chevrons. Square brackets, on the other hand, contain syonyms or make explicit a simple reference (e.g. what a pronoun refers to); the content of these brackets adds or clariÎes, but does not become part of the passage or expression. Martin Heidegger, “Der Spruch des Anaximander,” in Holzwege (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1977), p. 364 (HGA 5). The full sentence is: “Die Geschichte des Seins beginnt mit der Seinsvergessenheit, damit, dass das Sein mit seinem Wesen, mit dem Unterschied zum Seienden, an sich hält.” (“The Geschichte of being begins with the obliviousness of being, with the fact that being keeps to itself with its biding, that is, with the cut towards beings ),” and the passage continues: “Der Unterschied entfällt. Er bleibt vergessen” (“The cut slips away. It remains forgotten.”). In such passages it is more than ever essential that we read what is actually written there: in fact, it is not said that “there exists a diլerence” “between” being and beings (which is true only in a derived sense); instead, it is said that das Wesen des Seins—we say: the biding of being—consists in this: der Unterschied zum Seienden; in other words: the cut is not a predicate of being, but its constitutive (and therefore, as Aristotle teaches, its most hidden) trait, its Wesen. What this implies can also be indicated thus: the word “is”

159

NOTES

35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

44.

160

has many senses, but what language itself says, when it says “is,” is this: Unterschied. On the basis of this understanding, it is clear that the preposition “zum,” as it speaks in the expression “Unterschied zum Seienden,” has a unique sense: (being, that is:) the cut (not simply “with respect to,” but) toward beings. (For another example of how we need to read with particular attention when we come across the word Unterschied see p. 48 et sq.) The word Seinsvergessenheit is formed on seinsvergessen, which speaks in the same way as, e.g., selbstvergessen, whose meaning is “oblivious (of oneself).” To be seinsvergessen is to be oblivious of being, and Seinsvergessenheit is the obliviousness in which being is forgotten. But Seinsvergessenheit also means: die Vergessenheit des Seins, that is, the forgottenness of being. Therefore, Seinsvergessenheit indicates both a “condition” of thinking man (the fact that he is oblivious of being) and the corresponding “condition” of being itself (the fact that it is forgotten by man), in other words, it indicates the same in which forgottenness and obliviousness belong together. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 198616), p. 5. Jean Beaufret, “En chemin avec Heidegger,” in Dialogue avec Heidegger (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985), p. 116 (see also p. 90); the explanatory notes in square brackets […] as well as the additions in chevrons are mine. During a recent workshop, Gino Zaccaria pointed out that the scope of this passage has as yet hardly been recognized. In fact, what Heidegger, who is not usually a “story-teller,” expounds by telling this “episode” is precisely the experience of the dimensional ground that constitutes the unity of the Denkweg. In other words, what is said here is the perennial onset of (Heidegger’s) thinking. On what follows it is useful to see Martin Heidegger, Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1994), pp. 83–4 (HGA 79). See Latin versus; the root is the same as that of German werden, to become. Incidentally, this is also the root of the English word “weird.” See the passage from Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge mentioned in note 38 above. Our grammar—and thus the manner in which, on the basis of a certain understanding of being, we think time—is an Ѷ̩-Frage-grammar (a grammar entangled and entangling in contingency), in which, moreover, the original attunement of the Frage has faded. Why do we say: the broken coming? Because this helps to hear the coming in the non-ontical sense in which it ought to be heard: the coming is not a “movement” of “something” in “space,” but the long instantaneous “getting” within the already broken openness of the getting itself. Here and elsewhere we need to hear the verb “to break” in its original sense, which indicates an abrupt opening, initiating, originating. The following ontical meanings may help to tune our ear to this sense: to come into being by or as if by bursting forth (“the day breaks”); to start abruptly (“when the storm broke”); to open, begin, initiate; to happen, take place, develop from out of an unsustained but likely origin (“the events broke in a favorable way”); to become fair, to clear (“when the weather breaks”); to become manifest, accessibile, known (“a news break”). The trait of towardness (from “toward” in the sense of “propitious”) will return in our discussion of Möglichkeit. On the sense of this towardness in the context of the discussion of ontological diլerence see Martin Heidegger, “Die onto-theologische Verfassung der Metaphysik,” in Identität und Diլerenz (Pfullingen: Neske, 1957). Why do we say: the coming of become becomingness? Because this is what the insight into the only becoming instant beholds and hears: the coming of the only becoming instant shows this instant as the instant of the already become becomingness. This form of temporality is what is most familiar to Greek thinking (see the Aristotelian ̯Ң ̛̯ ј̩

NOTES

45.

46. 47.

48.

49.

50.

̡Ѩ̩̝̥ [to ti õn einai]), albeit in the sphere of ̫Ѿ̛̮̝ and therefore of ̸̱̮̥̭ (with all the consequences that this restriction bears). This is tantamount to saying that in the thinking of Being and Time is already heard the character of what Heidegger later calls seinsgeschichtliches Denken—Geschichte being precisely the name of Gegenwart as pure becom(e)ingness. In fact, what else could be the meaning of the famous passage of the letter to Richardson in which it is said that “ I [i.e. the thinking of Being and Time]” is möglich (“possible”) only if it is “already contained in II [i.e. the thinking called seinsgeschichtlich]”? On the basis of this interpretation, it appears at least questionable whether the word “presence” (with all its derivations) is suitable for translating Gegenwart and Anwesenheit when these words speak as words of the Denkweg. This anticipating biding is the temporal sense of beings as such in the foreboding of the “is” and its coming in its own truth. When we say “foreboding,” this is not to imply that the “is” is not yet “there” and will perhaps be “there” sometime in the future. This foreboding is already the truthfulness of beings. Nevertheless, the “is” and its truth for beings in the whole must be explicitly acknowledged and set up, which is what takes place precisely in the work of art. The genitive “of being,” here, could be called a “genitive of sameness”; in fact, it means: (the becoming) in which (being) consists. This kind of genitive, which is common in German, is found throughout Heidegger’s writings. On the existential-ontological, and therefore phenomenological meaning of “sense” see Being and Time, §32, as well as the following note. Translating “der Sinn von Sein” as “the meaning of being” would require a justiÎcation in terms of that which is indicated in the word “meaning.” In fact, in its ordinary sense, the expression “the meaning of …” implies the semantic content of a given thing—which, however, with regard to the locution “der Sinn von Sein,” is misleading. In fact, Seinsfrage as “Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein” does not mean that a peculiar meaning of being is sought for. In naming the theme of Being and Time, Sinn refers to the phenomenon of horizontal time as the openness or truth of ‘being (for the whole).’ Thus, in the word Sinn we need to hear the original sense of “way, direction,” and the latter, in turn, as broken path, as blazed trail. In fact, Sinn comes from a root *sent“to go, to fare, to travel,” whose original meaning is precisely “to take a direction, to keep track of something”; hence, Sinn means the direction along which something is already on the way, the element that, so to speak, already hosts its biding and its transformations. In the case of der Sinn von Sein (überhaupt) as the theme of Being and Time, it is being itself that has already blazed its own “trail,” that is, its hosting and preserving element, its truth (its there), but in such a way that, simultaneously, a steadiness of being (-sein) is claimed for sustaining this element, and thus being itself, in its biding. This is why Being and Time starts, in its Îrst part, with an analytics of Da-sein, and this is also why, in existential analytic, “sense”—be it the sense of being or the sense of beings—is necessarily constituted as a relation of Da-sein. In §32 of Being and Time, which discusses the existential of understanding, Heidegger writes: “Sinn [the Stambaugh-translation says: meaning] is that wherein the intelligibility of something maintains itself (…) Sinn is an existential of Da-sein, not [as, on the contrary, is the case of meaning] a property which is attached to beings, which lies ‘behind’ them or Ïoats somewhere as a ‘realm between’” (Sein und Zeit, p. 151; Being and Time, trans. J. Stambaugh [Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996], p. 142). See his sonnet “As KingÎshers Catch Fire”: “(…) Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: / Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; / Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, / Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came (…)” (poem 34 in: Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins [London: Humphrey Milford, 1918]). Incidentally, as to

161

NOTES

51.

52. 53.

54.

55.

56. 57.

162

Hopkins’ poetological keywords “inscape” and “instress,” it may be suggested that the former (i.e. “inscape”) refers precisely to the Ïashing of the unique abiding of things, which, in turn, is itself—that is, in so far as it selves—the “instress.” As a matter of fact, for das Sein selbst we could say, with Hopkins: “the instress ‘being’” or “selving being,” and similarly: der Tisch selbst—“the instress ‘table’” or “the selving table,” der Mensch selbst—“the instress ‘man’” or “selving man,” etc. These formulations do not at all merely vary the metaphysical locutions “the essence of the table” (or “the table itself ”), “the essence of man” (or “man himself ”), and so on, in that neither the instress nor the selving rely on the contingency of beings (as is on the other hand the case of the a posteriori–a priori being or essence, no matter how absolute and pure this being or essence is thought). The word “sway” (“swaying”, “essential sway,” etc.) was Îrst introduced by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly for translating the word-complex of Wesen in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (see: Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000]). Or weirding itself. Überhaupt (literally “overhead”) originally refers to a manner of establishing the price of cattle one intends to buy or to sell: instead of counting the single pieces of cattle (i.e. each single “head”) and multiplying the total number by a unit price, one indicates a total price for the envisaged group of cattle “over the heads” of the single animals—literally, an over-all(-heads) price. This price is clearly not a price “in general,” that is, it is not established through a process of generalization. Rather—and this is precisely the phenomenological trait we need to retain—buying or selling “overhead” implies that the reference to contingency (i.e. the countable heads in their serving as a basis for establishing the price, that is, in this context, the truth of the being of these beings) is instantly given up: this giving up consists in a leap that, interrupting the reference to contingency, seconds an original, contingency-free dimension of sense— namely, the whole in its constitutive trait—and thus being itself as the origin of all measure. Here the word “tidiness” (from “tide” = “time”) speaks in its original sense as the suitable time or occasion, the original opportunity for all coming to be. The sense of “opportunity, favorable occasion, proper time” is also the sense both of the Latin spatium and tempus and of the Greek ̷̯½̫̭ (topos) and ̷̲̬̩̫̭ (chronos), all of which originally indicate a dimension of openness (a break, a scope) capable of gathering and sheltering a sense. In this context, “weird” does not indicate that which is ordinarily odd and strange within the domain of the ordinary, but the plainly uncanny and unusual. In fact, the “weird” is the extra-ordinary that breaks into, Ïashes within and beholds from out of the canny, ordinary, and familiar. The weird is the breaking uncanniness as which being itself deals itself out as the time-play-space toward the abiding of things. Since any “is” consists in the discontingent uncanny there of being itself, whenever something appears as itself (whenever a thing shows in its selving), it “looks weird” (e.g. a work of art). In rigorous terms, however, only being itself is weird and weirdness is a name of the openness for beings as such in the whole. Paraphrasing Heraclitus (fragment 119 Diels-Kranz) we could say: “The ethos for man is the scope of the weird,” or simply: “The ethos for man is the weirdness.” In Chapter 2 (see p. 42 et sq.), it will be shown how “weird” (O.E. wyrd) can provide a basis in view of the translation of one of the ground-words of Heidegger’s thinking. Our languages are, in a manner of speaking, the biding hope for such a grounding. Needless to say, it is perfectly phantastic to imagine such a translation without Dasein swaying as the in-between for the accord of being’s call and man’s belongingness.

NOTES

58. 59.

60.

61.

62.

63. 64.

65.

Attempting this translation from within the regime, or enclosure, of subjectivity must result in mere conceptual and terminological computation. Possibilitas is not a word of classical Latin but a keyword of later Latin speaking philosophy; notably, it appears at the beginning of modernity in Baumgarten’s metaphysics. In what follows we leave aside the question whether or not “condition” is, in turn, an adequate translation of Bedingung. It is interesting to note, however, that Möglichkeit is itself a translation of Latin condicio, namely, in the sense of the conditions or circumstances that—we would say—make something possible (condicio pacis = the possibility of peace). As a consequence, the expression “condition of possibility” is somehow redundant, while the same is not true for Bedingung der Möglichkeit. See Being and Time, §31, which contains the discussion of Möglichkeit that is referred to below. Here Heidegger suggests explicitly that, when Kant interrogates the being of nature in terms of its Bedingung der Möglichkeit, this (namely, the very use of this word) indicates the reference to an unthought presupposition in terms of Da-sein. In other words, Möglichkeit is already a Da-sein-word (a word in which the German motherlanguage says being itself), but this trait does not, as such, become explicit in Kant. In his own reading of Kant, Heidegger follows Kant up to a point in which this trait seems to Ïash, at which point, however, Kant “resiles.” What follows is the Stambaugh translation of Being and Time, pp. 134–5 (see Sein und Zeit, pp. 143–4), where the words möglich/Möglichkeit, können/Seinkönnen, and Vorhandenes/ Vorhandenheit are added in brackets. N.B. Translating das Können as “potentiality” presents analogous problems to those of rendering Möglichkeit as “possibility”: in fact, können (ich kann = I can) is and implies, in the Îrst place, kennen (to know); thus, in this case the capacity and ability is sustained by knowledge (the knowledge of being)—a reference that, again, has no correspondence in potentia and its derivations. The Macquarrie-Robinson version of the same passage (Being and Time [New York: Harper and Row, 1962], p. 183) does not show signiÎcant diլerences with regard to that which is thematic in the present analysis; the translation of Vorhandenheit is, in this case, presence-at-hand. Verbergung (das Sichverbergen) is one of the traits of Ereignis. This does not mean that Möglichkeit is “absolute”: in fact, it is neither (in the metaphysical sense of the word) contingent nor absolute, but rather Înite, in that it needs to be sustained, in its truth, through the form of being that Being and Time calls Existenz. Thus, contingency (now in the sense in which the word is used in this text) does not directly aլect Möglichkeit; however, what holds true for the indicated relation between the cut and contingency (“in the very instant in which the cut breaks, the domain of contingency has already collapsed”; see p. 156, note 22) remains true, albeit in diլerent terms, when the relation is reversed—to wit: as soon as contingency holds sway, Möglichkeit has already withdrawn. For instance, all football teams of the NFL are possible winners of the Super Bowl, but only some of them are (in the original sense of the word and in a more or less visible manner) möglich as winners; moreover, the winning team may or may not be one of those that are möglich as winners. Again, none of the latter will cease to be möglich as a winner for contingent reasons: neither if it does not actually win the Super Bowl (for instance, because of the contingent reason that a team without proper Möglichkeit made massive use of steroids or systematically bribed the referees), nor if it does actually win it, and so on. (We may note in passing that our epoch is marked by the growing confusion between what is möglich and what is only possible. This confusion creates the scope and demand for an “ethics,” articulated in many sectorial disciplines, that is supposed to provide orientation about what, among all things possible, can be done and what cannot. However, this “ethics” will always come too late as long as it leaves

163

NOTES

66. 67. 68.

69.

70. 71.

72.

73.

164

untouched the domain of the possible, or, which is the same, as long as it remains on the ground of contingency. As a matter of fact, this late “ethics” is willed by the will to power itself as an implement and technique for regulating and optimizing performance in all domains of being, which is everywhere grasped in terms of potentials and resources. The element that tunes and coerces the peculiar form of doing, which, being blind for what is möglich, consists entirely in the operative implementation of the will to power, which meanwhile shows openly as the will to will, by means of the increasing exploitation of potentials and the measureless enhancement of possibilities—the element of such “doing” for “doing” [machen] Heidegger calls Machenschaft.) Stambaugh translates: “Higher than actuality stands possibility” (p. 34; Möglichkeit is in italics in the German text). Martin Heidegger, Brief über den Humanismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 19818), pp. 7–8; transl. “Letter on Humanism,” in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, David Farrell Krell (ed.) (New York: Harper, 19922), p. 220. A few paragraphs before the quoted passage, the text speaks of the task that consists in the “liberation of language from grammar into a more original fairness of bidance.” That which from the point of view of grammatical contingency (i.e. the substitution of representing for thinking) must look like an arbitrary “deregulation,” is in fact the translation of language into the rigor of its ownmost word. It still strikes us as somehow awkward when we hear sentences like “a thinking says itself.” In order to overcome, so to speak, the stiլness of our hearing, spoiled by contingency, it might be helpful—especially for an ear attuned to the English motherlanguage—to read E. E. Cummings’ i—six nonlectures, where we read sentences such as the following: “after the passage I am about to read you had written itself ” (see the beginning of nonlecture Îve) or “consider a question which asked itself at the beginning of nonlecture one” (see the beginning of nonlecture six), and so on (cf. E. E. Cummings, i six nonlectures [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953]). The claim that, in the domain of metaphysical thinking, even ontological relations are causative, is in fact based on the contingent nature of ‘(metaphysical) being’ as a ground of beings. The twofold “of ” is not graspable by saying that the genitive is both subjective and objective. In fact, listening (hören), as an instance of Da-sein, consists in assuming and bearing, in response to a claim, the belonging (gehören) to being that Da-sein itself is. The “of being” is neither a subjective nor an objective genitive, but a genitive of Ereignis, or genitive of owning. The latter genitive indicates that thinking comes unto its ownhood when it owns being’s ownership of its biding (i.e. the biding of thinking), into which ownership thinking is thrown (see following note). This relation, in which thinking as such consists, is in fact an Ereignis-relation: again, thinking is not an activity of man, it is Ereignis. We could name this relation of Ermöglichung, in which thinking consists, “en-owning”—which is in fact how Parvis Emad and Kennth Maly render Er-eignis in their translation of Beiträge zur Philosophie. We may understand that the guiding trait of mögen (liking, loving) is elucidated as “bestowing the biding, letting something be in its provenance.” However, what justiÎes the fact that this loving is seen as that which, in turn, constitutes the primary trait of vermögen, of being capable? We mentioned above that the verb vermögen took over the sense that originally belonged to mögen, whereas the latter maintained only a so-called secondary sense, namely that of “(being capable and therefore) liking, favoring.” Thus, it seems that Heidegger arbitrarily elects a derived sense to be the groundtrait of the word. This would indeed be the case if phenomenology were about letting etymologies do the thinking, instead of—as is actually the case—about seeing (and hearing) traits of sense. Therefore, what Heidegger does is not to arbitrarily pick a

NOTES

74. 75.

76. 77.

given meaning out of a given set of (“literal” or “Îgurative”) signiÎcations. Rather, the phenomenological eye beholds that any genuine capacity (in the critical sense outlined above) is fundamentally a letting be, a letting something bide in its provenance, and, in this sense, a willing that it be, a loving. We can retain this guiding insight in the following formula: “You shall never, in an essential sense, be capable of anything, unless you love it.” Ibid. (translation modiÎed; the inserts in chevrons are mine; the Latin words are in the original text). In fact, most (mis)interpretations of Being and Time, in the Îrst place the so-called post-modern ones, conceive of Dasein as a form of contingent existence (“human life”), whose manner of being is that of being thrown into having to project itself in (contingent) “possibilities”—some of which are “authentic,” while others are “inauthentic.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson (ed.) (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1961), p. 327. A still superÎcial analysis shows the following: the Îrst stanza indicates fairness and openness as the fundamental traits of the primary element for all abiding, at the same time anticipating that which, being initiated by it, is in fact the same as this element, namely, the fourfold play of mortals (those who indwell possibility) and divine (the fair visitors of the fair element, see third stanza), sky (that which comes through the windows) and earth (that which comes through the doors). The second stanza displays the dyad of earth and sky in the open in-between: the earth as that which stretches toward the sky, almost sustaining it, while at the same time the earth returns into its own depth and inwardly bides in impenetrable and sheltering contraction; the sky as that which towers in light and open celestial elevation, but only in so far as, overarching it, at the same time it reaches down to the earth. Finally, the third stanza unfolds the mutual relation of divine and mortals: the former as those who, being the celestial announcers (i.e. the angels) of the fair element itself, do not dwell with the mortals, but may come into play, as visitors, from the fairness of the fair; the latter as those who, diլerently from the divine, are occupied, in their being, in a task, their Îrst and fundamental occupation being that of grounding the dwelling of man over against the divine, and who therefore may, in their midst, foster a poet, einen Dichter (see following note), that is, one who suլers the nearness of the divine and stands alone in preparing the fairness for their coming into play, so that his being, en-owned as the essential smallness of man, selves in being oլered to grounding and guarding, in his unique saying, the sphere sound and whole, that is, paradise, which consists in the fourfold mirror-play of earth and sky, divine and mortals. Only in so far as he dwells in possibility, can the poet gather paradise. “Paradise,” here, is not intended as heaven in opposition to earth, nor as “earthly paradise,” but as the in-between which is neither (only) earth nor (only) heaven, for it is the sound and sheltering sphere tuned by fair possibility—the open sphere for selving things, the mirror-play in which the four are gathered and held apart. Thus, “paradise” is Emily Dickinson’s name for that which is to be said in Dichtung as such (i.e. das zu Dichtende): it is the fair element in the sense of the originally soothing, in itself whole and thus holy dimension—in German: das Heilige. As to “possibility,” however, this word is Dickinson’s name for language as the homestead of being, that is, for language in so far as it is essentially Dichtung. In fact, at Îrst sight it appears strange that possibility (a word of being—usually opposed to actuality and necessity) be opposed to prose (a word of language—usually opposed to poetry). However, “possibility” and “prose,” here, both name wises of language in its constitutive reference to being: possibility is language (be it “poetical” or “prosaic”) as the house of being itself and thus as the original abode of man (namely, in so far as he “dwells dichterisch” [Hölderlin]); prose, on the other hand, is language (be it “poetical”

165

NOTES

78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

85.

86.

87. 88. 89.

90.

166

or “prosaic”) as abandoned by being and thus as the unfair regime of contingency, in which man’s dwelling fails, thus leaving him to a planetary “being.” The poem shows Emily Dickinson not only as Dichterin (i.e. as one who gathers paradise) but as Dichterin des Dichters. The word “poetic” is, in fact, not a suխcient translation of the German dichterisch, especially when this word, in turn, speaks as a word of the Denkweg. It is arguable that the comparative degree “fairer” does not merely indicate a quantitative diլerence in fairness between prose and possibility, but, as suggested above, names the constitutive trait of possibility itself, of which prose, on the other hand, is an original distortion or “un-biding”. See Heraclitus, fragment 54 Diels-Kranz. Here in the sense of “making light (as opposed to heavy).” On clearing see p. 174, note 52. Again, in Being and Time this discontingent steadiness oլered to the cut in order for it to say itself in its own truth is called Existenz. The biding promise is the constitutive trait of the “is,” and not merely an unaccomplished actuality. We thus have to distinguish between an agreeing to, as the original and originating “yes” to time and space, and a mutual agreeing of time and space thanks to and within that Îrst agreeing to. The unitary phenomenon of the agreeing to time and space in their mutual agreement is the original fairness for, that is, toward beings as such and in the whole. We Înd this liking when, for instance, two human beings recognize each other as kinsmen. To recognize a kinsman implies that we are freed unto our relation to the element of kin as that which preserves us in our unique biding (and this, rather than contingent resemblance, is what “pleases us” in such recognizing). What Ïashes in the Ïashing of kinship is that which originally likes and unites the kinsmen and which, in so far as they, in turn, like it, is the source of their “liking each other.” The kinship of men implies not their contingent equality or aխnity, but their alikeness as uniquely selving beings. In the Îrst (i.e. Greek) metaphysical thinking, the favor of the original “please” is experienced as the ъ̴̬̭ (erĮs) of the idea: while being is that which is originally agreeable and agreeing, thinking (̡̩̫Ӻ̩ [noein] and ̧̡̙̟̥̩ [legein]) consists in agreeing on and with this initial agreement (ѳ̨̧̡̫̫̟Ӻ̩ [homologein]). The Greek understanding of how the original “please” (the granting of a time-space for the abiding of beings) falls prey of contingency is reÏected, for instance, in the ancient discussion of pleasure as a principle of being (i.e. as the good). However, Greek thinking—and metaphysical thinking thereafter—remains blind for the fact that the ъ̴̬̭ of ‘(metaphysical) being’ is itself already oblivious of the original discontingent (viz. oլ-grounding) “please.” The openness shelters the coming of the undisclosed, that is, of that which always withdraws and wants to bide in withdrawal, namely, the wanting source that consists in the pure, self-withholding, inexhaustible enlikening coming of likelihood. These meanings are taken from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. When “likely” is currently deÎned as “having an appearance of …,” “apparently …,” “… looking,” etc, this refers neither to an ontical visibility, nor to an eidetic aspect or sight of beingness: rather, it indicates the shining and showing within the Ïashing of being itself as the time-spacing cut. “Der ‘andere Anfang’ ist nicht ein zweiter, sondern der erste und einzige, in anderer Weise”—“The ‘other onset’ is not a second one, but the Îrst and only, in another wise” (Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, Briefe 1925–1975 [Frankfurt: Klostermann,1997], p. 234).

NOTES

91. See p. 172, note 39. 92. “Das Wort ‘Verwahrlosung’ wird hier beim Wort genommen und d. h.: Es wird aus einer zuvor gedachten Sache gesagt; denn: echt gedacht, ist recht gesagt und echt gesagt, ist recht gedacht” (Heidegger, Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge, p. 47).

2. OWNING TO THE BELONGINGNESS TO BEING 1. Martin Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1989), p. 479 (hereafter HGA 65). 2. Parvis Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), p. 87 (hereafter WHC). 3. Concerning the relation of “being,” “thinking,” and “language,” the decisive insight, which is repeatedly articulated in WHC, is that “the language of the thinking of being … is shaped from within a ‘saying’ that is itself the swaying of be-ing …” (WHC, p. 155). In the essay entitled “On the Inception of Being-Historical Thinking and its Active Character, Mindfulness” this insight leads to the following proposition: “The key to entering into the being-historical thinking of Contributions to Philosophy and Mindfulness lies not in ‘transferring’ Heidegger’s language of the thinking of being into another more ‘intelligible’ language but precisely in dwelling within Heidegger’s language of the thinking of being” (ibid., p. 155). 4. “Soothe,” here, is used in the original sense of “to assent, second, sustain” (see p. 173, note 49). As to the etymological references that can be found in this chapter and throughout this volume, and concerning the reference to the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter OED) as an access to the “hidden resources” of the English language (i.e. to its likelihood as a saying of the richness of being), it seems to me that Heidegger has said all we need to know on this point in his essay “Das Ding” (see Vorträge und Aufsätze [Pfullingen: Neske, 19906], pp. 176–9). In response to the easily and ever again emerging misunderstanding that his own thinking is based on arbitrary etymological gimmicks and thus, on the whole, basically comes straight out of the dictionary (ibid., p. 176), Heidegger conclusively says the following (the reference is to that which is named in the word Ding): “Weder die längst vernutzte allgemeine Bedeutung des in der Philosophie gebrauchten Namens ‘Ding’, noch die althochdeutsche Bedeutung des Wortes ‘thing’ helfen uns aber das geringste in der Notlage, die Wesensherkunft dessen zu erfahren und hinreichend zu denken, was wir jetzt vom Wesen des Kruges sagen. Wohl dagegen triլt zu, daß ein Bedeutungsmoment aus dem alten Sprachgebrauch des Wortes thing, nämlich ‘versammeln’, auf das zuvor gedachte Wesen des Kruges anspricht” (ibid., pp. 178–9): “However, neither the long-worn-out general meaning of the word Ding as used in philosophy, nor the Old High German meaning of the word thing are in the least helpful as we Înd ourselves in the stress of experiencing and thinking in a suխcient manner the provenance of the biding (Wesensherkunft) of that which we are now saying of the biding of the jar. What is true, however, is that one moment of signiÎcation (Bedeutungsmoment) belonging to the old language use of the word thing, namely, ‘gathering,’ is responsive to (spricht an auf) the previously thought biding of the jar.” Thus, there are two moments we need to distinguish in any attempt at doing the only thing thinking needs to do, that is, naming die Sache des Denkens, or, as we say, the sake of thinking, itself: in the Îrst place, die Notlage, the need or stress, of experiencing and thinking the provenance of this sake’s biding; in the second place (not successively, but in the order of origination), the alertness to the responsiveness of a Bedeutungsmoment of a certain word (i.e. a moment of the manner in which it can speak) to the previously thought biding. It is this responding to

167

NOTES

5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

168

(Ansprechen auf), that is, the echoing in response and thus oլering a Îrmness (and, in this sense, a form) to an already thought Wesenszug (i.e. what throughout this volume I often refer to simply as a “trait”) that deÎnes the sense and scope of thinking’s relation to the spoken word, and therefore also to something like a dictionary. An example of this alertness, which we must call dichterisch in an original sense (see p. 95 and p. 186, note 26), is precisely Gerard Manley Hopkins’s understanding of the word “sake” (see below, note 8). In the suggested translation of Möglichkeit, namely “likelihood” (see §§1.4 and 1.5 of this volume), the relevant “moment of signiÎcation” that indicates the original sense of “to like” and “likely” shows in the meaning of “promise, towardness” that these two words have, though with diլerent accents (see the two entries in OED). Shakespeare (Henry IV, III, ii, 45; see OED) says: “A fellow of no marke, no likelihood.” See WHC, p. 30 et sq. Ibid., pp. 32 and 56 et sqq. While in the previous chapter Sache was translated as “issue,” from now on it will be rendered with the English word “sake.” With this choice we are not merely taking advantage of the etymological kinship of Sache and “sake” regardless of the manner in which “sake” “actually” speaks within its language. The fact that, beyond the etymological kinship, “sake” is a likely translation of Sache, is borne out by the following passage from a letter by G. M. Hopkins quoted in OED: “Sake is a word I Înd it convenient to use: … it is common in German, in the form sach [sic]. It is the sake of ‘for the sake of ’ ... I mean by it the being a thing has outside itself, as a voice by its echo, a face by its reÏection, … a man by his name, fame, or memory, and also that in the thing by virtue of which especially it has this being abroad, … as for a voice and echo clearness; for a reÏected image light, brightness; … for a man genius, great achievements ... In this case it is, as the sonnet says, distinctive quality in genius.” Thus, the sake of and for thinking is “that by which thinking,” as ek-stasis, has its “being abroad,” in other words, the sake is the “ek,” the “abroadness” itself, the calling (wanting) schismatic openness and clearing: die Lichtung und Oլenheit des Seyns. (See also what is said above, p. 162, note 49, and below, p. 170, note 25, on “instress” and “inscape.”) On the sense of the preparatory character of this thinking see WHC, p. 53 et sq. We are inclined to ask: “the belongingness of what to the truth of beǺng?” Answer: of thinking itself, and therefore of man’s being. However, the “acknowledging” mentioned above is not something that something (i.e. thinking) does concerning something (i.e. man’s being) with respect to something (i.e. beǺng). The fact that man’s being as thinking consists wesenhaft (see p. 170, note 13) in acknowledging the belongingness to beǺng implies that “man,” “being,” “thinking,” and “beǺng” obtain their sense only as a consequence of the Er-eignis that this acknowledgement itself is. In WHC the question of godliness is addressed in two essays, one of which takes up this question in the context of Heidegger’s correspondence with Bernhard Welte (see “Heidegger and Christianity,” in WHC, pp. 175–85). The second essay addressing this question is “On the Last Part of Contributions to Philosophy, ‘Be-ing,’ Its Liberating Ontology, and the Hints at the Question of God” (WHC, pp. 109–32). See Martin Heidegger, Über den Anfang (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2006), p. 15 (hereafter HGA 70). “Weil aber das Denken wesenhaft das Eingeständnis der Zugehörigkeit zum Seyn ist…” (HGA 70, p. 178). We ought to take this passage literally: thinking consists in owning to (eingestehen) this belongingness (Zugehörigkeit), it is itself die ausstehende Inständigkeit des Eingeständnisses der Zugehörigkeit. In turn, the belongingness (Zugehörigkeit) to beǺng is not a relation (something that relates something to something), but a trait of beǺng itself as Er-eignis.

NOTES

14. “Afare” and “atfare” (German entfahren) are old verbs meaning “to go away, depart, escape,” where “a-” and “at-” correspond to German ent-. Afaring and, we may say, “afaresomeness” are constitutive traits of beǺng. 15. “Schismatic” refers to the “schism” or “cut,” which, in turn, says again the sake that the Denkweg calls Unterschied. A German rendering would be schiedlich. Here I will explore the viability of “schism” and its cognates (scissure, scind, discind, etc.) for translating scheiden and related words (Unterschied, Entscheidung, etc.), which in Contributions to Philosophy and in WHC are rendered as “diլerence,” “decision,” etc. In this respect, it might also be worthwhile reconsidering the verb “to shed” (and its cognates), which not only is the same as the German scheiden, but has as its primary sense precisely that of “separating, dividing, setting apart” (which, in intransitive uses, becomes “coming apart, aparting, departing”). 16. As we repeatedly read in Contributions to Philosophy, only beǺng is (or rather, “ises” [istet]), while beings are not. See also, e.g., HGA 70, p. 14: “Das Seyn ist und nur das Seyn.” 17. To this context belongs the entire problem of “ontological diլerence,” which is dealt with at length in WHC. Emad shows in what sense this diլerence, which in the metaphysical tradition remains unthought as such, must be regarded as “a disastrous distinction,” namely, “because it consolidates the forgottenness of be-ing,” which, on the other hand, “must be thought at all costs.” (WHC, p. 139, in the essay entitled “On the Inception of Being-Historical Thinking”). On ontological diլerence see p. 7, and especially p. 119. 18. In the original version of this chapter, Anfang is translated as “on-take.” This tentative, meanwhile abandoned translation is based on the following determination of Anfang in HGA 70 (p. 18): “Der Anfang ist das An-sich-nehmen des Abschiedes” (see also pp. 10, 16). In “on-taking” as a translation of anfänglich speaks the trait of “takingness,” that is to say, the unique “attractiveness” belonging to the onset as such precisely in that it is the on-itself-taking of Abschied (on this latter word see p. 51). 19. On the over-winning of beǺng or Verwindung des Seyns see HGA 70, p. 19 et sq. In Chapter 5 of this book a diլerent translation of Verwindung is suggested (see p. 188, note 46). 20. An entire essay in WHC, entitled “The Place of the Pre-Socratics in ‘Playing-Forth’, the Second Part of Contributions to Philosophy,” is dedicated to determining the place of that which Emad calls the alethiological thinking of the pre-Socratics in the crossing from the guiding-question (what is a being?) to the grounding-question (how does be-ing sway?). This determination comes to the conclusion that “the alethiological thinking of the pre-Socratics should be viewed as an integral part of the ‘other beginning’” (WHC, p. 84), in so far as they have named (though not thought) ж̧̡̤̥̝̚, as opposed to the Îrst philosophers (Plato and Aristotle), for whom ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ bides merely (or, as Emad puts it, merely “reverberates”) as the “unconcealment of a being” (my italics). The entire argument is sustained by the insight that ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ (viz. Lichtung) is the “sake” of thinking that attunes the grounding-question and therefore the crossing to this question. The accurate pondering of this argument enhances the need for a translation of ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ that actually names it as this sake—and not as a phenomenon contingent upon [beings]. 21. In view of a further reÏection on the translation of Ereignis (the “word of all words” of the Denkweg), the following might deserve consideration: what speaks in this word thanks to the preÎx “er-” is the extraneousness or “abroadness” of the oլ-ground. Therefore it seems that the question must be, in the Îrst place, whether or not the word “enowning” says this trait and, in the second place, whether or not the preÎx “en-” (if it is this preÎx, independently of its aխnity to “er-,” that should in some

169

NOTES

22.

23. 24.

25.

170

manner indicate this trait) does in fact do so. In this respect, the considerations in WHC stressing the fact that the preÎx en- “captures the dynamic character of Erin Ereignis” (p. 33) do certainly, in turn, capture an important aspect of the problem. However, in order to attain suխciency, these considerations would need to be expanded to include the mentioned trait. On the other hand, the remarks—contained both in WHC and in the Translators’ Foreword to Contributions to Philosophy—on renditions such as “event,” “appropriation” or “beÎtting” are fully to the point, when it is stated that these translations remain insuխcient in so far as they are “tied to a content whose appropriation or Îtting would be an ‘event’” (WHC, p. 33). On the translation of Ereignis see particularly above, p. 97 et sqq. Acknowing is an older term for acknowledging, coming to know, realizing; to be acknown means “to be (self-)recognized or avowed in relation to anything; hence, to avow, confess, acknowledge (to a person)” (see OED): “Be not acknowne on’t; I have vse for it” (Shakespeare, Othello, III, iii, 319). “To own,” here, is “to acknowledge as belonging to oneself ” (“Two of these Fellowes, you Must know, and owne, this Thing of darkenesse, I Acknowledge mine” [Shakespeare, in OED]). The Îniteness (Endlichkeit) of being consists in this owning. As a contribution to the understanding of what is said in wesen/Wesen/Wesung as words of the Denkweg—and I do think we are still far away from a suխcient understanding of these interrogating words and of what their say calls for in the speaking of our languages (including, of course, the German language), a fact that precisely an eլort such as that of Parvis Emad is there to attest—I write “to bide/biding/bidance” as a tentative English rendition echoing what these words indicate in German. The endeavor to hear the verb “biding” in the right manner, that is, schismatically, should not overlook that (1) “biding” speaks in both a spatial (“dwelling,” “Înding abode”) and temporal (“biding one’s time”) sense, and (2) the trait of “staying” that the word implies owes to a sense of resistance, suլering, and enduring, and thus to the bearing of a strife (“to bide a pain, a thought”). Hence, we say that “biding” indicates the staying that is proper to the openness of the schism keeping itself in the temper of time-space, and thus (it indicates) the “being of being.” On the basis of “biding” as a translation of Wesen, we can suggest “abiding” for rendering Anwesen. In “abiding” the preÎx “a-” (German er-, ur-) indicates a free (namely, free from Vorhandenheit and in this sense) discontingent provenance (as in “a-rise” or er-stehen) from out of and unto the “weirdness” (i.e. the on-setting extraneousness, extraneity or abroadness) of the onset. In the present context, this discontingent provenance must be intended as a non-physical arising, that is, an arising not in the sense of ̸̱̮̥̭, which, no matter how “alethically” it may speak, remains anchored to contingency or Vorhandenheit (see below, note 26), and therefore constitutes a subjugation of ж̧̡̤̥̝̚. The simple original sense of “abiding” can be outlined as follows: having the time and space for openly (or dis-ensconcedly) biding in one’s provenance by gathering the “while” of this time and space while sheltering the strife of Ent-bergung (on bergen see p. 172, note 41). Thus, if we were to retranslate “abiding” into German (and we constantly need to do such retranslating), a tentative translation would sound: sich aufhalten im Unverborgenen, ver-weilen in Entborgenheit; sich er-tragen im Zeit-Raum der Ent-bergung. On “biding” as a translation of Wesen also see p. 109 et sqq. The word “instress” is taken from Gerard Manley Hopkins and is closely related to what Hopkins himself calls “inscape.” The OED deÎnes “instress” as “the force or energy which sustains an inscape,” whereas “inscape” itself is deÎned as “Hopkins’s word for the individual or essential quality of a thing; the uniqueness of an observed object, scene, event, etc.” (Hopkins, as quoted in OED, writes: “Now it is the virtue of design, pattern, or inscape to be distinctive and it is the vice of distinctiveness to

NOTES

26.

27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

34.

become queer.”) A suխcient elucidation of these words cannot be attempted here (see, however, p. 161, note 50). In the context of the Seinsfrage, we can tentatively adopt “inscape” as indicating the same as Wesen, and “instress” as indicating the same as Seyn, that is, beǺng. More precisely, “instress” (which Hopkins himself elucidates as “the Ïush and fore-drawn” [ibid.]) can be intended as indicating the relation of beǺng to man in so far as beǺng itself is this relation via the stress (Not) of its extraneousness, through which beǺng itself alerts and keeps man’s intraneousness to this extraneousness. BeǺng as the instress (or the instress ‘beǺng’) is therefore that which er-nötigt, that is, originates by stress, Da-sein so as to call upon (or alert) a “who” for this who to be, in his being, the biding warden of its truth (i.e. the truth of beǺng) for the open countering of the gods. In the word “contingency,” which is here adopted as a translation of Vorhandenheit, we ought to hear the Latin cum-tangere as the immediate impact of ungrounded beings on the un-freed being of man (see p. 156, note 22). While “extant” can in many cases stand next to “contingent,” the latter (once it is recoined as a diagnostic diction of the Denkweg) seems to be phenomenologically more appropriate for indicating the sense of vorhanden (as a mode of being wirklich) in its constitutive relation to ̸̱̮̥̭ and Anwesenheit. See HGA 65, p. 295 et sqq.; English translation, p. 208 et sqq. A detailed discussion of the English translation of Da-sein is given in section 4.4. Or, more rigorously, Da-seyn (see p. 12 et sq.). See Martin Heidegger, Besinnung (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1997), p. 322 (93. Das Da-sein “des” Menschen) (herafter HGA 66); tr. Mindfulness (see p. 184, note 61), p. 286 (hereafter M). With regard to the relation of Da-sein and man, see the important remarks in WHC, p. 152, where, in the context of the discussion of Mindfulness, we read: “… Dasein is not simply identical with man but becomes accessible to him through be-ing’s enowningthrow, which brings to man the expectancy of Dasein, that is, the transforming experience ensuing from the truth of be-ing.” The misunderstanding of Dasein as “man’s being,” “the essence of man,” “human life,” “human existence,” “a new form of subjectivity,” and so on, is not only the Îrst, but also the most pertinacious and decisive impediment to accessing the sake of the Denkweg. It is therefore not by chance that this misunderstanding is addressed more than once in the chapters of this volume. Here we adopt “to dict” and “dictative” as translations of dichten and dichterisch (see, however, p. 186, note 26). We must carefully distinguish what here is called “mother-language” from that which is commonly, namely, in the realm of contingency, referred to as “mother tongue.” The “transition to the other onset” is not a transition “from the Îrst onset to the other onset,” for, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a similar transition. The transition to the other onset is likely only where the Îrst onset has already become unlikely as a consequence of the breaking of the other onset itself. In fact, the Îrst onset clears itself as such only in the Ïashing of the other onset and for the thinking that already belongs to this onset. The transition is therefore not a matter of going from A (the Îrst onset) to B (the other onset), but a matter of learning to own this belongingness. By “English translation of Beiträge zur Philosophie,” I always mean the translation by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. The later rendering by Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu (Contributions to Philosophy [Of the Event] [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012] has not been considered here. See, however, my remarks on the translation of Ereignis as “event of appropriation,” on p. 98 et sqq. This translation has been put forward by Gino Zaccaria. See DD. An explication of the meaning of Seyn, and, in particular, of the fourfold indicative character of the “y” in Seyn, can be found on pp. 173–4 of this book.

171

NOTES

35. As Emad rightly points out in his discussion of Ab-grund (WHC, p. 33), the hyphen in Heidegger is all but “a basically insigniÎcant lexicographical device.” In fact, the hyphen is the in-dication of the schism itself (see also DD, p. 51 et sqq.). 36. In the substantivized inÎnitive (and in the gerund) “being,” the suխx “-ing” corresponds to O.E. (and German) “-ung” (so that, in German, “being” would sound something like Seiung), whereas in the present participle “being,” “-ing” comes from O.E. “-ende” (cf. German Seiendes). However, when the English language says “a being” or “beings,” namely, that which in German sounds Seiendes and in Greek Ѷ̩, it does not use, in contrast to German and to Greek, the form of the present participle, but that of the noun derived from the verb (see p. 154, note 11). 37. The word is taken from G. M. Hopkins (see p. 161, note 50). 38. “Be-yng” could also echo some of the traits of the “y” in Seyn, which are not dealt with in this chapter (see p. 171, note 34). 39. Each one of us may measure his or her grasp of this crucial matter, which is also the matter of the necessary phenomenological coinage or minting of words, by considering the diլerence between, for example, the coined word Ruinanz (found in the “early Heidegger”) and the coined word Gestell (found in the “late Heidegger”). Understanding this diլerence, and the turning in the experience of language it implies, is the same as understanding the step from Being and Time to Contributions to Philosophy in terms for which historical categories such as ‘Heidegger I vs. Heidegger II’ are (precisely as historical categories) never suխcient (on this latter point see the essay “Questioning Richardson’s ‘Heidegger I, Heidegger II’ Distinction and His Response in Light of Contributions to Philosophy” in WHC, pp. 186–208). (To the huխness of the historical ear, Er-eignis or Ge-stell—as examples of Denkweg-dictions that coin into a resounding writ the word of the mother-language as the ground of Geschichte—may well be more inaudible than Ruinanz or Reluzenz.) 40. But also for other sounds, such as “g” (as in “gift”). 41. The verb bergen and related words are rendered on the basis of the English verb “to sconce” (absconce, ensconce, resconse, etc.), which is a variant of “to abscond” (Latin abscondere) through Old French esconser (on the etymological relations see these entries in OED; “to resconse” means “to set”; on bergen see also p. 158, note 30). The Latin abscondere is formed by the particle ab(s), indicating separation and displacement, the preposition cum, indicating means and completion, and the verbal component dere (dare) “to put”; condere means “to put together, unite,” thus also “to build, create, found, compose,” namely, to build something in the integrity of what is its own (e.g. urbem condere), so that abscondere literally means “to put away, hide,” where, however, this hiding is not just a veiling or concealing, but a placing that, precisely in putting away, poses and keeps the integrity of what is thus dis-placed and therefore shelters it as such. In other words: abscondere means putting something away into what is its own and thus preserving it in its constitutive provenance. Since abscondere says a hiding that is in itself a sheltering and a sheltering that consists in a hiding, when it comes to translating bergen, verbergen, etc., it might be preferable to say, at least tentatively, “sconce” rather than to combine “hiding/concealing” (which does itself not imply the trait of sheltering) and “sheltering” (which does itself not imply the trait of hiding/ concealing) in dictions such as “sheltering-concealing” (see WHC, pp. 92–4 and 96–9). Why is this so? Because the mere juxtaposition of traits falls short of the rich simplicity of original saying. The two following quotations exemplify the manner in which “ensconce” speaks in English: “Against that time do I insconce me here/Within the knowledge of mine owne desart” (Shakespeare); “Ensconcing themselves, in the warm chimney-corner” (Dickens). On the basis of these considerations I will say “ensconce” for transitive bergen, “absconce” for verbergen and “disensconce” for entbergen. Note

172

NOTES

42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

(1) that the family of Latin condere as a translation of bergen, etc., was Îrst put forward and argued for by Gino Zaccaria (see his L’inizio greco del pensiero. Heidegger e l’essenza futura della ÎlosoÎa [Milan: Christian Marinotti Edizioni, 1999]), and (2) that M.E. still knows the verb “berǺe” (also “bergh” or “berwe”). Given the crucial role of the notion indicated in bergen, verbergen, entbergen, etc., it might prove necessary, for the English Denkweg, to reintroduce this diction, which in our nowless “now” (i.e. in the epoch of the forgottenness of being) is obsolete, but which now (i.e. in the transition towards man’s owning to the truth of being) could well speak anew, that is, in an unprecedented manner. On the following see my essay “Geschichte und Historie. Ein Bericht aus der Übersetzungswerkstatt,” in I. Borges-Duarte, F. Henriques, and I. Matos Dias (eds.), Heidegger, Linguagem e Traduçao (Lisbon: Centro de FilosoÎa da Universidade de Lisboa, 2004), also available on www.eudia.org. This text also makes reference to the Italian translation of Geschichte (as a word of the Denkweg), namely, genitura. On the English word “geniture” as a likely translation of Geschichte see I. De Gennaro and G. Zaccaria, “The Dictatorship of Value,” in I. De Gennaro (ed.), Value: Sources and Readings on a Key Concept of the Globalized World (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2012), p. 429 (note 34), or I. De Gennaro and G. Zaccaria, La dittatura del valore—The Dictatorship of Value (Milan: McGraw-Hill, 2011), p. 124 (note 32). This also includes the dominant historical treatment of philosophy, which obtains philosophy as a history, instead of grasping philosophy itself as Geschichte. See the discussion of the notion of “historical inÏuence” in WHC, p. 4 et sqq. This refers to the old use of Geschichte, and can be traced back to the etymology of this word. However, today the sense of extraordinariness is not heard anymore. For instance, one might refer to Augustine’s historia sacra. Heidegger, Nietzsche I, p. 451. See, e.g., HGA 65, pp. 474 and 477 et sqq.; English translation, pp. 334 and 336 et sqq. In the translation of Besinnung by Parvis Emad and Thomas Kalary, this passage reads: “in the grounding of the truth of be-ing (Da-sein), history is the en-owned swaying of being” (M, p. 145). The diction “sooth” (“to soothe,” “soothing,” etc.) is likely to play a prominent role in the projecting-open of the English Denkweg. It means “truth, verity,” while—and this is unique in the modern European languages I have cognizance of—it is formed on the I.E. root *es-, “being,” which we Înd in “is,” ist (sind, sein), est (sunt, esse), ц̛̮̯ (̡Ѣ̛̮, ̡Ѩ̩̝̥). While for the Greeks Ѷ̩ = ж̧̣̤̙̭ (on the sense of ж̧̣̤̙̭ see WHC, p. 59 et sq.), English says “truth” and “being” in the same word, just as the cognate Sanskrit word sat means both “being [seiend]” (the word is in fact the present participle of “to be”) and “true” (cf. also satya, “truth”). What does this imply for the likelihood of thinking, in English, the turning from die Wahrheit des Seins to das Sein der Wahrheit? Since this turning turns entirely within the element of Seyn as Ereignis, must we not, beyond these merely provisional indications, anticipate in “sooth” a proper English translation of the as yet unsaid sake that the preparatory thinking of the Denkweg has named Seyn? And therefore not already somehow given and successively set into a “relation” to the oլ-ground. (1) “Our selving us” or “we our ownselves” (an archaic form of “we ourselves”) seems to be a more adequate manner of indicating what is said in wir selbst; on the other hand, “we ourselves” still speaks more in the sense of identiÎcation (the conÎrmation of a contingent identity). (2) The “uprightness” of the “standing upright” has neither a moral nor a physical meaning. Its sense stems from the traits of ascendance and verticality, which characterize the openness of the oլ-ground. SpeciÎcally, the

173

NOTES

52.

53.

54.

55. 56. 57.

58.

174

uprightness responds to Er-eignis as the prime directive or original wising (Weisung), that is, the showing along (of beǺng) unto a wit, in short, as the giving to wit (of beǺng) (see below, note 58). Thus, while Geschichte as Er-eignis is the original witting that gives to wit beǺng, the uprightness in which the being of man consists is, in turn, the original wittingness of the human being grounded in Da-sein. The word clearing comes from the idg. root *kla, *kele, “to shout”, and therefore originally refers to a distinct sound. The same root is also at the basis of the verb “to claim.” Here, “clearing” must be heard in a “verbal” sense, namely as the biding that consists in nothing but clearing. “To clear” means: to free from what obstructs (“to clear a Îeld,” “to clear a wood” [so as to obtain an open, fertile space], “to clear a path” [so as to open a passage]); to alleviate, make light (as opposed to heavy), disencumber, unburden, exonerate (“to clear from blame”), disentangle (“to clear a Îshing line”). Thus, the clearing is, on the one hand, in itself free and light and alleviated: it is the breaking of the original, in itself disencumbered and spacious clarity or clearance; on the other hand, it is freeing, easing, namely lightening, and thus originally soothing, the biding of things, their self-suխcient untouchable abiding, their sheltered rising out of themselves and going back unto themselves. The clearing is thus that which aլords and shelters the display of beings in the whole—in one word, it is the venue for beings as such in their sphere of integrity. (“Venue” literally means “coming” [from French venir, Latin venire: to come]. The clearing is the ever coming “site” of the concreteness of things and for the biding advent of beings in the whole, in that it consists in the pure coming of the sheltering openness.) Another name for this Augenblick is “the start,” which is etymologically related to German stürzen and also has the meaning of “moment, instant” in the sense of a between-falling abruptness. This goes in the direction of the determination of the abruptness, in which Augenblick consists, as (Ab-)Sturz (see following paragraph), and relates to Entsetzen as the ground-attunement of experiencing beǺng (see p. 44). The “never yet schismatically grounded groundable” is the manner in which thinking determines that which, in the domain of art, concerns the artist and calls for the work of art in order to be established in its truth. For instance, “the never yet schismatically grounded groundable” is the Ïagrant showing of a tree or a mountain, which, in its poverty of truth, and therefore of a work of art, concerns the regard of the painter. The established truth of the formerly not yet grounded groundable in the work of art is the biding (i.e. the truth) of the work itself. Martin Heidegger, Die Geschichte des Seyns (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1998), p. 93 (hereafter HGA 69). Martin Heidegger, Parmenides (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 19922), p. 80 et sq. (HGA 54). The word “turning” is here used as a rendering of Wandel. This is not a deÎnitive rendering, nor should “turning” cease to translate, as it presently does, the diction die Kehre. However, it is important to be aware that the Wandel mentioned in the quoted passage takes place precisely by virtue of (and indeed as) Kehre. In fact, Wandel is related to wenden (“to turn”) and originally means “to turn again and again.” Thus, Geschichte as der Wandel des Wesens der Wahrheit indicates the gathering (German ge-, English “i-”) of the turning enowning of the biding of truth, in one word, it indicates the i-turning of truth’s biding. (On wenden see p. 188, note 41.) The expression Zuweisung des Seins lends itself for showing the peculiar rigor of the phenomenological say of the Denkweg. At Îrst sight, several English words seem to be apt to render Zuweisung: assigning, allotting, apportioning, meting out (cf. the German Zumessung), dealing out (cf. the German Zuteilung), sharing out, dispensing, etc. However, presumably not all of the words have the same tone as Zuweisung, namely, the tone of a schismatic word rather than of a word of contingency. SpeciÎcally, zuweisen (in

NOTES

which we must hear the sense of wissen, “to know, to wit”) says “assigning,” where this assigning, however, is a “giving to wit,” and this “giving to wit,” in turn, is precisely the Bedeutungsmoment that is responsive to the thought biding of Ereignis (see what is said on p. 32 about Ereignis as acknowledgment and Da-sein as knowledge, as well as what is said on p. 173, note 51, on Zuweisung as a witting that shows beǺng along unto a wit). If we translate Zuweisung with one of its “possible” English renderings, but this rendering does not, in turn, speak schismatically, we instantly fall back into (viz. we never leap away from) the element of contingency. As a consequence, we will Înd ourselves stating that something (i.e. “beǺng”) is “assigned” to something or somebody. This said, we must leave it open here whether or not “allotting” is, in this sense, a suխcient rendering of Zuweisung. 59. Assurgency, emergence, uprising, more generally appearing, etc., are not traits to be excluded from the sense of Geschichte (as Ereignis); however, it is essential that they be translated and, so to speak, posited anew, via Da-sein, unto the primacy of the bidance of ж̧̡̤̥̝̚, and thus modulated according to the other onset (which, on the other hand, without such translation, they irretrievably cover). The rule of ̸̱̮̥̭ (and, therein based, that of Ѣ̠̙̝, etc.) implies that Lichtung is taken, and thus constrained, into the unitary phenomenon of ‘emergence of what is extant,’ within which Lichtung is never again thinkable as the on-setting trait, and thus as the sake itself. In WHC, notably in the essay entitled “‘De-cision’ in Contributions to Philosophy, and the Path to the Interpretation of Heraclitus Fragment 16,” we Înd a diլerentiated discussion of the relation of ̸̱̮̥̭ and ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ in Heraclitus (mainly based on fragments 16 and 123 Diels-Kranz). In particular, the Îrst part of the essay shows in what sense ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ is “thought but not named” (p. 97) in fragment 16. Emad’s thesis is that the interpretation of this fragment, that is, the very thinkability of ж̧̡̤̥̝̚ as the basic trait of ̸̱̮̥̭, rests entirely—thanks to the thought sameness of “rising” and “self-sheltering concealing”—on the thinking of Ent-scheidung (i.e. “de-cision”) in Beiträge. The following passage from Beiträge indicates the sense of Ent-scheidung: “[Ent-scheidung] sagt: das Auseinandertreten selbst, das scheidet und im Scheiden erst in das Spiel kommen läßt die Er-eignung eben dieses im Auseinander Oլenen als der Lichtung für das Sichverbergende und noch Un-entschiedene”: “[de-cision] says: the very going apart, which divides and in parting lets the enownment of precisely this open in parting come into play as the clearing for the still un-decided self-sheltering concealing” (Contributions, p. 61; WHC, p. 99; HGA 65, p. 88), which we may, in turn, tentatively render as follows: “[di(s)-scissure] says: the instress ‘going asunder,’ which scinds [schisms] and in scinding [schisming] lets in the Îrst place come into play the en-ownment of precisely this open in the schismatic asunderness, as the clearing for that which absconces itself and is still un-discinded,” namely “die Zugehörigkeit des Menschen zum Seyn als des Gründers seiner Wahrheit und die Zugewiesenheit des Seyns in die Zeit des letzten Gottes”: “the belongingness of man to beǺng as the grounder of its truth and the allottedness of beǺng unto the time of the last god.” And again: Ent-scheidung, de-cision or di(s)-scissure, “shifts into the innermost biding midst of the instress ‘beǺng’” (ibid.; translation modiÎed). 60. We would have to say: the “a-breaking” (with “a-” = er-). 61. See Der Satz vom Grund (Pfullingen: Neske, 19927), pp. 108–10, where we read this: “Seinsgeschichte ist das Geschick des Seins, das sich uns zuschickt, indem es sein Wesen entzieht … ‘schicken’ besagt ursprünglich: bereiten, ordnen, jegliches dorthin bringen, wohin es gehört, daher auch einräumen und einweisen ... Wenn wir das Wort ‘Geschick’ vom Sein sagen, dann meinen wir, daß Sein sich uns zuspricht und sich lichtet und lichtend den Zeit-Spiel-Raum einräumt, worin Seiendes erscheinen kann. Im Geschick des Seins ist die Geschichte des Seins nicht von einem Geschehen her

175

NOTES

62. 63.

64.

65.

66. 67. 68.

176

gedacht, das durch einen Verlauf und einen Prozess gekennzeichnet wird. Vielmehr bestimmt sich das Wesen von Geschichte aus dem Geschick des Seins, aus dem Sein als Geschick, aus solchem, was sich uns zuschickt, indem es sich entzieht. Beides, Sichzuschicken und Sichentziehen, sind Ein und das Selbe, nicht zweierlei. In beiden waltet auf verschiedene Weise das vorhin genannte Gewähren, in beiden, d.h. auch im Entzug, hier sogar noch wesentlicher.” I translate provisionally, and leaving the sensible words of more immediate interest in German: “Seinsgeschichte is the Geschick of being, that sich zuschickt to us by withdrawing its biding … ‘schicken’ originally means: to prepare, to array, to take any thing where it belongs, therefore also to grant something its own space [to allocate it unto its own space], to show and destine something unto what is its own … When we say the word ‘Geschick’ with reference to being, we mean by that that being accords itself to us clears itself, and in clearing grants the time-play-space wherein beings may appear. In the Geschick of being, the Geschichte of being is not thought from a Geschehen, such as is characterized by a course and a process. Rather, the biding of Geschichte obtains its tuning from the Geschick of being, from being as Geschick, that is, from that which sich zuschickt to us by withdrawing itself. Both, namely, Sichzuschicken and self-withdrawing, are One and the Same, not two. In both holds sway, albeit in a diլerent manner, the aforementioned aլording: in both, that is, also in the withdrawal, in fact, here in an even more constitutive manner.” BeǺng as Geschick allots itself, clears itself in its very withdrawing, and thus grants the (break-through of the) time-space wherein a being can appear. This granting and giving, the original gift, sways in the allotting and, more bidingly still, in the withdrawing (self-absconcing, returning into absconcement, resconsing) that is the same as the allotting itself. (Etymologically, schicken is presumably akin to geschehen as that which the science of language calls Veranlassungswort, that is, the verb that brings about the taking place of what another verb says: schicken = geschehen machen, “to make happen.”) See the quotation from HGA 65, p. 479, which is set as an epigraph to this chapter. Überkommnis is a schismatic word and is therefore to be heard from out of the sake of the other onset. It does not imply that something is overcome, that is, surmounted, conquered, overwhelmed, etc.; rather, it indicates the dimension of Über in its pure granting (giving, ensconcing-bestowing) comingness. What, however, is the Über? Answer: not a transcendence with respect to beings, but the schismatic ensconcing openness itself in its scinding and atoning of world and things (note that in über speaks the same trait as in oլen). The thinking that is released unto the other onset is, in turn, ultroneous in this overcomingness. WHC deals with Machenschaft in the essay “Mastery of Be-ing and Coercive Force of Machination in Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy and Mindfulness and the Opening to His Nietzsche Interpretation.” For the importance of returnership (see above, p. 43 et sqq.) in the context of Machenschaft see WHC, p. 169 et sqq. “Die Geschichtlichkeit hat mit Metaphysik (Historie und Technik) nichts gemein. Die Geschichtslosigkeit aber ist die Vergötzung der Historie zur Technik der Massenordnung” (HGA 70, p. 34): “Geschichtlichkeit has nothing in common with metaphysics (Historie and technics). On the other hand, Geschichtslosigkeit is the idolization of Historie into a technique of mass-organisation.” To be nay-said is a constitutive trait of the mother-language—it is the very manner in which it bides in and as the oլ-breaking onset. “Weird” is the name of “the Fates, the three goddesses supposed to determine the course of human life” (OED). This is why, in Der Satz vom Grund (p. 108), Heidegger explicitly rejects the common (and derived) meaning of Geschick (i.e. “that which is determined and imparted

NOTES

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88.

by fate”) as a basis for understanding the sense of schicken and Geschick as words of the Denkweg. Thus, the “semantic aխnity” of the ordinary meanings of Geschick and “weird” is a fortiori irrelevant for the task of phenomenological translation. Thus, so to speak, “catching” him in the “Ïagrancy of being.” “Worth” can now replace “become” as used above on p. 29. If Geschehen and Geschichte are Geschicht as Geschick, Schickung, Zuweisung, we can now say: Geschichte is weirding, allotting—it is the worthing (not: the happening) of wyrd. HGA 65, p. 480 et sqq.; English translation, p. 338 et sqq. On “set[ting] thinking free from beings by means of projecting-open” see WHC, p. 120 et sqq. Such out-standing originating (namely, from out of itself) the in itself afaring bidance of the extraneous is what the Denkweg calls Er-fahrung. The horrible (l’orribile) as a trait of being itself in the context of Leopardi’s groundthought of nulla is discussed in Gino Zaccaria, Pensare il nulla. Leopardi, Heidegger (ComoPavia: Ibis, 20092). With this book, which, among other things, contains an expanded version of Zaccaria’a Leopardi essay in Vol. 19 (2003) of Heidegger Studies, Leopardi’s thinking song resounds for the Îrst time as a distinctive (schismatic) voice of the transition to the other onset. This fear has nothing to do with taking fright or being afraid. It is to be heard strictly in the sense of the attunement that shifts (or sets free) and holds unto the afaresomeness and errancy, that is, unto the clearing, of beǺng itself. The relevant chapter in WHC is entitled “On the Last Part of Contributions to Philosophy, ‘Be-ing,’ Its Liberating Ontology, and the Hints at the Question of God.” On this issue see also Frank Schalow’s essay “The Impact of Contributions to Philosophy: Liberating Ontology and its Critical Implications for the Reductionistic Interpretations of Heidegger’s Thought” in Heidegger Studies Vol. 25 (p. 25 et sqq.). An in-depth discussion of returnership, based on a fundamental understanding of the turning as “be-ing’s way of holding sway” (WHC, p. 111), is found in WHC, p. 123 et sqq. “Strangeness” and “weirdness” here speak like “wilderness” with respect to “wild.” Fremd, fern and “far” are cognate words. If we keep in mind how the word “sake” speaks in English, “forsakenness” becomes a diagnostic name for the Îrst onset, in which the sake of thinking remains withheld, that is, does not openly set itself on. The Îrst onset is, as such, for-saken. In the beginning of the Îrst onset, that is, within the domain of ̸̱̮̥̭ and ̫Ѿ̛̮̝, the absconced onsettingness (Anfänglichkeit) of beǺng is experienced as the ъ̴̬̭ of idea. The insight into the biding of man as a stranger might provide an access to Rimbaud’s famous saying “Je est un autre.” It is worth considering attentively the diլerent temporality that speaks in the German original and in the English translation. The continuation of this passage in Contributions to Philosophy should read: “And the stranger…” where, instead, the translation reads: “And what is strange...” This return implies that the dimension wherein is likely and necessary the Platonic ̴̨̲̬̥̮ң̭ has turned its own withheld withdrawing unto the oլ-grounding openness that ensconces the interplay of world and things. Where do things return from? Answer: from their being captivated in contingency. “Measuring” here means “to travel over, to traverse.” In an English translation of Homer’s Odyssey (quoted in OED) we Înd the following line: “He … Measur’d a length of seas, a toilsome length, in vain.” Including the prerogative of “having a history.”

177

NOTES

3. TRANSLATION, TRADITION, AND THE OTHER ONSET OF THINKING 1. The quoted passage is taken from the transcription of the recording of this seminar, more precisely, from the six pages that contain the answers Heidegger gave on 1 September 1955, to questions posed by French participants (including G. Marcel and P. Ricoeur). Both the transcription and the recordings are stored at the IMEC (Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine) near Caen, France. The same passage has been previously published in: I. De Gennaro, “Geschichte und Historie. Ein Bericht aus der Übersetzungswerkstatt,” in: Borges-Duarte, Henriques, and Matos Dias (eds.), Heidegger, Linguagem e Tradução, pp. 481–2, and, with slight emendations, in DD, p. 17. Here I maintain the emendations introduced in 2007, namely: (1) the colon after “geben” is mine, while the transcription does not have it and instead has the phrase “ob es mit … ist sekundär” written in parentheses; (2) the full stop after “Vergangenen” is mine, while the transcription has a semicolon in the same position; (3) the dashes enclosing the phrase “sogleich oder…” are mine, while the transcription has a less clear punctuation. Finally, a few obvious miswritings in the transcription have been tacitly corrected. I am grateful to Dr. Hermann Heidegger for having made available to me the documents concerning the Cerisy seminar that can be found in Heidegger’s Nachlass stored at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach. 2. The transcription has the words “möglichst genuines” underscored, possibly indicating a stress in the way they were spoken. 3. While the alertness required by the sake of thinking prompts us to pursue the literal reading, we should not imagine that the interpretation of Heidegger’s thinking of translation and tradition rests solely on the letter of what could be a mere imperfection of oral discourse or even an error of transcription. For we must never forget the following: the fact that we can read this passage as a decisive indication of the sake of thinking owes itself to the circumstance that the whole of Heidegger’s attempt (including the present quotation with its emphasis on the seminal role of Unterschied) sustains the likelihood of this reading. Were it not thus, we wouldn’t have been seized by the oddness of the passage as more than a “mere oddness” in the Îrst place. In other words, the relevant expression (“als Unterschied”) does not produce a certain reading; rather, it is an occasion for the Ïashing of that which the Denkweg constantly attempts and indicates, namely, der Unterschied. 4. “BeǺng-wyrdly thinking” is not an “English translation” of seynsgeschichtliches Denken. It is not even an immediate attempt to raise anew the issue of how this German diction should be translated into English. This translation—as many others throughout this volume—is an asking translation. It asks: where is the English speaking that is daring enough to own and sustain the unprotected need of attempting the rigor of the say of being as Er-eignis? Where is the ingenuous English Dichten (see HGA 70, p. 24) that grows within the surrendering acknowledgement of the onset itself? While this Dichten is wanting, we can, however, prepare a ground for its resonating. This preparation may involve a manner of speaking that must appear unduly elaborated and clumsy, for instance, when it inverts the word order of certain verbal expressions or prefers an archaic or uncommon form of a verb (e.g. “out-lay” instead of “lay out”). However, such speaking may well be required—errors and omissions excluded—as a ground-breaking for the growing of the aforesaid plant. In fact, in the case of the just mentioned inversions, the “preposition” indicates precisely the original en-opening of the time-playspace of beǺng according to a certain trait. On the other hand, what appears as a clumsiness is rather the uncommon measure of outspokenness of the innermost trait of the mother-language as such, namely, the trait of its being the word of the languagemother that is Er-eignis itself. This uncommon measure of outspokenness withdraws

178

NOTES

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

the say of beǺng from any comparability with ordinary language. This does not imply that the say of beǺng occupies a domain of unrestrained and arbitrary linguistic manipulation and “inventiveness,” but rather that it is bound to the free stringency of the Îrst and inwardmost Dichtung, which can never become the speech of “usual business.” What is the diլerence between speech and language? The diլerence is well known: language is a certain system of spoken or written communication, while speech refers to the act and the faculty of speaking. However, a translation of these well-known notions into Da-sein yields the following: speech is the Ïagrancy of the wyrd of beǺng, and as such always a unique wise of speaking, which fairs, for its own biding, a harmony of sounding words, called language, tuned to beǺng’s schismatic say. “Language of being” means: language belonging to being as that through which being speaks. In so far as a language is tuned by being itself, it is the domain in which things are freed unto and maintained within the tempered roominess of their abiding. The square brackets indicate that the trait of thinking, which is the inscape of man’s being, is yet inert and as such, so to speak, absconcedly “biding its time.” “Smart” here means: marked by the alertness, Îtness, and rigor tuned in and to the bearing of Da-sein, whose ground-tone is, precisely, smart or Schmerz (i.e. the on-set as oլ-break). In its being alien to all force and power, this letting or showing out into ownness (ereignen) is the tendermost law of all appearing. HGA 70, p. 18. Hereafter the references to this volume will be placed in parentheses within the main text. Those who have a sense for the Denkweg in so far as it consists in being unterwegs zur Sprache, will Înd in Über den Anfang utterly new attempts at this outspokenness as well as instructive examples of the needed Îrst quarrying and squaring of out-speaking words from the “quarry of speech.” This is how this treatise, analogously to and differently from Beiträge zur Philosophie and Besinnung, is a gymnasium for future thinking, that is, a rare opportunity for preparing, through exercise, the nakedness and smartness of thinking needed for the out-spoken saying of the simple. “In-keeping” is to be intended as in: “keeping in a Îre, keeping it burning,” which phenomenologically translates thus: absconcedly keeping (i.e. preserving in its provenance) the likelihood of catching Îre, so as to release the Ïame itself in its selfsame burning: preserving the on-catching so as to spare the Ïame. This hardness belongs to the word beǺng as the break and oլ-ground for the collapsing of beings as contingency (see HGA 66, p. 86 [18. “Seyn” als “Wort”]). Note the clear-cut perfection and roundness, as well as the withdrawnness from all contingency, and therefore the source-Îrmness of this diction, both in its fair sound and insofar as in Schied the verb scheiden “to split, sunder, schism, part” speaks in the Îrm, discontingent, intact coming of its Gewesenheit (scheiden—schied—geschieden). Also, note that “clear-cutting” indicates a cutting that is constitutive of the clearing and clearness itself; in other words, “clear” is not merely the modality of a contingent cutting. The verb “to atgo” is today obsolete. Here it speaks in the precise sense of the German entgehen. We say “atgo” rather than “go away, depart,” for the reasons alluded to in note 4 on p. 178. See also p. 169, note 14, on the verb afare. The non-contingent (but also non-Îgural) sense of this self-raising suspension—which is the ж̬̲̚ of original time-space where the onset is not tuned as ̸̱̮̥̭—is also indicated in the following passage: “Im anfänglichen Ereignis fängt sich der Anfang selbst über seinem Abgrund auf und läßt diesen so allein als den Ab-grund in seine Tiefe stürzen und zu seiner Höhe steigen”: “In on-catchy enowning the onset catches itself over its own oլground and thus lets this oլground fall unto its depth and rise unto its height as the oլ-ground alone” (HGA 70, p. 11).

179

NOTES

17. “Coalescent words,” that is, for instance (but by no means only), those which are seen to belong to the same root. This might be the right place for observing the following: there is no “Înding a translating word” other than that which occurs as a breaking in of a diction of enowning on an interrogating heedfulness (“readiness”) in an instant of en-owned outspokenness of the owning say itself. This owning say is the saying of the mother-language, to which that heedfulness Înds itself overowned. Thus, the said “Înding” always coincides with the distinct sentiment that language itself has risen to speak. As an instant of en-owning, the understanding is itself instantaneous in that the readiness, overowned to the belongingness to the fairly said truth of beǺng, inbides in the Ïashing of that “having risen to speak.” This said, the diլerence between a similar “Înding” and the mere construction of a semantic artifact can never be demonstrated by means of some neutral “linguistic” criterion—in fact, this diլerence cannot be demonstrated at all. 18. Was ist das—die Philosophie? (Pfullingen: Neske, 199210), pp. 14–15 and 33. 19. “The fairly-biding” translates das Schon-Wesende, which indicates the same as das Gewesene; see Heidegger, Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge, pp. 83–4. In this translation, “fair” out-lays the schismatic trait that speaks in the German word schon. 20. On translation in the context of Heidegger’s thinking see also my article “Heidegger as Translator—Translating Heidegger,” in Phänomenologische Forschungen/Phenomenological Studies Vol. 2000/1 (Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber Verlag, 2000), pp. 3–22. 21. That is, unto that which previously has been named a language’s “ownmost word” (e.g. see p. xiii). 22. Shelley writes: “Like a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want” (OED: want). 23. On speech as Entsprechung see p. 95. 24. As well as, and in the Îrst place, for the singing that en-sings the (w)holy inscape of a world. 25. That is, speaks it back unto stillness. 26. See the threefold biding of beǺng-wyrdly Auslegung indicated in HGA 70, p. 149. 27. See HGA 70, pp. 147–54, but also p. 32, where Heidegger formulates the criterion for a wyrdly Auslegung by saying that such an out-laying “is wyrd-grounding, and this means brings about the need for another out-laying which, in its otherness with respect to the former, is equally oncatchy [onsetting]. (On the other hand, historical interpretation is eager to make any further explanation superÏuous.)” 28. Originally part of a joint article written with Frank Schalow (see Acknowledgments). This is how the original article was presented in the introductory note: “This paper grows out of a ‘Symposium on Translation,’ hosted by Frank Schalow at the University of New Orleans (Jan. 29–31, 2006) and featuring as the keynote speaker, Ivo De Gennaro. The symposium coincided with the re-opening of the Lakefront Campus of the University of New Orleans, which was severely damaged in the Fall Semester of 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Because Katrina’s Ïoodwaters inundated the campus and brought education to a halt, the convening of this symposium symbolized the university’s intellectual rebirth and the renewal of its philosophical mission.”

4. HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON DASEIN 1. Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone (Milan: Mondadori, 2003), Vol. 2, p. 1552 (the indication of p. 2400, given in the text, refers to Leopardi’s manuscript). 2. This word, spelt with one “t,” is to be distinguished from the technical term “formatted” used in information technology and other Îelds, and, more generally, in ontic contexts.

180

NOTES

3. HGA 65, p. 295; English translation (Contributions to Philosophy, see note 61 of this chapter), p. 208 et sq. 4. Sein und Zeit, p. 42. 5. Wesen is written in quotation marks in order to indicate the suspension of the metaphysical sense of this word (i.e. Wesen as “essence”) in favor of the manner in which the same word speaks in the Denkweg (i.e. Wesen in its so-called “verbal” understanding). In a fully expanded version, the citation should therefore read: “Dasein’s biding— which the (now broken) forgottenness of the sake of thinking only allows to grasp as ‘essence’—resides in its existence.” 6. Heidegger, Nietzsche I, p. 278. If we translate Geschichte with “history,” the quoted passage appears as a purely historical proposition, technically speaking, as a mere information. Alternatively, we can translate Geschichte, as a diction of the Denkweg, with the old English word “wyrd” (from the I.E. root *uer-, as in German werden; cf. weird). In this diction resounds the abruptness of the self-absconcing “giving to wit” (and thus assigning) in which Geschichte consists. The sentence: “That which we indicate with the word Dasein cannot be found in the hitherto wyrd of philosophy” has lost its merely propositional and informational character and reads as a saying of thinking. (On the translation of Geschichte with “wyrd” see p. 42 et sq.) The “quasi-adjectival” use of “hitherto” is attested in the OED (“The hitherto experience of men”—Green, Ethics). 7. Any such (namely, external) standpoint, not any standpoint at all. Thinking always takes, and indeed is, a standpoint, namely a stance in the sense elucidated in what follows in the text. The standpointlessness of thinking refers to its non-historical character. Thinking is free from any historical standpoint in that it precisely consists in a wyrdly stance. 8. Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 19935), p. 53 (hereafter IRP). 9. We ought in fact to speak of an “allowing,” in that the Urphänomen of evidence consists in the ur-movement of appearing as giving-itself by itself, which, though being urposited in the transcendental stance, is nevertheless not made but admitted. 10. The meaning of ideell is: darinsein als immanenter gegenständlicher Sinn, that is, being there-within as an immanent objective sense. 11. Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen (Hamburg: Meiner, 19953), p. 21 (hereafter CM). 12. CM, p. 58 et sq. 13. However, even in this formal sense there remains in Plato an element that in Husserl we do not Înd, namely, the undecided relation between ̱ҥ̮̥̭ and ̡Ѩ̠̫̭. In fact, in Platonic-Aristotelian thinking, all ̡Ѧ̠̣ are ц̩ ̯ӭ ̱ҥ̡̮̥ (en tõ physei), while, in turn, ̱ҥ̮̥̭ itself is, in some sense, an ̡Ѩ̠̫̭. ̐he absconced ground of likelihood for this undecided relation is the unthought ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝. 14. On the rigorous meaning of “contingency” see p. 69 et sq. 15. The primary sense is the ground-trait that says itself in a word. This trait is vague, the latter word indicating not an indeterminacy, but, on the contrary, an inextinguishable richness of sense that can be rigorously indicated. As such, the ground-trait is the origin of a variety of meanings and tones, and therefore does not coincide with any of the meanings a dictionary may record. 16. The verb “to selve“ was introduced in Chapter 1 (see p. 161, note 50). It should be clear that, while this word is taken from Gerard Manley Hopkins, in the present context it is minted anew for the purposes of thinking. 17. On likelihood as a translation of Möglichkeit see p. 22 et sqq. 18. Such becoming unlikely belongs to what the Denkweg calls the Verwindung of metaphysics.

181

NOTES

19. Anticipating the Îndings of §4.4, we can say that the character “vorhanden” implies that the givenness of the given is cast into contingency (i.e. that it is, in a manner of speaking, “contingentated”) in such a way that the original giving (the Es gibt) is not heard as such in and through the da. 20. “Mere,” namely, Vorhandensein not yet broken in the light of pure evidence. 21. On nearness see p. 70. 22. As long as we understand the “refusing to aլord itself ” merely “in general,” we are understanding the nearness as an object. The rigor of thinking in the dimension of being-wyrd (Seinsgeschichte) consists in showing how metaphysical thinking attains the nearness as the horizon of contingency, namely, as the beingness of beings. 23. “Contingency is broken, but the breaking (the schism) is not grounded as such”: this formula describes the Greek onset of thinking as the onset of the tradition of philosophy. What the Denkweg is there to indicate is that the grounding of the schism’s own truth becomes both likely and a stressing need only in the thinking of Da-sein prompted by the Seinsfrage, whose Ïashing has already forethought, and thus opened, the depth of Da-sein that thinking, by itself, can never attain. A speciÎcation is in order concerning the sense in which we speak of the “breaking of contingency.” It is important to bear in mind that contingency as such is in a sense the staying away of the original brokenness (i.e. the openness of the schism, that is, of Unterschied), namely, it is the fact that this brokenness does not break as such, while this not-breaking remains, in turn, absconced. The breaking of contingency, then, is precisely the breaking (namely, the irrupting and becoming Ïagrant) of the brokenness, whose staying away is otherwise covered by contingency. This said, an insuխcient breaking of contingency implies that the original brokenness does not break as such, but “only” as the metaphysical light, while a suխcent breaking of contingency is the same as the latter having collapsed unto the Ïagrancy of that brokenness. An insuխcient breaking of contingency is what gives rise to the Platonic ̴̨̲̬̥̮ң̭, which leaves the Ïagrant contingency of ̯Қ Ѷ̩̯̝ on one side and the light of their appearing as such, ̯Қ ̡Ѧ̠̣, on the other. In other words, in the Îrst onset of thinking the breaking of contingency is already the breaking of the original brokenness, but in the wise of this brokenness’s refusing itself as such. This refused breaking of the original brokenness is what is named in the wyrdly word ̱ҥ̮̥̭. 24. See DD, p. 11. Many of the analyses of this essay are supported, precisely in what might be their contribution to the English Denkweg, by the attempt accomplished in this book. 25. “Self-contained” implies: abiding merely by impact and as impact, without an openly sustained schismatic decision. 26. As clariÎed above, this is not the subjective awareness of an already constituted, given thinking, but, on the contrary, an awareness that onsettingly determines what thinking and who man may be. Awareness, here, is not a character of consciousness, but a synonym for Da (Lichtung). 27. In Ideas, Husserl speaks of pure consciousness as a “phenomenological [i.e. non-real] residual” (IRP, p. 59; see also p. 108). 28. “Unschismatic” means: the schism itself (the only element of thinking) is not the Îrst sake for thinking, but weirds itself unto a wyrd of growing oblivion constituted by the “onto-schismatic” forms of philosophical thinking that we encounter (but are still far from knowing in their schismatic implications) as the hitherto determinations of the beingness of beings. 29. da (small “d”): a character of contingent beings; Da (capital “d”): the contingency-free element. 30. IRP, p. 105. 31. Ibid., p. 87.

182

NOTES

32. Formale und transzendentale Logik, 1929, p. 240, quoted in Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 19883), p. 70 (hereafter ZSD). 33. “[K]ein reales Sein … ist für das Sein des Bewußtseins selbst … notwendig”: “No real being ... is necessary ... for the being of consciousness itself ” (IRP, p. 92). 34. As to the positivity of its being, the contingent world, that is, nature as a correlate of absolute consciousness, is in itself nothing. This being has the merely relative sense of a being for consciousness (form/soul/spirit/history as transcendental genesis), that is, of an intentional being. All transcendence is contained in and constituted by absolute Dasein (see IRP, §85). 35. This results from what has been said above on p. 182, note 23, on contingency and the staying away of the original brokenness. Contingency is not an invariant manner of being, but always the contingency of a likely nearness, and therefore diլerent in the diլerent epochs of being. For instance, the character of contingency of our nihilistic time diլers from contingency in the Greek onset of thinking. 36. In all this, contingency remains ineliminable. The “impregnable” character of the onset, which is not to be confused with the absoluteness of an absolute being, is necessarily a constant theme of the present volume, particularly in Chapters 3 and 5. 37. In his essay “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking” (1964), in ZSD. 38. Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy, p. 119 (see also p. 7); HGA 65, p. 169 (p. 9). 39. Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink, Heraklit (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1970), p. 202 (hereafter H). 40. In the present context we can further clarify the sense and scope of the diction “cut” that was introduced above (see p. 156, note 22). The word “cut” speaks as a synonym of “schism,” both of these words being translations of the Denkweg-diction Unterschied. 41. In “clear-cut,” “clear” does not indicate a quality of cutting or being cut (as it does in the common meaning of the adjective “clear-cut,” which means “sharply deÎned”), but the clearing of the cut itself, and therefore the clearing yielded by this cut. This clearing is then also the ground for all Entscheidungen, for all “decisions,” which will, in turn, each time have the character of being a clear-cut, that is, a cut that clears in the sense of the either-or (see HGA 65, §§44 and 47). 42. As stated above (p. 182, note 26), the word “awareness” here does not speak as a state or quality of the human mind or consciousness, but rather as the wit that is own to the clearing itself. “Awareness” is, so to speak, ̯Ң ̮̫̱ң̩ translated unto Da-sein viz. Ereignis. 43. The Da is itself the in-between: not, in the Îrst place, the in-between of man (i.e. thinking) and beings, but the in-between of being itself and who man may be, and thus, Înally, the in-between toward the likely selving of beings. Thus we grasp in a more sufÎcient manner what above (p. 69) was indicated as the “impregnable nearness between who man may be and what beings themselves may show as.” 44. HGA 65, p. 490. 45. This point is crucial for the distinction between the self-experience of transcendental subjectivity and the psychological investigation of psychical acts. 46. Vermenschung, which, just as its opposite, that is, Entmenschung or de-homination, is a key word in Heidegger’s writings of the late thirties, is not to be confused with Vermenschlichung (humanization). Concerning the relation of Da-sein and homination, or rather dis-homination, in Besinnung (HGA 66, p. 210) we read: “That which beǺngwyrdly thinking en-thinks is in the Îrst place the Da-sein, insofar as this manner of thinking is tuned to grounding a ground for the oլground of beǺng. However, Da-sein is not man, but That, through which becomes likely [That through which is enlikened] the de-homination of man (i.e. the overcoming of the historical animal), since Da-sein is what in advance and in the Îrst place oլers a site [a venue] to the exposedness of man amidst beings .”

183

NOTES

47. This want and claim hints at that which provisionally may be called “the eros of the other onset.” Indeed, man’s being is intraneous and ingenite in this want, and originally tuned to its attractiveness. 48. As far as I can see, this is, in our tradition, the Îrst and only suխcient manner of thinking the otherness of man’s being, and, consequently, any other form of otherness. 49. Another manner of indicating the sense of existing is the following: ek-sisting: biding out the fremd oխng of being. 50. H, p. 202. 51. The thus obtained man-kind is itself neutral in the precise sense that, being grounded in Da-sein, it wants gender, that is, it always already wants man as an en-gendered being. Here is the origin, in the sense of the Seinsgeschichte, of what we commonly call “human gender” (“male,” “female”). One of the places in which Heidegger treats the genderless, gender-wanting neutrality of Da-sein is his 1928 lecture course Einleitung in die Philosophie (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996) (HGA 27). (On this same point see p. 186, note 28.) 52. This pole is, in a sense, the yoke that subjugates the cut and its Ïashing. 53. … or in any way acting upon … 54. This is not to authoritatively invoke some mysterious “voice of being” issuing directives to the ear of those who, being in quest for being, are “elected” to receive them. In fact, what the preceding sentences articulate reÏects the most elementary notion of what language and speaking are. To this notion belongs the fact that a language does not say what it says by virtue of some natural or artiÎcial, “magical” or else “pragmatic” imprinting, but thanks to an inner (and just as well outer) source that is not this language itself. Thinking, and, in a diլerent manner, poetry, speak their language at the limit, namely, at the limit whence this language draws its capacity for saying from the speechless tune of beǺng. In fact, what poetry and thinking have to say is precisely this tune, which silently tunes a language as such. The “limit” is thus the schism itself that, as the instress of a language’s biding, tunes its unique manner of speaking. 55. On the word “sooth” see p. 173, note 49. 56. By virtue of this unemphatic indication, we can say that, in turn, beǺng is the sheer emphasis of the “there is,” where “emphasis” means “the implicit, absconcedly tuning say.” 57. On the crossing see, e.g., §8 of Heidegger’s treatise Besinnung (cf. note 61 of this chapter). 58. Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, pp. 118–19. 59. The “always already” is, in the other onset of thinking, what the a priori is in transcendental philosophy. This, however, implies that the “always already” and the a priori are incomparable. 60. ѿ̱’ ы̩ (hyph hen), from ѿ½̷ (hypo), “under,” and ы̩, “one.” 61. This text Îrst appeared in a volume of essays in honor of Parvis Emad (see Acknowledgments). Emad’s enduring reÏection on translation has some of its most signiÎcant passages in his essay “Thinking Deeper into the Question of Translation: Essential Translation and the Unfolding of Language,” in John Sallis (ed.), Reading Heidegger: Commemorations (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 323–40, in the “Forewords” to his translations of Heidegger’s Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (with Kenneth Maly) (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) (with Kenneth Maly) (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999) and Mindfulness (with Thomas Kalary) (London: Continuum, 2006), as well as in his essays on the interpretation and translation of the thinking from Ereignis, collected in On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy.

184

NOTES

5. MINDING THAT “WE” CANNOT EVER NOT THINK BEȜNG 1. The chapter heading is a quotation from the treatise Das Ereignis. See the volume of the same title edited by F.-W. von Herrmann (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2009), p. 200 (HGA 71). Hereafter all references to this volume are in parentheses in the text. 2. See p. 34 et sq. 3. See p. 36 et sqq. 4. For instance, in the lecture course on Parmenides (HGA 54). 5. See p. 172, note 41. 6. See p. 69. 7. See p. 15 et sqq. 8. See p. 161, note 50. 9. From a letter to R. Bridges (see p. 168, note 8). 10. “Das Wort ist der Schatz, den der Anfang in sich birgt. Nur zuweilen lichtet sich das Seyn selbst. Dann geht ein Suchen nach diesem anfänglichen Reichtum durch die Menschengeschichte; denn im Wort ist das Seyn ereignishaft im Eigentum seiner Wahrheit.” 11. “Der metaphysische Mensch hat das Wort überschritten und zurückgelassen als Werkzeug, das er selbst besitzt und bemeistert—̢ԗ̫̩ ̧ң̟̫̩ ъ̲̫̩.” 12. This sentence echoes, from the other onset, Heraclitus’ fragment 16 Diels-Kranz: ̐Ң ̨Ҟ ̠ԉ̷̩̩ ½̡̫̯ ½Ԗ̭ к̩ ̯̥Ȏ ̧қ̤̫̥: “The not under-going ever, how could anyone remain absconced from it?” 13. See also pp. 88 et sq. and p. 242, where Being and Time is referred to as “dies beginnende seynsgeschichtliche Denken,” “this beginning beǺng-wyrdly thinking.” The more familiar we become with this most unfamiliar thinking, whose provisional name is seynsgeschichtlich, the clearer we see how “Heidegger’s thinking” marks the simple over-going from the Îrst to the other onset, and is therefore as a whole contained in this over-going. Consequently, we learn not only to abandon for good all misleading historical schemes that distinguish “phases” of the Denkweg without having a grasp of the only sake of this over-going, which, for the present purposes, we can still call Seinsfrage. We also learn to read “this beginning beǺng-wyrdly thinking” as such, and this means, we learn to translate Being and Time into what it already is, namely, the “Îrst casting (Entwurf)” (300) of this thinking. In fact, if the beǺng-wyrdly translation (i.e. as we shall see, the “over-winning”) of metaphysical thinking is a hermeneutical need of the Denkweg, this need also includes, in an eminent sense, the reading of the Îrst oլ-break from metaphysics that is Being and Time. Heidegger’s incessant “selfinterpretation” knows no other sense than this. 14. “Bidesome” translates wesentlich. On “biding” as a translation of Wesen see §5.4. 15. See §5.6. 16. English knows verbs such as “to-come” and “to-while,” “to-put” and “to-set.” Here we say “to-own” for zueignen. In ordinary German, this latter word means “to dedicate, assign, appropriate, devote, destine,” while in the saying of enowning (see p. 109 et sq.) it refers to enowning as it over-owns itself to the biding of man and, by to-throwing its truth to the thus en-opened biding, entrusts itself to this biding before any being (Seiendes), and in favor of the appearing of a being. In all this, there is no previously given biding of man, which, at some point, is the object of an entrusting, but this entrusting—because it is, in the Îrst place, the clearing of beǺng—is ex abrupto the Îrst clearing of man’s biding. In other words: man is “born to his biding” in the instant in which the enowned clearing overowns itself (as the truth of beǺng) to the biding of the “who” then minded as “man.” 17. On sound and tone see HGA 71, p. 171.

185

NOTES

18. “Cast” here speaks in the sense of entwerfen, which is a gain-casting that sets free an original cast. 19. Note that “thing” (Ding) and “tone” (Greek ̯ң̩̫Ȏ, ̡̯ҡ̴̩) are derived from the same I.E. root *ten “to draw, to pull, to stretch.” 20. “Answer” speaks in the same manner as Antwort; however, the second component of “answer” is not Wort, but a word from the root *swara-, which means “aխrmation, swearing.” 21. “Oլ-ground” is a tentative translation of Ab-grund. The OED has the following on the preposition “of ” (which is the same as “oլ”): “From its original sense, of was naturally used in the expression of the notions of removal, separation, privation, derivation, origin or source, starting-point, spring of action, cause, agent, instrument, material, and other senses, which involve the notion of ‘taking, coming, arising, or resulting from’.” Thus, “oլ-ground”—with “oլ” saying the sameness of removal and arising, that is, the arising of removal—indicates in its own manner the bidance of grounding in the beǺng-wyrdly sense (i.e. Ab-grund as Ab-grund; see Beiträge zur Philosophie, p. 379 et sq.). 22. In this and other respects, §§184 and 185 of Das Ereignis oլer essential insights for a more suխcient grasp of the essays of Unterwegs zur Sprache (HGA 12). 23. “Oլ-break” (see p. 51 et sq.) is a tentative translation of Abschied (on “oլ” see above, note 21). Oլ-break means not only “to detach oneself abruptly” (“I must from this enchanting Queene break oլ,” Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, I, 2 [132]), but also “to start, begin,” so that “oլ-break” indicates the abrupt detachment (or parting) as the onset. “To break” has itself the meaning “to open, begin,” as in the expression “to break parle,” as well as the meaning “to make known, disclose, reveal” (“to break news”). Translating this into Da-sein, we can say that the on-set as the oլ-break enowns itself as the breaking of the word, that is, as the speechlessly tuning breaking in which the word itself consists. 24. The over-owning owning-over is Da-seyn as the “last greeting” of beǺng unto the clearing of enowning (see below §5.4). 25. “To gainspeak” usually means “to oppose.” In the present context, we need to hear in “gain-” the sense of “in return” (as in “gain-giving”). However, the steadiness and bidance of this return are entirely own to the turning (Kehre). Gain-speaking as such sways within, and belongs to, the turning in en-owning. Be-speaking and gainspeaking (i.e. word and gain-word) are not related as two poles engaged in a reciprocal, perhaps even “dialectical,” movement. In fact, the gain-speaking bides entirely within the turning that bespeaks and claims it (i.e. it is inly with this bespeaking). 26. “To dight,” which is today archaic, is the same word as dichten. While there is nothing to object to in the words “poetry” and “poetizing,” which remain likely translations of Dichtung and Dichten, the unspoiled word “dighting” allows us to indicate the diլerence between Dichtung and Poesie. Not all dighting is poetry, not all so-called poetry dights. “Dighting” is itself a trait of the word as the onsetting tuning, while “poetry” signiÎes a kind of wording. Therefore, when thinking minds poetry, it is the trait of dighting it has in mind. Indeed, thinking is itself a dighting, but it does not poetize, while poetry, insofar as it dights, is also a thinking. The following gives a hint in the direction of the schismatic sameness of thinking and dighting: “Dichten is An-denken. / Denken is Weg-dichten, Ent-stiften” (p. 327); see also p. 329 et sq. 27. Im Sprachlosen. In what follows, “the speechless” is to be intended in this sense, that is, in the same way as “the open.” 28. In an analogous sense, we can say that Da-sein is genderless without in this manner “negating gender” (see HGA 27, p. 146 et sq.). Da-sein as such is the grounded truth of the simple (or onefold), namely, beǺng, and as such it has no gender. However, this genderlessness is as such always already broken into the dyad of en-gendered being,

186

NOTES

29. 30.

31. 32.

33.

34.

35. 36. 37.

and indeed this genderlessness precisely calls for, claims and wants, and keeps in its provenance, this dyad. In other words, when beǺng, through Da-sein (where Da is the truth of beǺng and therefore the enowned clearing for the fourfold mirror-play of the world), tunes the biding of man to the truth of beǺng, it does so not “in general,” but always by tuning the dyad of gender, that is, by tuning gender itself as the dyadic wyrdly steadfastness wanted by the one tune of beǺng for its oneness (щ̩ ̠̥Қ ̠̰̫Ӻ̩). Thus, genderlessness is neither the absence of gender nor a “neutrality” with regard to gender (i.e. a formal “neither-nor”), but the very likelihood (as opposed to the mere possibility) of gender, and thus the onsetting tuning of gender itself. (See also p. 184, note 51.) For Einheit, that is unity or oneness, English also has the old word “onlihead.” Elsewhere in HGA 71 (see §§332 and 333, p. 294 et sqq.), Heidegger mentions the Mehrdeutigkeit (i.e. the fact of indicating a variety of faired traits) that necessarily characterizes the speaking of beǺng-wyrdly thinking. Why is this a necessity? Because the onset itself is mehrdeutig, namely, rich of a fairness or fugue of traits, and because the word is the treasure that the onset ensconces in itself, and because the words, or dictions, of the onset are but in-tonations of this onsetting word. Any claim for Eindeutigkeit (which, in the terms of the language concept of information theory, implies: to any vocable there must correspond an unambiguously deÎnable unit of semantic content, i.e. a bit of information), along with the claims for noncontradictoriness, freedom from circularity and comprehensibility, is alien to the sake—unsachlich—and belongs to a thoughtless thinking. (On Eindeutigkeit and the saying of the onset also see §336, “Die Sage des Anfangs”.) The “word of the word” is not the same as the “word of words.” Being the latter is a consequence of being the former. The German of the Denkweg has its onlyness in being the Îrst speech of (and ground for) the speechless as such. Thus, the word that, coming Îrst, encourages and prompts the wyrdly languages to attempt their own biding as an answer of the speechless, sounds German, in a sense of “German” that, however, has nothing to do with the historical, contingent German language, but rather with a likelihood ensconced in the groundtone of this language. Why mention this here, in what is written, in the Îrst place, for “English speaking” readers, very few of whom are likely to “know Italian”? Because the Denkweg inaugurates the need for a new dialogue between wyrdly languages in the dimension of the word. Thus, if an attempt is productive in “Italian”; if, as a consequence, this language awakens to the thinking of beǺng, this is not merely an “Italian aլair,” nor one that should be of interest, at most, to the cognate or “sister-”languages (namely, in the Îrst place, Spanish and French), but a Ïagrancy of Da-sein that is noteworthy and instructive for any genuine attempt in this sense. See G. Zaccaria, Pensare il nulla. Leopardi, Heidegger (Pavia: Ibis, 20092), and id., L’inizio e il nulla. Colloquio di un logico, di un aiutante e di un pittore (Milan: Christian Marinotti Edizioni, 2009). It is only in the work of this thinker, and nowhere else, that the awakening mentioned in the previous note took and is taking place. Incidentally, within the task of the translation of the Denkweg, nulla translates (or rather, is one likely translation of) Ab-grund. Also note that addicenza and accortezza do not have any immediate semantic proximity to Ereignis. HGA 70, p. 182. “Schismatic” says the same as schiedlich or unterschiedhaft. Part III of HGA 71 (pp. 121 –33) is dedicated to Unterschied. On Unterschied see p. 48 et sqq. The steadier our stance in beǺng-wyrdly thinking, the subtler becomes our capacity for distinguishing, among seemingly synonymous

187

NOTES

38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

43. 44.

45.

46.

188

words, those which speak schismatically—and thus are, so to speak, Seyns-tauglich, that is, apt for saying beǺng—from those that do not. Anfanghaft = having itself the temper of the onset; anfänglich = having the onset as its instress, belonging to it. See HGA 71, p. 265 on geschichthaft vs. geschichtlich. The shining is now the shining temperance of the onsetness of the onset. The word Er-einigung bears the following critical insight: the only (das Einzig-Eine) needs to bide as Unterschied, which, in turn, can bide as such only as en-owning. The Unterschied, thanks to which the one can bide, is originated by the one itself as the en-owned one, that is, as en-oneing. In this en-oneing, Unterschied is originated in an onsetting manner. What is at stake in enowning as the en-oneing of the one? Nothing less than this: that being can let be a being in such a way that being itself is precisely in and as this letting be, that is to say, without the being (Seiendes) that being (Sein) lets be usurping the place of being itself and thus gaining a preeminence over being. Such usurping is precisely what happens as a consequence of the fact that in the Îrst onset of thinking, due to the disowning of Unterschied and Abschied, the one cannot bide as Unterschied. In fact, the Îrst onset (i.e. the thinking of Parmenides and Heraclitus) is already the worthing of the one, and yet in that Îrst Ïashing of the one the onset holds back its onsetness, so that the one cannot en-one itself in the schism and as the schism, that is, in the thought ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝ (see below on the en-thinking of ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝). In the other onset, this en-oneing clears itself in its onsetness, which implies under-going (into) the oլ-ground. The tuning-fugue of the openly onsetting en-oneing Heidegger calls Ereignis. We use “to wend,” rather than “to turn,” which it might be preferable to reserve for kehren, Kehre, etc. “To wend” is the same word as wenden, though it is not anymore in use in this sense. “‘Unter-gang’—anfänglich—den Ab-grund er-gehen” (271). The English verb “to undergo” (which I shall write with a hyphen: under-go) says of-own this going under into the in-between that (viz. this going), as it goes, suլers the in-between itself, and, as it suլers, that is, sustains it (sub-ferre), lets it arise as the oլ-breaking onset. The borne “sub,” the undergone “under” (inter), is the truth for this arising. The idea of Untergang as a mere “setting” is here entirely insuխcient. “A being” means: das Seiende als solches im Ganzen (“beings as such in the whole”), and hence the interplay of world and thing. See also p. 247: “[Das Denken] ist der Austrag des Unterschieds, als welcher [my emphasis] das Seyn selbst sich gegen das Seiende, es lichtend, unterscheidet”: “[Thinking] is the through-carrying of the schism, as which beǺng itself schisms itself against a being, thus clearing this being itself.” A more expounding translation of this passage sounds: “The schism is not yet oլbreakingly ensconced in the oլ-ground and thus bides as a mere arising; thus disenowned, it beams as the shining of ̱ҥ̮̥Ȏ, in which (namely, in this shining) ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝ is constrained, and which constitutes the Îrst onset; the schism exhausts itself in this constitutive beaming, in which it is never cleared as such. However, the thus unensconced schism absconcedly holds sway in and tunes the biding of metaphysics.” The translation of Verwindung with “up-winding [in-winning]” is provisional. The following might be helpful for pondering the suխciency of this solution and considering likely alternatives: (1) Although verwinden and überwinden on the one side, winden (“to wind, to wreathe”) and wenden (“to turn,” cf. gegenwendig) on the other, are said to be unrelated, popular etymology does relate verwinden and überwinden to winden; in HGA 71 Heidegger lets winden and verwinden echo each other in answer to the word of enowning. (2) Verwinden and überwinden belong to the I.E. root of German gewinnen and English “to win”; incidentally, Wonne, the attunement of Abschied, also belongs to the same root. (3) Verwinden is close to überwinden and means “to overcome, surmount, get

NOTES

47.

48. 49. 50.

51.

52.

over, recover”; while the “getting over” of überwinden leaves behind that over which it gets, the “getting over” of verwinden, so to speak, comes to terms with it. (4) Note the relation of verwinden to the attunement of Schmerz, that is, “smart.” Verwinden says the in-itself withwending en-ownment, by which the schism is overowned to and ensconced in (that is, wound up with and in) the oլ-ground, so that it is in the Îrst place “won” as such, and, thus oլ-broken and cleared, fully bides as the inapparent, tuned and all-attuning, schisming-unifying dimension for the interplay of world and thing. The ground-trait of verwinden is the trait of letting-end-in-the-onset, that is, of letting bide in the end (i.e. in ending in the absconcement of the oլ-ground) as the onset, which is the same as saying: letting bide. This letting-bide is the simple sense of enowning. See the meanings of “to wind up” in OED, which need to be translated into the word of beǺng. These meanings include: “to implicate,” “to bring to a Înal settlement, to end,” “to put in tune (the strings of an instrument),” “to set in readiness for action, to put into a state of intensity of feeling.” The concentus of words formed on winden is a major acquisition of HGA 71 in view of the fulÎlled saying of enowning. Apart from verwinden (passim, see especially p. 141) and überwinden (passim, e.g. p. 168), there is Entwindung (e.g. pp. 10, 27 et sqq., related to the Îrst onset as the ungroundedness of ж̧ҟ̡̤̥̝), einwinden (e.g. pp. 50, 141) and Gewind(e) (e.g. pp. 28, 213); the latter forms the Kranz (“wreath”) of enowning (see e.g. pp. 135, 141). The preÎx ver- says “oլ, away,” more precisely, “oլ until the end,” where “end” has the sense of an accomplishment implying ensconcing. In the domain of enownment, ensconcing always means: absconcing unto the oլ-ground as the onset, that is, saving unto the oլ-break. Thus, Ver-eignung indicates enowning in its ownmost trait of ensconcing itself in ending unto the oլ-breaking onset, namely, in its trait of selfabsconcing, Sich-Verbergen. Without Ver-eignung, Ereignis could not bide. As Ver-eignung, Ereignis tunes Ver-bergung, Ver-windung, and Ver-wahrung, in which it consists. We say “in-owning,” where “in-” indicates enowning’s trait of ensconcing itself unto its inlyness with the onset. On “there” as a translation of Da see Chapter 4 and §5.5. Elsewhere (see pp. 150–51) Kehre is characterized as “die Innigkeit der Wahrheit des Seyns als des Seyns der Wahrheit,” the “inlyness of the truth of beǺng as the beǺng of the truth.” On Kehre see, e.g., pp. 3, 49, 139, 172 et sq., 234, 259. The verb “Ǻs” refers to the being of beǺng, where “being” means: enowning. A guidingnotion of beǺng-wyrdly thinking reads as follows: only beǺng is, while beings are not. Heidegger sometimes says: das Seyn “istet,” which literally translates as “beǺng ‘ises’” (see HGA 71, p. 265 and §5.3). On the meanings of “ist,” when it is said of beǺng, see HGA 71, p. 241. The symbol “4” for the turning was Îrst introduced in DD, p. 175. The enowned bidance of beǺng as en-owning is manless, but also divineless, worldless, and earthless. As the trait of wantingness indicated in the suխx “-less” is the silent tune that originally constitutes the biding of what precedes the suխx, this trait is necessarily diլerent in each of these words; for instance, only the biding of the thinking man is reached and be-tuned by the oլ-ground as such. If we fail to mind these distinct tunes as tunes of the onsetting onset, beǺng as the “crossing of strife and countering” and, as a consequence, the “fourfold mirror-play of the world,” remain either distuned “structures,” or semi-poetic “images” of a “thinking” that is on the run from itself. allem Seienden zuvor, “before any being”: this is to be read in two senses: on the one hand, enowning entrusts itself to man before any “being” concerns man (in fact, such concerning is likely only thanks to man’s bearing the clearing toward beings in the whole); on the other hand, enowning concerns man in the Îrst place, that is, before releasing any being into its appearing, in that it Îrst needs man to acknowledge and raise, in the steadfastness of his owning biding, the turnsome oլ-grounding of beǺng.

189

NOTES

53. Why is the answer, and therefore the be-tuned biding, itself only? Could there not be many “forms of biding” that are enowned as answers to the onlyness of enowning? Is the supposed onlyness (“exclusiveness”) of “one particular form” not an arbitrary aխrmation (and one that, moreover, reveals a bias in favor of “man” as the supposedly “superior being”)? This and similar objections are obvious. However, their obviousness consists in a speciÎc form of thinking, which is today indeed exclusive and therefore unquestioned, namely, the thinking that, willed by the will to will, thinks in terms of values. The question “Why is the be-tuned biding only?” is a thoughtless question. Its thoughtlessness shows in that it can only refer the onlyness to “man in general,” that is, to an operative, unmindful concept of the historical animal. That the enowned and be-tuned minding of the onlyness of enowning is itself only, is of the order of that which shows itself and can therefore, in turn, only be minded but never demonstrated. 54. “Indraw” translates Einbezug (“implication, involvement”). This indraw is the manner in which the up-winding of beǺng bides as the enowning instress of man’s biding. 55. “Oլ-setting” translates Auszeichnung, which is a synonym of Lichtung. Alternatively we could say “oլ-showing” or “out-showing.” Oլ-setting does not consist in enhancing the showing of something, thus causing it to stand out against what is given around it, but in originally clearing (clear-cutting, clear-schisming) it unto the “oխng” of the oլ-ground. (Shakespeare [Cymbeline, III, iii, 13] writes: “Consider, When you aboue perceiue me like a Crow, That it is Place, which lessen’s, and sets oլ.”) 56. “Man,” written in square brackets, translates thus: him, who only thanks to this onowning awakens to the own-tempered self of manhood, and thus worthes a man. 57. Sich eräugnen/ereignen originally means “to show, appear, become manifest”; it is derived from äugen, “to let see, show, put in front of the eyes.” Hence Eräugnis is originally that which shows or ostends itself. The English verb “to eye” means both “to behold, observe, keep in view” and “to look or appear to the eye.” 58. See, e.g., pp. 27, 48, 89, 115, 166, 173, 177, 190, 200, 237, 243, 256, 278, 282, 321, 323.

6. THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH 1. On homination see p. 117 et sqq. 2. “[d]ieses Seiende, das wir selbst je sind und das unter anderem die Seinsmöglichkeit des Fragens hat” (Sein und Zeit, p. 7). 3. See p. 155, note 14, on the sense of the “we” and on “egological temptation.” 4. See p. 79. 5. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Wahrheit (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2001) (HGA 36/37). 6. The English verb “to swie,” which is the same as the German schweigen, is, historically speaking, obsolete. On the other hand, for English as a language of the wyrd of being it is yet to be said for the Îrst time. 7. On liking as the original enabling see p. 20 et sqq. 8. On “worthing,” “weird,” etc. see p. 42 et sqq.

APPENDIX: “PUTTING IN THE SEED” 1. The title, “Putting in the Seed”, is the title of a poem by Robert Frost. 2. “Why Being itself and Not Just Being?” in The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, VII (2007), pp. 159–95 (see above, p. 1 et sqq.); “Owning to the Belongingness to Be-ing or Thinking as Surrender: The English Denkweg and Parvis Emad’s Book on Beiträge,” in Heidegger Studies Vol. 25 (2009), pp. 115–39 (see above, p.

190

NOTES

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

30 et sqq.); “Husserl and Heidegger on Dasein. With a Suggestion for its Interlingual Translation,” in Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad (Dordrecht–Heidelberg–London–New York: Springer, 2011), pp. 225–52 (see above, p. 63 et sqq.). See above, p. 31 (text modiÎed). The text of the following conversation appears, with a few minor editorial changes, in the form in which it was Îrst published in the journal Existentia, including the short introductory text that was written for that occasion. See “Das Wesen der Sprache” (HGA 12), pp. 149–204, and especially “Der Weg zur Sprache” (HGA 12, pp. 227–57). This reference is to the yet unpublished transcription of a seminar in Cérisyla-Salle, where Heidegger read his “Was ist das—die Philosophie?” The relevant passage is quoted in De Gennaro, “Geschichte und Historie. Ein Bericht aus der Übersetzungswerkstatt” (see above, p. 48). HGA 12, p. 253. Brian Willems, Hopkins and Heidegger (London: Continuum, 2009). See Martin Heidegger, Seminare (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1986) (HGA 15), p. 349 et sqq., and id., Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1983) (HGA 13), p. 152. HGA 65, p. 295. DD. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, G4, 1006a6 et sqq., and Physics, B1, 193a3 et sqq. See HGA 12, p. 250.

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INDEX

abiding [Anwesen] 170 alõtheia [ж̧̡̤̥̝̚] 89, 102–3, 105, 175 anguish 3 attunement 3, 44, 122, 174, 180, 189 awkwardness 32, 62 being [Sein-Seiendes] 154, 172 biding [Wesen]