Heidegger and the Place of Ethics

Heidegger and the Place of Ethics

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Heidegger and thePlace of Ethics

Being-with in the Crossing of Heidegger's Thought

MICHAEL LEWIS

continuumL O N D O N • N E W Y O R K

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© Michael Lewis 2005

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Typeset by Tradespools, Frome, SomersetPrinted and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, King's Lynn

Dedication

For Miguel de Beistegui

Mum and Dad

&

Naomi Tanner

To the memory of Tempest and Grandad

Contents

Abbreviations vii

Preface Heidegger and Capitalism - Translations xii

Introduction Being-with and the Place of Ethics 1

Part I Being-with 11Chapter 1 Being-with and the Ontological Difference 13Chapter 2 Beyond Authenticity and Inauthenticity 34

Part II Crossing 73Chapter 3 Death as the Origin of Ethics 75Chapter 4 Questioning, Void 99Chapter 5 Saying, Thing 111

Part III Being-with, Ethics, Politics 127Chapter 6 The Being-with of Mortals Before the Thing 129Chapter 7 Politics 143

Conclusion 161

Notes 111

Bibliography 196

Acknowledgements 206

Index 208

Abbreviations

WORKS BY MARTIN HEIDEGGER

Gesamtausgabe (Frankfiirt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann)

GA 3 Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1929), 1991GA 4 Erlauterungen zu Holderlins Dichtung (1936-68), 1991GA 13 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (1910-76), 1983GA 15 Seminare (1951-73), 1986GA 19 Platon: Sophistes (Winter Semester (WS) 1924/25), 1992GA 20 Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (Summer Semester (SS)

1925), 1979GA 24 Die Grundprobleme der Phanomenologie (SS 1927), 1975GA 26 Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (SS

1928), 1978GA 29/30 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt — Endlichkeit — Einsamkeit

(WS 1929/30), 1983GA 32 Hegels Phanomenologie des Geistes (WS 1930/31), 1980GA 39 Holderlins Hymnen 'Germanien' und 'Der Rhein' (WS 1934/35), 1980GA 51 Grundbegriffe (SS 1941), 1981GA 52 Holderlins Hymne 'Andenken' (WS 1941/42), 1982GA 53 Holderlins Hymne 'Der Ister' (SS 1942), 1984GA 54 Parmenides (WS 1942/43), 1982GA 55 Heraklit (SS 1943, SS 1944), 1979GA 65 Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-8), 1989GA 66 Besinnung (1938-9), 1997GA 69 Geschichte des Seyns (1938^40), 1998GA 79 Bremer und Freiburger Vortrage (1949, 1957), 1994

Other worksBZ Der Begriff der Zeit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1989)DS 'Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten': Spiegel-Gesprach mit Martin Heidegger

am 23 September 1966 in Der Spiegel No. 23, 31 May 1976EM Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1953)FD Die Frage Nach dem Ding (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1962)G Gelassenheit (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, 1959)H Holzwege (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950)ID Identitat und Differenz (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, 1957)

viii Abbreviations

N I Nietzsche: Enter Band (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, 1961)N II Nietzsche: Zweiter Band (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, 1961)SG Der Satz vom Grund (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, 1957)S Schellings Abhandlung uber das Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit (1809)

(Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1971)SZ Sein und Zeit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1927, 1979)TK Die Technik und die Kehre (Pfullingen: Gunther Neske, 1962)US Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Gunther Neske, 1959)VA Vortrage und Aufsatze (Pfullingen: Gunther Neske, 1954)WHD Was heijSt Denken? (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1971)W Wegmarken (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967)Z Zollikoner Seminare (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1987)ZSD Zur Sache des Denkens (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1969)

English translations of works by Martin HeideggerAWP 'The Age of the World Picture' {1938} in The Question Concerning

Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (ed.) (New York:Harper and Row, 1977)

BC Basic Concepts [1941} (GA 51) trans. Gary E. Aylesworth (Bloomingtonand Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993)

BDT 'Building Dwelling Thinking' {1951} in Poetry, Language, Thought,trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971)

BPP The Basic Problems of Phenomenology {1927} (GA 24), trans. AlbertHofstadter (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,1982)

BT Being and Time {1927}, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson(Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)

CT The Concept of Time {1924}, trans. William McNeill (Oxford: Blackwell1992)

CTP Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowning) {1936—8} (GA 65), trans.Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 1999) [Note: in references to Contributions toPhilosophy I also cite the numbers I-VIII to refer to the parts into whichthe book is divided.}

DL 'A Dialogue on Language' {1953^} in On the Way to Language, trans.Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper and Row, 1971)

DT Discourse on Thinking {1955, 1944-5}, trans. John M. Anderson and E.Hans Freud (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1966)

EC 'On the Essence and Concept of Physis in Aristotle's Physics B, I'{1939}, trans. Thomas Sheehan in William McNeill (ed.) Pathmarks,(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

EG 'The Essence of Ground' {1928-9}, trans. William McNeill, inPathmarks

Abbreviations ix

EGT Early Greek Thinking, trans. David Farrell Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi(eds) (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1975)

EHP Elucidations ofHolderlin's Poetry {1936-68} (GA 4), trans. Keith Hoeller(New York: Humanity Books, 2000)

EL 'The Nature of Language' {1957-8} in On the Way to Language, trans.Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper and Row, 1971)

ET 'On the Essence of Truth' {1930}, trans. John Sallis, in PathmarksFCM Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World-Finitude-Solitude {1929-30}

(GA 29/30), trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995)

FS Four Seminars: Le Thor 1966, 1968, 1969, Zahringen 1973, trans.Francois Raffoul and Andrew Mitchell (Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 2003)

HCT History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena {1925} (GA 20), trans.Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UniversityPress, 1985)

HI Hblderlin's Hymn 'The Ister' {1942} (GA 53), trans. William McNeilland Julia Davis (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UniversityPress, 1996)

HPS Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit {1930—1} (GA 32), trans. Parvis Emad andKenneth Maly (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UniversityPress, 1988)

7D Identity and Difference {1957}, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York,Evanston and London: Harper and Row, 1974)

IM Introduction to Metaphysics {1935}, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000)

IWM 'Introduction to What is Metaphysics?' {1949}, trans. Walter Kaufmann,in Pathmarks

KPM Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics {1929, 1973} (GA 3) trans. RichardTaft (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990)

L 'Language' {1950} in Poetry, Language, ThoughtLH 'Letter on "Humanism"' {1946}, trans. Frank A. Capuzzi and John

Glenn Gray, in PathmarksLP 'Language in the Poem' {1953} in On the Way To LanguageMFL The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic {1928} (GA 26), trans. Michael

Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984)N I Nietzsche Volume 1: The Will to Power as Art {1936-7} (GA 43), trans.

David Farrell Krell (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981)N II Nietzsche Volume 2: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same {1937, 1954} (GA

44), trans. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984)N III Nietzsche Volume 3: The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics

{1939}, trans. David Farrell Krell, Joan Stambaugh and Frank A.Capuzzi (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987)

x Abbreviations

N 7V Nietzsche Volume 4: Nihilism, trans. Joan Stambaugh, David FarrellKrell, Frank A. Capuzzi (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982)

OWA 'The Origin of the Work of Art' [1935-6}, in Poetry, Language, ThoughtP Parmenides {1942—3} (GA 54), trans. Andre Schuwer and Richard

Rojcewicz (Indianapolis and Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1992)

PLT Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harperand Row, 1971)

PMD '... Poetically Man Dwells . . . ' {1951}, in Poetry, Language, ThoughtPWM 'Postscript to What is Metaphysics?' {1943}, trans. William McNeill, in

PathmarksPR The Principle of Reason {1955—6}, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington

and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991)PS Plato's Sophist {1924} (GA 19), trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andre

Schuwer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997)QB 'On the Question of Being' {1955}, trans. William McNeill, in

PathmarksQCT 'The Question Concerning Technology' {1955} in The Question

Concerning Technology and Other EssaysS Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom {1936}, trans. Joan

Stambaugh (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985)SA 'The Self-Assertion of the German University' {1933}, trans. William

S. Lewis, in Richard Wolin (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy: A CriticalReader (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1993)

SR 'Science and Reflection' {1954}, in The Question Concerning Technologyand Other Essays

T 'The Turning' {1949}, in The Question Concerning Technology and OtherEssays

Th 'The Thing' {1950}, in Poetry, Language, ThoughtTB On Time and Being {1969}, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper

and Row, 1972)W 'Words' {1958}, in On the Way to LanguageWCT What is Called Thinking? {1951-2}, trans. John Glenn Gray and Fred

Wieck (New York: Harper and Row, 1968)WL 'The Way to Language' {1959}, in On the Way to LanguageWM 'What is Metaphysics?' {1929}, trans. David Farrell Krell, in PathmarksWP What is Philosophy? {195 5}, trans. William Kluback and Jean T. Wilde

(New York: Twayne Publishers, 1958) {Since this is a bilingual edition,both English and German references to this work are to this edition}

WPF 'What are Poets for?' {1946}, in Poetry, Language, ThoughtWT What is a Thing? {1935-6} trans, by W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch

(South Bend, Indiana: Gateway Editions, 1967)

Abbreviations

Z Zollikon Seminars: Protocols, Conversations, Letters (1959—69/1947—71],ed. Medard Boss, trans. Franz Mayr and Richard Askey (Evanston,Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2001)

Many translations have been modified.

xi

Preface

Heidegger and Capitalism — Translations

This book has two tasks: the first of these will be described in this Preface andhas ostensibly nothing to do with being-with; the relation between this being-with and the place of ethics in Heidegger's thought is our principal topic andwill be described in the Introduction. The first and broader task, which pointstowards future work as yet incomplete, is the preparation of Heideggerianthought for an encounter with Marxism as the thought of capitalism. This taskis carried out by reading Heidegger in such a way as to reveal an extraordinarycoincidence between his own later thought and the ideological analysis of theLacanian psychoanalytic thinker Slavoj Zizek.l The entire course of this readingis necessary if we are to render this assertion of coincidence a convincing one. Inthis way, the present work constitutes the first volume of a project that has threelevels, each more abstract than the one before, three encounters which I hope to

v

stage in the near future: between Heidegger and Zizek, Heidegger andcapitalism, and most fundamentally, Phenomenology and Materialism. For is itnot a common criticism of phenomenology, and not simply from Marxists, thatit remains an ideological discourse blind to the political and economicconditioning of the experience which it examines and is therefore quite impotentwhen it comes to a subversion of the global capitalist order? It is this criticismthat must be probed by taking Heidegger's thought to its outermost limit, alimit at which, without the preparation carried out by this book, his work mightbecome unrecognizable. It is to render this limit-position recognizablyHeideggerian that I present the reading of Heidegger contained within themain body of this book, with regard to the role of being-with in Heidegger'sethics, which renders political a supposedly apolitical ethics of the thing.

Heidegger's ignorance of the all-pervasive functioning of capital is seen tofollow from his thought's inadequate relation to politics: even if one does notunderstand his trajectory to lead from Platonistic Nazism to apolitical retreat,whatever political thought the later Heidegger can be shown to voice is likely tobe derided as a naive and ideological myth of a Volk being led to appropriate itsessence, which resounds in its pure mother tongue, by the poet: Holderlin in thecase of the Germans. In order to contradict this caricature, the understanding oflater Heideggerian politics which this work approaches is one that takesHeideggerian deconstruction to be akin to a critique of ideology and a thought ofthe political body in terms of an ideological totality of power which remainsunable to question the essence of this power and thus to relate to the conditionsof its own genesis in the form of the singularities that inhabit it. The recovery of

Preface

being-with in Heidegger's later works is a necessary part of the preparation forthis understanding.

I shall return to this task in the conclusion of this work, but I have let it beknown at the very beginning in order to orient the reader and to explain theintrusion of a certain amount of very basic Lacanian terminology which mightotherwise strike the reader as baffling. For instance, a perplexed questionermight have asked why I describe Heidegger's 'world* as 'the symbolic order'.

Because that is precisely what it is. This intrusion is intended to prepare therealization of just how close these two discourses may be brought, and thus torender a Heideggerian way of thinking more pliant to its possible relations witha thought apparently so distinct. It is also intended to make certain ofHeidegger's concepts intelligible to those who remain outside the closed circleof Heideggerian terminology and thus to render Heideggerian thoughtaccessible and perhaps even respectable to those who approach Heideggerfrom outside the discursive canon of 'Heideggerianism', most particularly thoseof a Marxist heritage.

With regard to those translations which are more immanent to Heidegger'sown discourse, I have in many cases altered the existing translations ofHeidegger. As Karin de Boer points out,2 to begin from a Heidegger alreadytranslated, even from a fixed interpretation of the sense of the key German wordsof his thought, is to prejudice one's interpretation, since the very translationsthat one uses will express the interpretation that one is venturing, and thereforesimply to adopt one of the many and various translations of Heideggerian termsalready in existence is not always possible.

One peril inexpertly negotiated by some translators, and one which isparticularly tempting in the case of Heidegger because of his masterful use ofdiachronic and synchronic polysemy, is that of over-translation, by which I meanthe attempt to solve the problem of reducing a polysemic word to a singlesignification by making explicit every one of its implicit significations. The termEreignis is constantly subjected to such abuses. Discretion, the very matter athand when one speaks of that 'being' which refuses to speak immediately foritself, dictates that these resonances should remain implicit. Discretion isrequired since the 'original' sense of a word is often not present in the 'wordhusk' itself — therefore absent from its dictionary 'etymology' — and so easilyobscured by a derivative signification which will be the most apparent and themost immediately intelligible. To use a plurality of English words where only asingle German word is employed is often to betray the combination of a singleword with a multiplicity of silent resonances and the crucial historical relation ofpredominance between the one contemporary signification and the many other,and often older, meanings which this word contains. For this reason, there arewords, particularly in Parts II and III of this work, which I have leftuntranslated, to allow them to stand out more clearly as technical terms ofHeidegger's discourse possessed of this resonant quality and to avoid the dangersof an over-translation which would destroy the discreet echoes of the original if

xiii

xiv Heidegger and the Place of Ethics

there are no words in my vocabulary with similar capabilities to the German.Foremost among these words are Seyn, Ereignis, and Gestell.

Another problem with certain translations is that even if an Englishcounterpart for the German exists, this word may not retain certain connectionswith other words visibly present in the German. For example, in Part I, I oftenleave Rede and Gerede in German since the connection between them, crucial tomy reading, is quite lost in the English translations of 'discourse' and 'idle talk',the latter in particular losing all of the discreet indicative qualities of theGerman word.

If the English-speaking reader finds the amount of German within these pagesto be alienating, my only response is to say that this is what Heidegger wouldhave wanted, for us to be estranged from the self-evidence of the univocalmeaning of the word which has become a mere medium of information exchangeto be passed over as quickly as possible in the direction of the 'message'. Thisalienating experience forces us to look twice at the word, to dwell on it and onour alienation from its plurivocal possibilities that open up to us and begin tochime only with the lapse of time, a lapse in which thinking can occur. For asimilar reason, Heidegger would today have insisted that his Greek be publishedin Greek without transliteration, refusing all concessions to such 'improvement'of a work's 'intelligibility', which is after all 'suicide for philosophy' (CTP, VIII,p. 307/GA 65, p. 435).

Introduction

Being-with and the Place of Ethics

In Contributions to Philosophy: Vom Ereignis, Heidegger distinguishes between the'public title' of a work (Contributions to Philosophy) and its 'essential title' (VomEreignis). If it were not so presumptuous I would make the same distinctionbetween Heidegger and the Place of Ethics and Being-with in the Crossing ofHeidegger's Thought. It is not as if the public title can simply be dispensed with,since the nature of the book is expressed only in the relationship between what ismost immediately visible and the possibilities that reside in the modestwithdrawal of the essential, the relation between the place of ethics and being-with. This is our topic, and the expression of this relation as it unfolds throughwhat I shall call the 'crossing' (passage and erasure) of Heidegger's thought shallbe our main task, a task preparatory to the broader task described in the Prefacebut none the less important in its own right.

The question, then, is of ethics and its place today, a place that (as we shallsee), as a result of the persistence of being-with in the thinking of being,develops a relation to politics quite different to that which may be found inHeidegger's early work, which allowed itself to be extended into a politicalengagement with Nazism in 1933 and 1934.

Thus, we must begin with two questions: what is the place of ethics inHeidegger's thought; and of what relevance to this place is being-with?

The answer to the first question is simple and quite unwavering throughoutHeidegger's long trek: the place of ethics is the ontological difference. Ethics, inits most originary sense, means dwelling near to being, seeking it andresponding to it. (We shall examine this later in the Introduction, with a view todeflecting its many critics.) The answer to the second question is 'everything',although this may not be obvious at first glance, particularly since being-withseems to play such a minor and quickly forgotten role in Heidegger's work as awhole. It is to correct such a misapprehension that this work sets itself, becausein this way alone can Heidegger's understanding of the place of ethics properlybe determined.

BEING-WITH

Being-with is addressed by Heidegger in the most crucial way in Being and Time,the prime work of fundamental ontology and one governed by an understandingof being that does not in fact remain in place throughout Heidegger's work: thatis the understanding of 'being' as the Sein of the ontological difference betweenbeing (Sein) and beings (Seiende). This understanding does not persist beyond the

2 Heidegger and the Place of Ethics

'turn' in Heidegger's thought because there is a problem, if not a great manyproblems, with this understanding, as Heidegger himself came swiftly to realize.What I hope to show in Part I of this work is that it is being-with that may moststrikingly bring these problems to light. The effect of this innocuous existentialeis thus to undermine fundamental ontology from within and initiate a crossing-through of the understanding of being which governs it, a crossing-throughwhich is at the same time a rewriting or reworking of just what 'being' means.In other words, being-with initiates the crossing of Heidegger's thought anddemands that we embark on this passage which will leave behind the onlyapparently stable ground of the early thought of fundamental ontology. It is asignpost directing us towards the 'turn' in Heidegger's thought, a monumentalupheaval in the thinking of being whose radicality and suddenness are stillunder-appreciated.

Being-with refuses to be encompassed by the understanding of being inHeidegger's early work precisely because the 'with', as Jean-Luc Nancy hassuggested, is not understood at this time to be fully co-original with being itself(Nancy 1996, p. 3). This 'with' shall be the togetherness of being and beingsitself, and for this reason the existential structure of being-with demonstratesthat the ontological difference fails to think the relation between being andbeings and merely posits or presupposes their separateness. While thispresupposition is, of course, an advance on metaphysics, which submergesbeing in beings, it does not go so far as to think the relation and therefore theintimacy of being and beings as Heidegger's later thought will. Here, the 'with'will occupy the very heart of Heidegger's thought as he comes to think preciselythe event of the ontological difference, the splitting apart of being and beings andthe way in which this event is the very process of manifestation itself, an eventpresupposed by every phenomenon. Heidegger's later thought is a thought ofbeing with beings, of the very differentiation of the ontological difference whichwent «wthought in his early work.

Part I demonstrates that being-with displays this crossing-through ofHeidegger's early understanding of being by refusing to fit neatly within thetwofold schema of inauthenticity and authenticity, the existential attitudestowards beings and being respectively, a dualism which the unthought positingof the ontological difference prevents from being properly understood. If theontological difference is the place of ethics and the ontological difference is notfully thought through by Heidegger in his early work then the place of ethicsmust remain unfounded and require rethinking along with the rethinking ofbeing that occurs in Heidegger's later work.

If the later work enters into the way in which the difference between beingand beings must differentiate itself before anything like 'a being' can manifestitself, a differentiation that differs across history, then this work answers thequestion of how a place for ethics might be allowed to emerge in today's techno-capitalist world. The 'with' of being, the very crossing of being which marks themovement of its differentiation and the process of manifestation, the becoming-

Introduction 3

intelligible of beings to themselves, is the 'X' that marks the spot where ethicshas been buried amid the welter of economic imperatives that characterize thecontemporary world. Thus are being-with and the place of ethics connected atthis stage in Heidegger's work, a connection traced in Part II of this work,entitled 'Crossing'.

What is in question at this stage is the way in which the crossing of being isinitiated. This occurs through an experience about which little in detail is said inHeidegger's later works, and that is the experience of death. The necessity of thisdeath is what gives us hope that a being-with of human beings may still befound in later Heidegger and is not at all irrelevant to the opening of the place ofethics, despite appearances to the contrary. This is crucial to demonstrate sinceHeidegger's later ethics (the only ethics we may settle upon) is almostunanimously considered to lack a place for what Levinas calls I'Autrui and tofocus its attention solely on tending to the 'thing' or the singular being in itssingularity and this in turn is taken to render his (a)political thoughtdangerously unconcerned with human plurality, as Arendt was perhaps the firstto suggest.

Indeed, the thing is Heidegger's focus and ethics in later Heidegger isprecisely an 'ethics of the thing', but the place of death in the origination of thisethics allows us to demonstrate in Part III that a certain human plurality orbeing-with must be a part of this origination and will need to be understood ifthe place of ethics, in its relation to politics, is properly to be determined. Thisunderstanding of the relation between ethics and politics, necessitated by thepresence of a being-with of mortals in the crossing of being as the origination ofthe place of ethics, is described in Part III.

Thus, Part I deals with the way in which being-with undermines theunderstanding of being that takes it to be one hah0 of the ontological differenceand therefore necessitates the crossing out of this thinking of being (Sein). Thiscrossing out is not a mere erasure but marks the fact that the difference betweenbeing and beings needs to be thought of as the movement that issues from acertain withdrawing centre (the crux of 'the matter') or, in other words, in itsorigination, an origination that Heidegger names with an older word for 'being':Seyn. Seyn is precisely the de/cision or rift between being and beings and is thusthe place at which the two are intimate with one another. This rift takes placealong the lines of the 'fourfold' (Gevieri) and is the cleaving which Heideggernames Ereignis, the event that exchanges being for beings as a whole and thusallows beings to present themselves in a certain way: the event of differentiationis thus the event of manifestation.

That being (Sein) which is not a being should be thought of as a void or abysswithin beings and thus as producing certain 'effects' within beings as a whole.The abyss of being is 'represented' within beings as a whole in the form of thesingular being, a being which therefore exists as a stretch between beings as awhole and being itself and which Heidegger names 'the thing'. Seyn as the origin


of the split between being and beings may therefore be identified with this'thing'.

If the topic of Part I of this work is Sein, the topic of Part II is Seyn or itsessence, the 'event' (Ereignis). Part I addresses the ontological difference as theplace of ethics but finds this place to be ungrounded, unthought in its genesis,and thus unable to incorporate the 'with' of being-with. Part II, understandingSeyn in a historical way, thinks the genesis of the place of ethics and thusdemonstrates (the need for) a place for ethics in light of today's anethicalnihilism. The crossing of being initiated by being-with is here demonstrated tobe what Heidegger names the 'fourfold', which describes the way in which thehumble 'thing' gathers and organizes the entire world of which it is a part. Thus,if the place of ethics is the ontological difference then this place is centred uponthe thing and amounts to an ethics of the thing.

But this cannot be the end of the journey into ethics. For in a rethinking ofbeing there must come a rethinking of the way in which grounding occurs, andHeidegger will insist that a ground cannot be a substantial foundation orultimate fact requiring no explanation or reason beyond itself. Rather, everyessence upholds and is upheld by a counter-essence or counter-part by which itdefines itself and in a differentiation from which it receives its nature. To explainthe essence of a thing in terms of the thing itself is ultimately non-explanatoryand merely invites a regress that either continues indefinitely or eventually findsa substantial ground. The counter-essence of Ereignis, the manifestation of beingsas a whole as they are at this point in history, is known as Gestell, the figurationthat being assumes today as the call for its own occlusion in the form of theabsolute predominance of the actual. Technology is the way in which thispredominance of actuality can be achieved, since it allows us to fabricate andreproduce everything that is, which means to make everything actual and toblind ourselves to the fact that there is something which we cannot make.

This counter-essence of being is the topic of Part III and the place in whichHeidegger situates politics, which will thus be understood to be the counter-essence of ethics. Here, in order to demonstrate the necessity and the nature ofpolitics in Heidegger's later thought, we shall need to demonstrate the necessityof a being-with of mortals (human beings), a rethinking of the being-with ofPart I in light of the rethinking of being undertaken in Part II. We shall showthat the ethics of the thing is always situated within a certain political site byrelating the 'mortals' to their counter-essence, which will relate this being-withto the thing that organizes the totality of beings in which it partakes. Being-with becomes political when it is related (as it always shall be) to a particularhistorical totality. This totality is at this point in history manifest according tothe dictates of Gestell, the essence of technology. This essence and the absolutepreponderance of beings which it ordains mean that today politics governs theglobe with a totality equal to that of technology. This leads Heidegger to assertthat polities' realm is that of beings as a whole, and ethics, its essential counter-essence, is that dwelling within the political whole which resists the totalizing

Introduction 5

determination of politics and responds to being as that space in whichsingularity can occur and thus subvert the totality.

The two chapters of Part III, on being-with and politics, indicate the necessityof insisting upon the relevance of being-with to the place of ethics if this ethics'relation to politics is to be understood. For Heidegger, essence and counter-essence always turn around a certain midpoint which is rent apart and thusopened to the light of manifestation by the splitting apart of the contraries. InHeidegger's thought, this fragile and always endangered midpoint at the heartof the relation between ethics and politics is the thing.

Thus the fateful decision is made to assign ethics to being and politics tobeing's obliviation. In conclusion we shall ask whether this need be and indeedwas Heidegger's last word on politics, a question that will lead us towards Zizekand a politics of being as the Real. We shall question the very balance of essenceand counter-essence, which Heidegger at one point posits as the mutuallyneedful relation of ethics and politics, the very allotment of roles to ethics andpolitics which appears to leave Heidegger very little to say about concretepolitical situations and events.

Thus Part I concerns Sein, Part II Ereignis, and Part III its counter-essence,Gestell, the place at which the question of the relation between ethics andpolitics may be broached.

THE PLACE OF ETHICS

Why is the place of ethics said to be the ontological difference? Heidegger givesvoice to this thought throughout his oeuvre but for the sake of brevity let usmention just two instances, one from his 1928 lecture course, The MetaphysicalFoundations of Logic (GA 26) and the other from the 'Letter on "Humanism"' toJean Beaufret in 1946:

{W}e need a special problematic which has for its proper theme beings as awhole. This new investigation resides in the essence of ontology itself and isthe result of its turn-over (Umschlag), its metabole. I designate this set ofquestions metontology. And here also, in the domain of metontological-existential questioning, is the domain of the metaphysics of existence (herethe question of an ethics may properly be raised for the first time). (MFL, p.157/GA 26, p. 199)

If the name 'ethics', in keeping with the basic meaning of the word ethos,should now say that ethics ponders the abode (Aufenthali) of the humanbeing, then that thinking which thinks the truth of being as the primordialelement (anfangliche Element) of the human being, as one who exists, is initself originary ethics (urspriingliche Ethik). (LH, p. 271/W, p. 187)


Thus we find the stage set: the place of ethics is the ontological difference inwhich being comes to light and thus relates to beings as a whole as theirintelligibility, and the thinking of being that Heidegger undertakes and thatdwells on being may therefore be identified with 'ethics'.

Why should we follow Heidegger in his assertion that the place of ethics isthe ontological difference? To answer this question is to delineate the reasonswhy Heidegger is so important for ethics as a discipline and why it is necessaryto consider his work when attempting to understand what ethics means.

We should follow Heidegger because every determination of the nature ofethics (in the sense of an imperative regarding how we should behave) hasthroughout the history of philosophy rested upon a foundation which it remainsunable to think. It has thus been, in a certain way, ungrounded. Heidegger, inhis deconstruction of the history of philosophy, may thus be understood toprovide the ground for this ethics. His thought is a demonstration of theconditions which must already have been in place and which must have stayedoutside the view of ethical thinkers in order for them to take up a position withregard to what ethics is. 'Originary ethics', then, is that which must be in placealready in order for 'ethics' as we normally understand it to be described.Without thinking this originary ethics, any determination of the nature ofethics will remain an unfounded assertion.

The place of this originary ethics, which must be in place for ethics to bepossible, is the ontological difference. It is the necessity of one being amongstthe totality of beings stretching outwards beyond this totality and reaching forbeing. It is this precondition and place of all ethics, necessarily unthought bythose thinkers who posit theses on the nature of ethics, which Heidegger believesto be hinted at in the original word for 'ethics', the Greek ethos. Heidegger readsthis at one stage in his work as deriving from the older Greek word ethos1

meaning 'dwelling'. 'Dwelling' in Heidegger's thought refers to a relation withbeing as that which allows beings as a whole to become intelligible tothemselves due to a clearing or void place within the whole into which the lightof understanding may shine and the whole begin to reflect on itself.

It is precisely this 'being' or this 'clearing' which of necessity goes unthoughtin the history of philosophy (understood as a series of metaphysical positionsthat posit names for beings as a whole in the sense of naming what it means to bea being, what a being is 'as such'). As Heidegger continually points out, if one isto take up a position then one must first of all have a place in which to stand.Any enunciated statement requires a place from which to enunciate. Given thatthe statement attempts to determine beings as a whole and without exception, itis constitutively unable to take account of its own placement within this whole,its historical situatedness or 'thrownness', the very givenness of the whole, whichconstitutes an exception to its determination of this whole by providingsomething that cannot be understood from within this 'position*. Metaphysicscannot understand the inherence to the whole of perspectival presentation,otherwise it would fall apart. It is precisely this historical givenness of beings

Introduction 1

that Heidegger attempts to think with the word 'being'. It is 'being', or man'srelation to 'being', that is the unfathomed ground of any statement made in thehistory of philosophy about the nature of ethics. For this reason, the thinking ofbeing is a thinking of the place rather than the nature of ethics, a place to whichthese statements must remain blind. And it is for this reason, Heidegger's ownextraordinary ability to see where metaphysics is blind, to see in the dark, that itis necessary to turn to Heidegger when asking the question of ethics.

We may conclude that the place of ethics, from which all of its varioushistorical natures come to be spoken, is the ontological difference. ForHeidegger, therefore, what explains the different determinations of ethics acrosshistory is the differing relation between being and beings that determines theages of this history. Today, in an age that Heidegger would understand to becharacterized by the complete withdrawal of being and the complementarypredominance of the actual, beings as a whole, entirely at the mercy oftechnology, ethics in any substantial sense must be understood to be absent,submerged in nihilism, subordinated rather to economics and the calculation ofefficiency and maximal productivity. The absence of ethics today and theconsequent need of a place for ethics amidst the false positivity of nihilism is ourstarting point. The occlusion of ethics does not indicate the need to posit a newnature for ethics which might be appropriate to the age of technology, an ethicsof ..., but rather to think the very conditions of possibility for ethics' having aplace in this technological actuality. And this is what Heidegger allows us tothink and why it is necessary to turn to Heidegger if we are to think ethicstoday.

HEIDEGGER'S CRITICS

An explanation of just what being means for later Heidegger, along with ourexplication of the nature of ethics and politics in light of this 'being', allows usto defuse many of the criticisms directed at Heidegger's understanding of bothethics and politics. We shall briefly enumerate those which may most directly beanswered by the following exposition, although these and others will often betreated with a tactful silence, allowing Heidegger's words to unfold freely totheir full breadth, a breadth that of itself often effortlessly surpasses and stiflesthe indignant cries of denigration and ridicule which it so frequently inspires.

A brief acquaintance with the main targets of my reading of Heideggershould provide the reader with some preliminary orientation as they prepare toenter into the present work. Let us begin with Levinas.

Levinas's critical response to Heidegger is to deny the equiprimordiality ofbeing and ethics and to place a certain form of 'ethics' before ontology as itsoccluded precondition, understanding this ethics as a relation to othernessinstantiated first and foremost in the relation to the other human being whichLevinas finds to be absent from Heidegger's thought. My entire reading of


Heidegger has been governed by a need to respond to Levinas's criticism, andthis reading has allowed me to indicate a possible Heideggerian response toalmost every feature of Levinas's criticism. Levinas's criticism of Heidegger'ssupposed 'prioritizing' of ontology is first of all stirred precisely by itssubordination of the relation between self and other to a relation that is named'being-with' and which by invoking 'being' neutralizes the asymmetry of arelation that can be accessed only from within that relation itself. Any view fromoutside, which means any view that encompasses this relation within a widerhorizon, betrays the relation. The very widest horizon within which toencompass a being is that of 'being' itself and thus 'being' is precisely whatprevents us from accessing the singularity of a being. This ontological viewcomes after the ethical relation between self and other when a third person hascome upon the scene to view the two from outside and is forced, in addition tohis ethical relation to each, to calculate his duties to both in comparison witheach other, which means to situate the face-to-face relation within a horizon andat least partially to reduce its infinity to calculable proportions.

But is being, in later Heidegger, a horizon that prevents us from relating tobeings in their uniqueness? In fact, as Heidegger puts it most succinctly: 'being... essentially prevails as what is singular (das Seyn ... west ah jenes Einzige)'(CTP, VIII, p. 302/GA 65, p. 429 - my emphasis). Being is the uniqueness of abeing and this is precisely what Levinas means by 'otherness', the singularity ofan entity before and beyond any wider horizon of meaning which mightsubsume it and render it comprehensible. And as this work hopes to show, therelation between human beings in the form of a face to face in which death andthe god are present is, in Heidegger's own work, a necessary condition of beingitself.

As well as answering Levinas's criticisms of Heidegger's stance on ethics, thiswork was originally designed as a response to Arendt's implicit criticisms ofHeidegger's stance on politics. If, as I hope to show, being is ultimately the thingitself, a being within the whole that spans the between of being and beings, thenwe shall perhaps be in a position to oppose the Arendtian criticism. FollowingAristotle's understanding of the necessity ofdoxa to the political space, the spaceof praxis or the deeds and things which are scrutinized beneath the plural andincomplete gaze of the public in the agora, Arendt and her disciple JacquesTaminiaux have accused Heidegger's politics of 'Platonism' in the sense that itsubordinates this doxa and the phrenetic sight of praxis to the theoretical. Thisamounts to the subordination of praxis to poiesis5 and phronesis to tecbne, the latterbeing the place from which Heidegger understands politics, along the lines oftechnology and its essence, Gestell. Heidegger is thus said to elide the humanplurality and contingency inherent in the political space as he is by theDerridean understanding of politics as a necessarily pragmatic set of decisionswith regard to contingent matters, which will inevitably fail to live up to theethical imperative by which we are called.

Introduction 9

But our reading of the later Heidegger's politics shall show not only that aplurality of human beings is a condition of this space, but also the necessity ofcontingency in the guise of the thing that represents being in the space of beingsas a whole, thereby engendering a 'short circuit' between ethics and politics inwhich we shall see that politics can perhaps live up to the ethical imperative of'otherness'.

To anticipate, the thing in later Heidegger amounts to a place-holder withinbeings as a whole that represents the nothing of being itself, distinguished as itis so utterly from beings. This thing is the very heart of politics since itorganizes the totality over which politics governs, and crucially, the thing isconstantly susceptible to change and therefore the form it will take cannot bepredicted in advance: rather, an examination of the nature of the particulartotality in which one finds oneself is necessary beforehand. In other words, whichbeing is to become a 'thing' at any point is contingent, and our ethical andpolitical attitudes must respond to this contingency. This thing is then preciselyto pragma, the object of praxis rather than theoria, the way in which to comporttowards it decided not by theory but by prudence (phronesis), a vision that judgeseach situation on its merits, without any a priori prejudgement. Thus in no wayis phronesis either eclipsed in the political space or understood in a way thatsubordinates doxa to a more theoretical-ontological understanding, nor ispolitics placed on a 'lower' level than ethics in Heidegger's thought.

It is indeed a matter of necessity that there should be a void in the totality,being (Seiri) within beings as a whole, but which being shall come to representthis void is a purely contingent matter.

Heidegger's entire thought is in some sense an attempt to understand doxa orperspectivality as original to beings as a whole, a doxa that metaphysics, evenAristotle's, will not have assigned its true place. This thought takes Heideggerfrom the problematic of the facticity of each human's grasp on the whole to thethought of Ereignis as the very giving of the given (beings), a thought of the wayin which situatedness works, how a position of enunciation is inherent to andelided by any enunciated statement. Let us go so far as to say that being isperspectivality, the way in which man's position on the whole is always includedin the whole itself as described in the event of the appropriation (Er-eignis) ofbeing and man. What is singularity if not perspectivality? The question we shallask finally is whether it is right to say that Heidegger deems politics andtechnology to exclude precisely such perspectival differences and to concern onlythe totality as totality while ethics insists on perspectivality of all kinds. This isa thesis which we shall go along with to the very end, and here we shall see it tobe troubled.

So many of Heidegger's more scathing critics fail to realize the extent of thetransformation that takes place in Heidegger's transition to his later work. Thisignorance is the cause of much needless secondary literature but necessitatescorrective work nonetheless in the form of an explication of the later work,which is often not fully understood by even its best commentators, particularly


with regard to the political possibilities which we may be allowed to examinenow that accounts have been more or less settled with regard to 'the Heideggeraffair'. Those mistaken critics who are among the targets of my own reading aretreated with silence if they do not operate on Heidegger's level, for I think it canbe said that a prerequisite for understanding Heidegger is to give him the creditthat he is a great thinker and that as a consequence his works require much morethan a passing acquaintance or partial glance if they are properly to be engagedwith. And this engagement is inevitable.

Part I

Being-with

Dasein's resolute openness to its self is what first makes it possible to let thoseothers who are-with 'be' in their ownmost capability-of-being, and to co-disclosethis capability in the solicitude which leaps ahead in such a way as to free (dervorspringend-befreienden Fursorge). When Dasein stands resolutely open it can becomethe 'conscience' of others (Das entschlossene Dasein kann zum 'Gewissen' der Anderenwerderi). (BT, p. 344/SZ, p. 298)

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Chapter One

Being-with and the Ontological Difference

INTRODUCTION

The notion of 'being-with' is described primarily in Heidegger's 1927masterpiece, Being and Time. It is one of the 'existentiales' or necessarystructures of Dasein's existence. The sole reason for Heidegger's describing thestructure of existence is in order to understand the meaning of what is calledbeing, which means that the analysis of Dasein's existence is carried out not forits own sake but for that of 'fundamental ontology'. Therefore, before we canexamine the way in which being-with relates to the ontological difference as theplace of ethics, we must be clear on precisely what 'fundamental ontology' is,and Dasein's place in relation to this task.

Let us begin with the deceptively simple question: what is Dasein?It is man, but man understood in a very particular way, which is insofar as h

understands being. This means that Dasein is the site at which being canmanifest itself as the light of man's understanding. What does this mean?

The reason for Dasein's being confined to man, which gives him his uniqueplace in the totality of beings, is that each man has the possibility of relating tohis own singularity, a uniqueness given to him by his own birth and death,which confine him to a single stretch that will never come again. We are finiteand as a result potentially reflexive, riveted to our own being, turned back onourselves in the flex of selfhood by the limits of death and birth.

Since man is a part of beings as a whole, we may think of this finitude as amoment of negativity within beings as a whole, a moment that stimulates thiswhole to turn back on itself in the form of man's selfhood. This will amount tobeings as a whole becoming apparent to themselves from a certain point and at acertain moment within this whole. The reflexive loop of man's selfhood isprecisely Dasein. Dasein is the name for man's selfhood insofar as this loopcircumscribes a clearing that being can illuminate. It is perfectly possible to liveout one's entire life as a man without assuming this selfhood, to remain absorbedin the undifferentiated mass of beings. But without this moment of negativitywithin beings as a whole, there would be no 'self consciousness' on the part of

14 Being-with

beings: in other words there would be no such thing as 'being' (Sein). Being is atthis stage understood by Heidegger to be the finite and thus perspectivalopenness of the whole to itself, its own horizonally limited intelligibility or self-lightedness. And this openness occurs only to man, as the one who not only isborn and dies but who has the possibility of comporting himself towards thisbirth and this death. This comportment is the reflexivity of selfhood.

Man's selfhood, Dasein, is thus the point at which beings as a whole are lit upfor themselves. This intelligibility, which depends upon a void occurring withinthe whole, is precisely 'being'. Being is thus quite inseparable from Dasein as thetemporary and finite site of beings' intelligibility. Bluntly put, in earlyHeidegger, being is nothing beside the Da, the clearing (Lichtung) of theintelligibility of beings, which erupts in the Western tradition in a moment ofwonder that beings should be at all. The wonder of the Greeks was amazementbefore the fact that beings as a whole should have 'opened' to us. And this ofcourse is not some decision on the part of beings as a whole, but depends entirelyon the arising of that wondrous entity, man. Being is founded upon man.

Dasein is the selfhood of man. Selfhood is reflexivity. Reflexivity depends onfinitude, which is guaranteed by our unique birth and death. The process of theformation of Dasein will be the concern of this chapter. Why? Because this willnot only make clear Dasein's often forgotten dependence on birth, but alsodemonstrate the necessity of the actuality of birth and death. For there are twocommon prejudices with regard to Dasein's formation: one is that death isprimarily important and the other is that this death is not the actual fact of deathbut the approach of an individual Dasein to this death as a possibility in the wayof the existential motion of being-towards-death. This leads commentators toread Being and Time as a treatise on authenticity or the way in which Dasein leavesa state of inauthenticity and achieves authenticity by facing its own death, alone.

If we are careful to understand Dasein in the sense I have outlined, as thereflexive self of man, which is the one site at which being can 'be', then we shallsee that this reading cannot be correct. What is necessary for this reflexivemovement even to be understood is an acknowledgement that birth and deathare equally crucial to Dasein, and, more controversially, that this birth and thisdeath are not operative in the formation of Dasein solely in the existential formof be'mg-towards-bitth and beitig-towards-death, but the unintelligible facts ofman's birth and death must also be taken into account. The fact that Heideggerhimself did not do so may be attributed to his understanding of being at thetime, which confines it to Dasein's understanding of being (Seinsverstandnis) andthus to the site of his existence, as we shall see.

This amounts to saying that Dasein is not an entity that can move from aninauthentic to an authentic state, but a process, the tearing open of a rent in thecontinuum of beings as a whole. Too often Dasein is misunderstood as a state,indeed as an entity, an individual man, while in fact it is the very process ofindividuation itself — the formation of an individual self-relating entity — andone which is always incomplete because Dasein is never exclusively being-

Being-with and the Ontological Difference 15

towards-death. If there were such a thing as an authentic Dasein then it wouldno longer be Dasein, for Dasein exists as the process which stretches between theauthentic and the inauthentic, pulled towards its own death but also pulled inthe other direction, towards a birth which is common to everyone and whichamounts to our factual arrival in a particular world. Without these two vectorstugging at one another the tearing that is Dasein would not occur. Every tearingrequires two contradictory vectors. Utterly inauthentic Dasein would not beDasein, and nor would utterly authentic Dasein, since this entity would be dead.There is no such thing as authentic Dasein. Dasein is the process that relates andstretches apart the inauthentic and the authentic between birth and death. Forthis reason, being-towards-£/>ft& must equally be stressed.

If Dasein is a process which does not always take place then there must besome explanation for why it begins, why it is that there exists this point withinbeings as a whole where being is allowed to enter and the whole to becomeintelligible to itself. Intelligibility presupposes meaning (Sinn) as 'that uponwhich something is projected' or 'that wherein the intelligibility of somethingmaintains itself (BT, p. 193/5"Z, p. 151), and since meaning has this function ofunderlying, Heidegger can say that 'a "ground" becomes accessible only asmeaning' (BT, p. 194/5Z, p. 152). We have already said that the explanation ofwhy being should 'be' at all is to be found in the fact that there is an entitywhich relates reflexively to its own birth and death. Thus Heidegger can say thatthe ground of intelligibility is death: 'Authentic being-towards-death, which is tosay ... the finitude of temporality (Endlichkeit der Zeitlichkeit), is the concealedground (verborgene Grund) of the historically of Dasein (BT, p. 438/SZ, p. 386).Being is founded upon finitude, and in early Heidegger this finitude is always acertain entity's belonging, and that is the individual man. This is what Heideggermeans when he tells us that the meaning of being is 'temporality' (Zeitlichkeii),and why I would prefer to translate 'Zeitlichkeit' with 'temporariness' or'temporaeity'. It means that being is founded upon the presence within beings asa whole of a being which has only a temporary span. Once one knows about deathone knows that one has but a single life to lead and thus the reflexive relation tothe facts of birth and death introduces a site of singularity into beings as a whole:this singularity is precisely what being needs in order to show itself. And why?Because the whole can never be illuminated in its entirety since we are not adivinity who would remain without situation within the whole, but dwelltemporally and spatially at a certain point within the whole, and for this reasonintelligibility is always partial or horizonal. If it is horizonal then it mustdepend upon a certain distinguished site within the whole that would act as theorientating centre of this horizon. In other words, being depends upon thesingularity of finite human being. Being is the horizonal intelligibility of beingsas a whole or the world of the human being: in this way is being founded uponman.

16 Being-with

The finitude of man is donated to him by the brute facts of birth and death.These are precisely not the existential responses that man makes in relating tothese brute facts by 'being-towards' birth and 'being-towards' death. It is withthese responses that Dasein first emerges as the stretch between authenticity andinauthenticity, as the openness of the whole to itself. No, what we are speakingof is the blunt fact that birth and death happen to us, whether we respond tothem or not. We are not yet speaking of Dasein, since Dasein is a process thatneed not form, but birth and death are facts whether we respond to them or not.What is crucial to our reading is thus the distinction, rarely made, between twoforms of birth and two forms of death. One form is the actual fact and belongs toman, while the other is the existential response or relation to this fact and amountsto the process of individuation called Dasein. Each of us can and should die twice:once as man, and once as Dasein. It is only when man comports himselfexplicitly towards the facts of birth and death that he acquires a 'self. This self iscalled Dasein and the two existential responses which go to make up the verybeing of Dasein are called its 'inauthenticity' (Uneigentlichkeit) and its'authenticity' (Eigentlichkeif) respectively.

If Dasein cannot fully be explained without taking into account not only theexistential response to the facts of birth and death but also the facts themselves,then in order to explain what is called Dasein and thus answer the question ofbeing we shall need to read Being and Time not by forcing it to conform to a two-part interpretative schema comprised of inauthenticity and authenticity, withauthenticity as the state in which being would be revealed and our questionanswered, but by forcing it (perhaps equally violently) into a/0#r-part schema,which would take account of the two forms of birth and death.

Why is this reading important? Because it allows us to demonstrate theelements of Being and Time and fundamental ontology which are still, inHeidegger's later language, 'metaphysical'. In the way in which Heideggermakes claims that cannot be fitted into our four-part schema, Being and Time canbe shown to remain founded upon certain unquestioned presuppositions whichare metaphysical, and it can be revealed just what these presuppositions are. Thepresuppositions upon which the edifice of fundamental ontology is founded arethe finitude of man and, more basically, the ontological difference itself. It is inHeidegger's own later works that these early prejudices will be acknowledgedand countered. Thus, the four-part schema will lead us towards the necessity ofthis later work. Therefore, the four-part schema is necessary if we are to uncoverprecisely what is wrong with Being and Time and demonstrate the necessity ofquestioning its foundations and moving on to the later work in whichHeidegger himself initiates this very questioning in the form of an investigationof the origin of the ontological difference, the particular way of understandingbeing upon which fundamental ontology rests.

And what has being-with to do with this novel way of reading Being and Time?Quite simply, it is the element that above all refuses to fit into the two-partschema of authenticity and inauthenticity. Its very presence as an essential


component of Dasein's existence indicates this schema to be unworkable.Ultimately the understanding of being as one pole of the ontological differenceleaves unexplained precisely the 'with' of being and beings itself. Normally,these structures of Dasein's being are described by Heidegger as having aninauthentic form and an authentic form, giving immense weight to the two-partreading which understands Being and Time to be a description of the way inwhich Dasein is generally submerged in anonymous inauthenticity and yet hasthe possibility, should it heroically face death, of becoming authentic, ofwinning its individuality and breaking free of the undifferentiated masses. Butbeing-with is unique in not falling neatly into this division. The so-called'authentic' form of being-with is marked by Heidegger with the word'conscience' and thereby with the word 'friendship'. I shall demonstrate that thisvery description proves that Dasein is not an entity that exists in either aninauthentic or an authentic state, one to the exclusion of the other, but is rather atearing process of individuation whose contradictory and complementary vectorsmay be designated as 'inauthentic' and 'authentic' and whose very stretchingmay be said to constitute 'existence' as 'standing-out' or, better, 'stretching-out'(ex-sistentia, ek-histemi). What these two vectors stretch towards are the actualfacts of birth and death, which the stretching itself (Dasein) never achieves. Theinauthentic vector slopes towards birth, which we shall describe as a state of'indifference' or 'undifferentiatedness', while the authentic vector slopes towardsdeath, which we shall describe as the 'ownmost' or 'most own'. It is through therelation between these four parts that 'Dasein' may be explained and themetaphysical presuppositions of Being and Time exposed.

Let us now begin our reading by examining the way in which being-with hasbeen interpreted in the past and how it should be read, ultimately - in itssupposedly 'authentic' form — against Heidegger himself, and in such a way as tolead us to the crossing of the ontological difference itself. It is insofar asHeidegger does not fully think the togetherness of the two halves of thisdifference and posits thereby the absolute separateness of being that his workremains Platonistic in failing to think the chora or chorismos of Timaeus and indreaming of the possibility of a theoretic access to a being (Seiri) untainted byiconic mimesis in beings. The ontological difference is precisely what comes to bequestioned in Heidegger's later works, the ontological difference whichHeidegger from the first designated as the place of ethics. If this ontologicaldifference is rethought, then the place of ethics must also be rethought, and it isthe innocuous existentiale of being-with that demonstrates this rethinking to benecessary.

INTERPRETATIONS OF BEING-WITH

Let us now examine being-with as it has been read in the context of the two-partschema of inauthenticity and authenticity, in order to demonstrate the way in

18 Being-with

which the existentiale refuses to fit into this schema and thereby demonstrates itto be inadequate. We shall then demonstrate the way in which it ultimatelycomes to undermine the ontological difference itself which is incapable ofallowing a 'with' that would be inherent to being itself.

Most early understandings of being-with, particularly of the existentialistvariety,2 understood it to be a feature only of Dasein's inauthentic state and to beleft behind by authentic Dasein, which was thought heroically to face death, amatter in which we were supposed to be quite alone.

This understanding of inauthentic being-with interprets it in fact as apresent-at-hand 'intersubjectivity' or plurality of actual individuals, whichsimply does not exist when Dasein is understood in a way proper to it, on thebasis of its incalculably timed death, in the face of which it is 'on its own'. Theaccount of being-with is then taken to be little more than a placatory appendixto a description of what is ultimately a solipsistic ego or evidence thatHeidegger fails to think the plurality inherent to Dasein.5 Naturally, this formof being-with is understood to have no 'authentic' partner since it involvesunderstanding Dasein's being in a fallen or present-at-hand way, and fallenness,in the threefold characterization of Dasein's being, does not have a correlate.

Dasein's being is composed of three vectors, which correspond to past, future,and present: thrownness (Geworfenheii), projection (Entwurf), and fallenness(yerfallenheit). These three vectors, which belong together on the basis of the wayin which the three dimensions of time relate to one another, when takentogether compose the loop of Dasein's self.

Throw(Past)

Fall Project(Present) (Future)

Figure 1. The threefold structure of Dasein's self

To understand inauthentic being-with as intersubjectivity is thus tounderstand it in a fallen manner as is the way of metaphysics which understandsbeing solely as presence (Anwesenheit), presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit), oractuality (Wirklichkeii), the mere fact of 'subsistence': 'a kind of being which ispresent-at-hand (namely ... subsistence \Bestanct\y (BT, p. 195/SZ, p. 153).This is to understand Dasein purely ontically, without care for the distinctiveontological status of Dasein in particular, which is to say, Dasein's being


ontological as the site of being's manifestation. It does not understand the full -ontological — ramifications of Dasein's having the reflexive form of 'care' (Sorge).This is not inauthentic being-with. The second understanding of being-withaims as near to the mark as Heidegger will allow and realizes that the'inauthentic' of the first form of being-with refers not to fallenness but to thevector of thrownness, or being-towards-birth, towards beings.

If fallenness does not have a single partner, thrownness, on the other hand, doesand indeed cannot exist without it. Its correlate is the projection of Dasein'sunderstanding and these two vectors amount to Dasein's 'inauthenticity' and'authenticity'. Thus, if being-with has an inauthentic form then there must alsobe an authentic form, and both of these forms will be possibilities of Dasein'speculiar way of being.

The second reading improves on the first in terms of its understanding of thenature of inauthenticity and authenticity as the pair of thrownness andprojection. Once inauthentic being-with is understood in terms of thrownnessrather than fallenness, the way is open for the positing of an authentic form as thecorrelate of projection.

In order to reach this authentic form we must first understand theinauthentic. How is the inauthentic form of being-with understood on thissecond reading? We can reach this understanding only by examining the twoprincipal components of the common world of the ready-to-hand, the 'with-world' of significance (BT, p. 155/5Z, p. 118), since it is into this world thatinauthentic Dasein is constantly thrown.

THE WORLD

The two components of the world are the 'in-order-to' (Um-zu) and the 'for-the-sake-of-which' (Worumwilleri) and inauthentic being-with is commonly under-stood along the lines of the former, instrumentality, in which the other manwould presumably be treated as an instrument ready-to-hand whom otherDaseins would turn towards the ends of their own wills. The authentic form ofbeing-with taken to complement this instrumentalism is then understood to bethe Kantian treatment of the other as an 'end in himself 7 The transition frominauthentic to authentic being-with is thus taken to be the shift from in-order-to to for-the-sake-of-which. What is wrong with this understanding is howmuch it grants to Heidegger, and that is the strict separation of the authenticand the inauthentic; inauthentic instrumentalism and authentic Kantianism.There is no exclusively inauthentic state of Dasein, any more than there is anexclusively authentic one, for Dasein is being-/»-the-world, and world is quiteclearly both of the in-order-to and the for-the-sake-of-which. Dasein's being willnever be reducible to the status of the ready-to-hand or 'in-order-to', but neitherwill it ever exist exclusively as a 'finality' or 'for-the-sake-of-which', since it willalways remain enmeshed in the symbolic order which is characterized by

20 Being-with

differential relations of significance and chains of instrumentality: 'With equaloriginarity the understanding projects Dasein's being both upon its for-the-sake-of-which and upon significance, as the worldhood of its current world' (BT, p.185/SZ, p. 145).

In thrownness, Dasein's projection of possibilities is thrown back ontosignificance as 'the structure of the world' (BT, p. 120/SZ, p. 87). This cannotmean that Dasein is understood as a tool turned to the ends of others but ratherthat it is involved in the world as a Dasein but in a way that submits to thedifferential relations of significance; and this can mean only that it is understoodas the occupant of an anonymous place in the symbolic order. They will indeedbe Dasein and therefore 'for-the-sake-of-which', but it will occupy a place thatanyone could take and that is therefore bound up in a common scheme ofsignifications. Thus, with regard to the others within this scheme: 'They areencountered from out of the world in which concernfully circumspective Daseinessentially dwells (in der das besorgend-umsichtige Dasein sich wesenhaft aufhalt)'(BT, p. 155/.SZ, p. 199); which amounts to saying that they are their place in thesymbolic world, 'they are what they do (betreiberi)' (BT, p. 163/SZ, p. 126).

The instrumentalist or ready-to-hand understanding of inauthentic being-with is not Heidegger's. This being-with shall encompass the whole ofsignificance and not just its ready-to-hand component. How could Dasein existwithout being part of a world in which it is caught up in relations ofdifferentiality? The symbolic world's differential structure is precisely one ofinstrumentality: everyone has their place in this apparently purposeful structure.If Dasein did not project itself on this detour through the common, if projectionwere not always thrown in this way then there would be no reflexive loop toform Dasein's self. In other words, there would be no self and therefore no'Dasein' at all. Heidegger habitually expresses the motion of reflexing with thephrase urn gehen, and more specifically um es selbst gehen, being an issue for oneself:'that the for-the-sake-of-which and significance are both disclosed in Dasein,means that Dasein is that entity which, as being-in-the-world, is an issue foritself (um es selbst geht)' (BT, p. 182/SZ, p. 143).

Let us be clear: the tendency of authenticity may be identified with the for-the-sake-of-which, and inauthenticity may be identified with the in-order-to,both together comprising the structure of the significant world. Neither part ofsignificance makes sense without the other: the whole world could not form awhole without some common element which all significations could ultimatelyturn towards. There is no authenticity without inauthenticity, and vice versa.Inauthentic being-with (which in fact may no longer be so named) is thereforenot a temporary state in which Dasein is treated as a ready-to-hand 'tool', for heis always this, just as he is always somewhat in excess of instrumentality. Theunderstanding's projection of Dasein-like possibilities is always diverted into thecommon world of significance, but Dasein cannot become anything other thanDasein.


Have we not reached an impasse with the understandings of being-with thatattempt to distribute it between inauthenticity and authenticity?

Beyond the very first and most naive readings of being-with, which saw it tobe restricted wholly to the inauthentic — since 'authentic Dasein' was an utterlyisolated being in the throes of an unshareable death — we must correct thosemore recent and faithful interpretations that do recognize the presence of anauthentic form in opposition to such readings. Why? Because even thesereadings mis-recognise the inauthentic form and therefore fail to understand theauthentic form and its relationship with the inauthentic. Hence it will benecessary properly to articulate the first form of being-with (which is not'inauthentic' but rather requires the title of 'indifferent') in order to move on tothe problematic nature of the second (to which we must refuse the title'authentic'). The first misunderstanding that must be cleared up with regard tothe first reading, and which is perhaps caused by the great deal of time whichHeidegger spends explicating this notion, is that the 'inauthentic' form ofbeing-with is in fact the being-with that is described by the famous noun, dasMan.

The most profound problem with both readings of being-with is that theyallow Heidegger too much. More specifically, they allow him the dichotomy ofinauthenticity and authenticity and do not see the dependence of this dichotomyon something exterior to it; and they are prevented from doing so by the deepestand most unquestioned presupposition of their reading and of Heidegger's ownearly work, the ontological difference. There is clearly an extremely importantdifference between the absorbed status of everyday Dasein and Dasein in its'proper' state, but it is crucial to understand that the fault-line of this differencedoes not run between inauthenticity and authenticity but rather between/»difference and difference, between a state that does not recognize its ownabsorption and a state that does, thereby — as far as possible — escaping it.'Dasein' is the process of the differentiation of this indifference, an individuationof man that remains always incomplete and therefore trapped between theauthentic and the inauthentic and always threatened by a re-immersion in theindifferent.

What matters is to see that the distinction of crucial importance is not thatwhich separates an inauthentic from an authentic state, but that which separatesan absorbed state of indifference (which can exist alone) and a compoundstructure of inauthenticity and authenticity combined as two vectors of a singleprocess, the process of Dasein as the selfhood of man and the circumscription of aclearing for being. In other words, what is understood as 'inauthentic' being-with is in fact indifferent being-with and may not be described as 'inauthentic' atall for it involves both vectors of Dasein's being.

22 Being-with

REDE AND GEREDE

In order to understand this, we must insist upon the distinction which willprovide us with the four-part schema with which we are attempting to read Beingand Time. To be Dasein, properly understood, is to be stretched between theauthentic and the inauthentic or to be comprised of possibilities proper to oneselfand possibilities proper to other beings. There is however a name that Heideggergives to the state of a man who has not yet entered Dasein and who remainsentirely immersed in the differential relations of the symbolic world, and that is'indifference'. This entity has precisely not assumed his singularity, which is tosay his selfhood, and may therefore be described as undifferentiated from all of theother entities (men) around him. For this reason he is called das Man, 'one', andnot yet 'I myself, the reflexive repetitiveness of the individual self. Thisundifferentiated 'self is the self that we inhabit insofar as we dwell within thesystem of significations known as the world. When commentators seek theinauthentic being-with in das Man, what they are really seeking is the indifferent.

Heidegger distinguishes the indifferent from the inauthentic quite explicitly,while relating both to everydayness (the subject of everydayness being das Man):more precisely, inauthenticity is a tendency towards indifference, towards itssubject, but it does not reach indifference and remains quite distinct from it.'But this capability-of-being (Seinkonneri), as one which is in each case mine, isfree either for authenticity or for inauthenticity, or for a mode in which neitherof these has been differentiated. In starting with average everydayness, ourinterpretation has heretofore been confined to the analysis of such existing as iseither indifferent or inauthentic (die Analyse des indifferenten bzw. uneigentlichenExistierens}' (BT, pp. 275-6/SZ, p. 232).

Dasein is inauthentic insofar as it cannot exist without the indifferentsymbolic order and is never free of significance in which there are only commonplaces in which to dwell. So what is this system of significance? What is world?

Fundamentally, significance is constituted by possibilities. The symbolicorder is made up not so much of present-at-hand actuality — materials, tools,humans — but rather of the possible uses that might be made of these things, thepossible things one might do with them. The world is constituted by the routeswhich exist between things, directed towards the uses one might make of them,and the ends of such uses. This sense of 'pointing' (deuteri) is more evident in theGerman word for 'signifying', Bedeuten. Thus, signification is made up of a meshof 'indicatings'.

Dasein is the revelation of the world and this revelation is always significant.This means that meaning is always articulated into significations, and the way inwhich this jointing occurs is through 'discourse' (Rede).10 For this reason,Heidegger's use of discourse will prove crucial to our understanding of Being andTime and the problems that necessitate the turn away from it.

This discursive jointing of intelligibility into significance takes place intwo ways, which Heidegger names 'understanding' (Verstehen) and 'mood'


(Stimmung).l1 In Being and Time Heidegger considers both of these ways to bediscursive. Discourse (Rede) allows phenomena to present themselves insignificant form from out of a more general 'background' of intelligibility,through mood and understanding equally: 'The fundamental existentialia whichconstitute the being of the Da, the disclosedness of being-in-the-world, arestate-of-mind and understanding' (BT, p. 203/SZ, p. 160). Why should moodbe deemed equal to understanding in its revelatory capacity? Because beingmanifests itself only as a singular horizonally limited intelligibility of a portionof the whole. In other words, intelligibility presents itself only from a certainperspective. Dasein is always situated at a certain point within the whole, whichrestricts the intelligibility of this whole. This perspectival limitation means thatthe understanding of the intelligible must always be limited by a mood. As weshall see, this amounts to saying that the world of significance includes its ownperspectivity.

Understanding and mood, then, are characterized by Rede, which is thearticulation of possibilities, the articulation of intelligibility into an entire worldof significance, a 'discursivization' which is always at once both universal andsingular, a common scheme centred upon a meaningless navel quite peculiar tothe seer, meaningless in the sense that it marks the facticity of our being situatedin a particular whole at the time and the place that we are. This facticity is theunintelligible condition of intelligibility, for significance needs its perspective. Itis mood that reveals this factical placement, and understanding that reveals thepossibilities that emanate from this fact and yet remain enchained to it as thevanishing point of Dasein's perspective. Mood reveals our singular situationwithin or outlook upon the whole of significance, which is the object of theunderstanding.

Rede is the passage from meaning to its articulation in a system ofsignifications, from Sinn to Bedeutungen. Heidegger distinguishes this Rede fromGe-rede.1 Rede is the way in which possibilities are divided up, the way meaningis articulated into signifiers to which Dasein may attach itself, the 'subject' andthe symbolic order always arising simultaneously. When these possibilities arethose which may be shared by absolutely anyone, in other words when they areexclusively worldly possibilities, the possibilities of possessing the present-at-hand or using the ready-to-hand, then Rede is stamped with the mark of the pasttense (Ge-) and becomes Ge-rede. Ge-rede are those possibilities which are to befound in the world of significance without the singularity of perspectivity. Inother words, they are for-the-sake-of-which's that anyone may share, the Germanprefix Ge- indicating both the past and commonality or 'gathering', sincepossibilities within the symbolic order are constitutively anonymous, meresubject-positions. It is of the very nature of significance that the places within itthat are reserved for humans must be capable of being occupied by anyone. So weshould distinguish between those possibilities presented to a singularperspectival outlook and those possibilities that are utterly common: the formerare articulated in Rede, the latter in Gerede. What is crucial to recall is that these

24 Being-with

possibilities will not be distributed, as the Kantian reading thinks, between thein-order-to and the for-the-sake-of-which, but rather both will be confined tothe for-the-sake-of-which, the subject-positions which Dasein may occupywithin the scheme of significance, and that pure possibility (Rede) never existsexcept in the concrete and symbolic form of common possibilities (Gerede), sincemeaning can only take the form of significations.

For-the-sake-of-which's are the essentially common possibilities which theworld offers. Every possibility that is significant is a common possibility, apossibility that we all share. It belongs not to me in my singularity but to thatanonymous and neutral subject-position I take up as soon as I enter the symbolicorder: 'One' or das Man. It is crucial to remember that there was never a timewhen I was not within this symbolic order, nor shall I ever leave it so long as Iam Dasein, myself. The question will therefore be one of how to achieveindividuality within the stifling commonality of the symbolic order. For Daseinis not an exception to this world but the very process of world-formation ordiscursivization, the arising of discourse or the articulation of meaning intosignifications, the fall of being to beings, the gesture by which intelligibilitybecomes 'conceptualized'. And we shall never be able to understand it in a wayfree from these always historical concepts, rooted as we are in our 'situation*.

Gerede is translated into English as 'idle talk', a translation which has donenothing to further its understanding, implying that this jointure is unnecessaryand irrelevant to 'proper' Dasein. Gerede amounts to the way in which theundifferentiated character of man within the Symbolic expresses and reinforcesitself. It is the very articulation of meaning into significations that is executed byDasein in the guise of das Man. 'Das Man itself articulates (artikuliert) thereferential context (\ierweisungszusammenhang) of significance' (BT, p. 167/SZ, p.129). Gerede is the way das Man articulates Dasein's possibilities, the way it'dictates'13 what Dasein 'can-be'.

Gerede is an articulation of the world which does not leave room for thesingularity of individuals. It is indeed rooted in the singularity of an individual'sfactual position, as revealed in mood, but the response of Gerede is precisely toobscure this fact with possibilities. For this reason Heidegger describes thesignifiers of this system as having lost all connection with 'reality', and symbolicpositions are sought after solely for their own sake, a striving which engulfs all.This formation of a symbolic universe is a response to a factual singularity(founded upon death), which does not respond by way of an attempt to live up tothis singularity but responds merely to the commonality of the fact by losingone's self in common possibilities or 'idle talk'. In other words, here 'words'have lost touch with the actual articulation of possibilities in the world: 'wealready are listening only to what is said in the discourse as such' (BT, p. 212/SZ, p. 168). One has precisely lost touch with the fact that any jointure ofpossibilities is not just an objective whole but inherently involves a certainsingular distortion introduced by one's own singular facing of death. This iselided in das Man's articulation of Gerede: 'Das Man never dies'. And why?


'because it can not die (es nicht sterben kann)' (BT, p. 477/SZ, p. 424). Thesubject-position you occupy in the symbolic order will outlive you: someonewill take your place.

INDIFFERENT BEING-WITH

The indifferent being-with that takes place when Dasein assumes the guise ofdas Man is precisely such a usurpation as follows from the fact that das Man isnot owned, not singularized, but is rather (the occupant of) an anonymoussubject-position: 'Gerede is the kind of being that belongs to being-with-one-another itself (BT, p. 221/5Z, p. 177). In other words, it is the being-with ofthe world in which everyone is another since no true self has yet been formed: itis the being-with of others: '"the others" ... are those who proximally and forthe most part "are there" (da sind) in everyday being-with-one-another' (BT, p.164/SZ, p. 126).

Since the world is articulated into essentially common possibilities, therelation between Daseins who occupy these positions can only be one ofcomparison and eventual substitution, as one calculates the difference betweenoneself and another in common terms and eventually usurps the other in theirsymbolic position.

Heidegger's word for this relation of substitution and comparison is'distantiality' (Abstandigkeif). By confining Dasein wholly to relations ofsignificance, where signifiers are defined differentially — with regard to what theyare to do and their ultimate purpose - one understands it within the context of adifferential system, where each signifying identity is understood in relation toevery other. How could one avoid understanding the other in terms of the'distance' between oneself and this other? There is 'constant care as to the wayone differs' (BT, p. 163/SZ, p. 126). Crucially, this is a distance which is notqualitative, but one which can be measured and calculated.

What distantiality encourages is precisely the thrown limitation of Dasein'spossibilities in the sense of confining these possibilities to the symbolic order inwhich it is born. The subject-positions of the world are precisely 'indifferent' totheir occupant, and we shall be 'indifferent' or undifferentiated insofar as wemake these possibilities the only ones that belong to our being. This indifferenceis precisely what we as men are born into, in our actual birth (berth), and theinauthentic comportment towards it in the thrown projection of possibilities isprecisely being-towards-birth. To consider the only form of difference and thusof being-with to be that which exists between various subject-positions is torestrict Dasein to the indifferent articulation of intelligibility which is Gerede, inwhich no possibility is specifically tailored to the individual but each is definedprecisely by its indifference with regard to who takes it up. Thus one can be saidto 'reinforce' one's subjection to das Man's articulation: 'this distantiality whichbelongs to being-with, is such that Dasein, as everyday being-with-one-another,

26 Being-with

stands in subjection (Botmassigkeit) to others. It itself is not; its being has beentaken away by the others' (BT, p. 164/SZ, p. 126). 'One belongs to the othersoneself and enhances their power' (ibid).

Since the possibilities that speak in and as Dasein in this state are those ofGerede, one can see the way in which the other is restricted by this being-with ofinterchangeability, limited to those possibilities which anyone could share, andin such a way as to increase the 'inconspicuous domination' of das Man in thesense of the thrown tendency to inhabit only those possibilities that arecommon.

Indifferent being-with as the occupancy of indifferent places in significance istherefore characterized by 'representability'. 'Indisputably, the fact that oneDasein can be represented (Vertretbarkeit) by another belongs to its capabilities-for-being in being-with-one-another in the world' (BT, p. 283/SZ, p. 239); 'anyother can represent (vertreten) them' (BT, p. 164/SZ, p. 126); 'representability isnot only quite possible but is even constitutive for our being-with-one-another.Here one Dasein (das eine Dasein) can and must, within certain limits, "be"another Dasein (das andere "sein")' (BT, p. 283^/5Z, p. 239-40). We are anotherDasein in the sense of taking his place once he has left it, the place with whichhe identified himself. For this reason Heidegger's explicit description of'inauthentic' solicitude (Fursorge), the modification of Dasein's selfhood (care)insofar as being is always being-with, reads as follows:

It can, as it were, take away 'care' from the other and put itself in his positionin concern: it can leap in (einspringen) for him. This kind of solicitude takesover for the other that with which he is to concern himself. The other is thusthrown out of his own position (aus seiner Stelle geworferi) ... This kind ofsolicitude, which leaps in and takes away 'care', is to a large extentdeterminative for being-with-one-another, and pertains for the most part toour concern with the ready-to-hand. (BT, p. 158-9/SZ, p. 122)

I suggest that we must understand this 'leaping' (Springen) as the throwing(Werferi) of projection (Entwerferi). Das Man will project or exist in only thosepossibilities which may be occupied by anyone, since these alone can be theobjects of distantiality and representability, which amounts to the first form ofbeing-with. Thus it takes away from the other their singularity, their self orDasein. If the structure of selfhood is 'care' then this form of Fursorge, amodification of care, may be said to 'take away their "care" ("Sorge" abnehmende)'.

Indifferent being-with (what has been called 'inauthentic being-with') is therelation of intersubstitutability between Daseins which might exchange placeswithin the symbolic world. Being-with is therefore a motion, the motion ofsubstitution as any number of anonymous others project the possibilities whichconstitute my symbolic identity and, with the extent of this projection, measurethe distance between us and thereby reduce our difference to one that ismeasurable. Indifferent Dasein amounts to a 'subject-position' in the world of


significance: in other words, it consists of one's 'symbolic identity'. One iscaptured in one's identity entirely by significance, but this does not mean thatone is reduced to the 'in-order-to' which would render the human being theobject of Besorgen rather than Fursorge. We must be careful not to think this inthe way of intersubjectivity, for when we speak of Dasein we are speaking of theopenness of the whole world, which includes all of its components, self, others,and things. The openness of being, the world, indeed being itself, is the entiretyof significance and that for the sake of which significance signifies. The mannerin which this world is open is through the reflexivity of one entity, which createsa self-conscious fold in the entirety of 'substance', thus opening 'substance' toitself and making of it a 'subject'.

What one is deprived of in this indifferent being-with is precisely somethingof one's own. One's very singularity is lost in the symbolic order. But it can neverbe lost altogether. One is not taken up into the symbolic order without remainder.This is what is forgotten by advocates of everydayness or full authenticity. AsDasein, one can escape neither one's singularity nor one's commonality. Thewhole is revealed only perspectivally.

BEGINNING TO FACE UP TO SINGULARITY

What provides us with our uniqueness, stifled by the symbolic order of 'theOne', is death. It is in death that the representability which characterizesindifferent being-with can no longer be the case: 'this possibility of representing(Vertretungsmo'glicbkeit) breaks down completely if the issue is one of representingthat possibility-of-being (Vertretung der Seinsmb'glichkeii) which makes up Dasein'scoming-to-an-end' (BT, p. 284/SZ, p. 240). For this reason, 'being-with otherswill fail us when our ownmost capability-of-being is the issue' (BT, p. 308/5^,p. 263). One has to be absolutely clear that this refers only to indifferent being-with, since it is perhaps this line above all which has caused readers to think thatDasein is ultimately solipsistic. It is true that Heidegger cannot truly thinkanother form of being-with due to the restriction placed on him by theontological difference, but we must show that it is precisely when facing deaththat being-with does not fail us, since here we are opened to the 'with' for thefirst time insofar as the death and birth which are invoked are the death andbirth whose part in the process of being's manifestation Heidegger could notthink at this stage of his work.

Here we must bring to bear the crucial distinction between the existentialbeing-towards-death upon which Heidegger puts such excessive emphasis, andthe blunt fact of actual death. Heidegger's understanding of being will haveforced him to make this emphasis, but it obscures the fact that actual death playsa more crucial role in the formation of Dasein. This actuality renders every death'other' in the sense that it cannot be incorporated into a scheme of significancewhich I could call my own, or the 'same' to use Levinas's terms.

28 Being-with

In light of the importance we attribute to actual death, the importance of thedeath of the concrete other, Levinas's 'Autrui', becomes clearer. Why is this deathmore important than Heidegger is able to say in Being and Time? Because, asHeidegger himself says, this death is actual and cannot provide us with anunderstanding of what it means to die. This is crucial for two related reasons:because death is actual and has no meaning; and it is the very actuality of deaththat grounds its unintelligibility. Heidegger's understanding of being as pureintelligibility will have allowed him to understand death's importance solely interms of the way in which it becomes appropriated in our existential response toit, but this serves to cover over the more primordial /întelligibility or'otherness' of death.

Death is the limit of understanding's projection: it simply cannot be'envisaged'. Or rather, in another sense, it can, and it stands precisely in a one-way relation of gazing at us, from a point at which we are quite unable toencompass it with our own look. Death has a face and is nothing but this blankand impersonal stare. For this reason alone can Heidegger speak of 'the eyes ofdeath' (BT, p. 434/5Z, p. 383), the gaze with which the enigma stares out atus,19 defying us to comprehend a complete vista. This death cannot be taken upinto our lives in a mournful sublimation, but must rather remain always outside,always excessive.

Being-towards-death as facing the fact of actual death is described byHeidegger with the word Vorlaufen or 'anticipation'. The actual fact of death isthe very origin of projection as such, and thus its consummation (BT, pp. 305—7/SZ, pp. 261—2) because it presents Dasein with something that it can neveractually be. Actual death is impossible for Dasein, which is why Heidegger tells usthat being-towards-death amounts to being 'brought face to face20 with theabsolute impossibility of existence' (BT, p. 299/SZ, p. 255 — my emphasis). Theface to face is a form of disclosure that occurs throughout Heidegger's work, andalways in relation to a fact. It is the manner of disclosure belonging to mood:'Mood discloses not in the way of a looking at (Hinblickens auf) thrownness, butrather as a turning, towards or away (sondern ah An- undAbkehr)' (BT, p. 174/SZ,p. 135).

Thus every attempt on the part of understanding to symbolize the Real ofdeath fails, achieving only the projection of common possibilities. In otherwords, it is thrown back (geworfen) into understandings of death that approach itin a non-singular way, most obviously with images, precipitate realizations andprojections of an afterlife (cf. BT, p. 307/SZ, p. 262), whatever influences thevery way in which one's symbolic life is ordered, as an avoidance of this void andthus an organization around this void, designed effectively to repress it.Existential death always fails to reach actual death and is thus thrown back tobecome existential birth as the inauthentic vector of projection which faces birthor absolute indifference. Existence within the symbolic world therefore amountsto the repression of the Real of death, since the possible can never live up to theactual, the Symbolic can never exhaust the Real. We should never lose sight of

Fact Existence Fact

Figure 2. Dasein as an existential response to the facts of birth and death


the fact that existential dying never actually dies, and since Heidegger'sunderstanding of being confines it to the existential site of its clearing he isforced to reject the actual form of death from his consideration altogether: 'Dyingis not an event (Begebenheit); it is a phenomenon to be understood existentially'(BT, p. 284/S-Z, p. 240).

The same may be said of birth. Thrownness is the tethering of the cone ofpossibilities (as they swell into the future only to hit the solid wall of death andthus be sent hurtling back down to earth) to the stolid fact of one's birth: thereturn amounts to the way in which the limitation imposed by death issymbolically understood. Thrownness is thus a comportment towards actualbirth, an absolutely past point which will always have preceded the formation ofexistence and which thus escapes its power of projection. Being-towards thisbirth is the way in which actual birth has a discursive presence and amounts to arestriction of what we 'can be*. It restricts us to a certain scheme of significancewhich no amount of 'individuality' can ever escape. No matter how wide theexpanse of possibilities stretches our project is nevertheless a project that isalready projected, already thrown by somebody else, from a certain spatio-temporal point in beings as a whole. Somebody else was born, it was not us, andit is this 'other' which we must somehow come to bear. Even though we can alterthe possibilities that we have, we cannot alter the fact that we exist and theparticular world into which and against which our projection must hollow out aspace of possibilities that would be our 'own'.

Actual birth

Present state ofDasein

Passage of timeas repetition

Being-towards-birth (thrownness)

Actual death

Being-towards-death (projection)

30 Being-with

We are thrown precisely towards indifference, the common or non-individuated in which being-with takes the form of distantiation andrepresentability. We seem to have been left with very little room for whatauthentic being-with could be, and there is a very good reason for this: there is noauthentic being-with.

AUTHENTICITY AND INAUTHENTICITY:UNDERSTANDING TO MOOD

In order to understand this remark let us ask the question, still not raisedsufficiently often, of what authenticity and inauthenticity are. Heidegger is quiteclear: they are determinations of the understanding (Versteben); they are thusdeterminations of possibilities. 1 Dasein is composed of possibilities, some ofwhich are appropriate to it, some of which are not. 'Dasein can, proximally andfor the most part, understand itself in terms of its world. Or else understandingthrows itself primarily into the for-the-sake-of-which; that is, Dasein exists asitself. Understanding is either authentic, arising out of one's own self as such, orinauthentic' (BT, p. 186/SZ, p. 146).22

By confining the existentiales, and not just being-with, to the pair ofauthenticity and inauthenticity, thereby occluding the actual facts of death andbirth, Heidegger evinces a metaphysical prejudice which he himself identifies,that of eclipsing mood at the expense of understanding.

Heidegger insists from the very start that 'understanding has a state of mind(Verstehen befindliches ist)' (BT, p. 184/SZ, p. 144), and to demonstrate that he isnot particular, even at this stage, about using the term 'mood' interchangeablywith 'state of mind', 'mood' being officially the ontic form in which 'state ofmind' manifests itself, witness the following: 'A state of mind always has itsunderstanding, even if it merely keeps it suppressed. Understanding always hasits mood' (BT, p. 182/SZ, p. 142). Understanding projects possibilities whichare either authentic or inauthentic. It remains within Ge-rede, the commonarticulation of possibilities. It thus remains and can only remain withinsignificance, within the common and the Symbolic which reduces being-with toindifference.

What the symbolic understanding of being-with misses out is precisely thesingularity of the individual, which is not reducible to the subject-positions theyadopt, a singularity inherent to and yet in excess of the symbolic order. And it isthis singularity that is revealed in mood. If we understand being-with, or indeedany other existentiale, solely in its distribution between its authentic andinauthentic forms, then we are not fully understanding it, for, as Heidegger saysquite clearly, understanding never presents itself without mood. The commonworld of significance is always disclosed from a certain singular perspective. It isthe singularity of our situation within the whole of significance with whichmoods put us in touch. For what, after all, are moods? They are revelations, ways


in which the Da shows itself23 and more precisely, what they reveal is not apossibility but an actuality, a fact: 'mood is an originary kind of being forDasein, in which Dasein is disclosed to itself prior to all cognition (Erkenneri) andvolition (Wollen), and beyond their range of disclosure' (BT, p. 175/SZ, p. 136).Thus it reveals something that exceeds signification and one's capacity to be:one's factual situation within signification itself.

A being-with that exceeds the dualism of authenticity and inauthenticitywould therefore involve the response to a certain /^possibility. To understandbeing-with as an attitude to the other in terms of 'for-the-sake-of-which' is stillto think the other in terms of significance, of their possibilities and powerwithin the symbolic world. The introduction of moods will gradually lead ustowards passivity as man's relation to the other, just as Heidegger came tounderstand our relation to being itself, which in his later work is understood toremain in excess of the Symbolic and to become in a sense identical with the non-anthropic Real, which is also the Impossible.

If it is moods that reveal our singularity, then das Man must prohibit thosemoods which explicitly reveal this singularity and replace them with a mood ofindifference (Gleichgiiltigkeit) (BT, p. 396/SZ, p. 345), which Heideggertendentiously yet convincingly translates into 'dumb suffering' (dumpf Leiden)(BT, p. 422/SZ, p. 371). Those absorbed in indifference constantly feel thissuffering as a veil that mutes the intensity of their lives. They console themselvesthat everyone suffers, that no-one is really happy with their lot, but that theremay nevertheless be a messiah somewhere, and so they resign themselves to whatcards 'fate' has dealt them. What they must remain constitutively unaware of isthat this messiah is none other than death, for death alone could draw them outof their 'suffering'. (But they remain troubled by anxiety, which theymisinterpret as stress, the inadequately stifled form of anxiety.)

Any understanding of being-with within the confines of the problematic ofinauthenticity and authenticity will restrict it to the understanding and hence tointelligibility, and therefore Levinas will have been right: being-with does reducethe Other to the Same. Being-with in fact demonstrates that such a narrowschema as 'authenticity-inauthenticity' is far too narrow ever to do justice to theas yet underdeveloped insights of Heidegger's work. Dasein does not unfoldsolely within the trammels of authenticity and inauthenticity, or (common)significance. What is necessary is to stretch Dasein beyond the confines of theunderstanding and towards the unintelligible, towards that which we touch inthe attunement of mood. Only thus shall we reach Dasein 'proper' and thebeing-with that should be inherent to it.

What we are suggesting is that despite Heidegger's naming the second formof being-with as 'authentic', this being-with in fact relates Dasein to the factsrevealed in mood, which is equally essential to the disclosure of being and thus toDasein. And if this is the case, if the second form of being-with extends Daseinbeyond the Symbolic and towards singularity, then it will no longer be possibleto call it 'authentic'.

32 Being-with

Before we proceed to this extension let us have before us Heidegger's twoprincipal descriptions of 'authentic' solicitude (Fursorge), for they contain theseeds of the destruction of the ontological difference. These, along with thedescription of 'inauthentic' being-with, should be studied repeatedly and withmeticulous care. The first description follows immediately after the descriptionof /'âuthentic solicitude and runs as follows:

There is also the possibility of a kind of solicitude which does not so muchleap in for the other as leap ahead (vorausspringi) of him in his existentiellcapability-of-being, not in order to take away his 'care' but rather to give itback to him properly as such for the first time (erst eigentlich ah solchezuriickzugeben). This kind of solicitude pertains essentially to authentic care —that is, to the existence of the other, not to a 'what' with which he isconcerned; it helps the other to become transparent to himself in his care andto become free for it ... when they devote themselves to the same matter(Sache) in common, their doing so is determined by the manner in which theirDasein, each in its own way, has been taken hold of. They thus becomeproperly bound together (eigentliche Verbundenheit), and this makes possiblethe right relation to matters (die rechte Sachlichkeii), which frees the other inhis freedom for himself. (BT, pp. 158-9/SZ, p. 122)

Crucially, this solicitude rears its head again, and much later, in thediscussion of Dasein's resoluteness, in other words when conscience has broughtDasein to the widest extent of its torn openness, the most complete formation ofits self, which is precisely a point at which one is not authentic but stretchedbetween birth and death to form an existential compound of inauthenticity andauthenticity. This positioning is crucial if we are to understand just what the'with' of being-with joins together and how it resides at the very heart of Dasein,which in a fundamental ontological framework eludes Heidegger but isanticipated in his understanding of 'conscience'. It is therefore a being-with thatHeidegger can (only) gesture towards, in his description of this being-with asconscience:

Dasein's resolute openness to its self is what first makes it possible to let thoseothers who are-with (die mitseienden Anderen) 'be' in their ownmost capability-of-being, and to co-disclose (mitzuerschliefieri) this capability in the solicitudewhich leaps ahead in such a way as to free (der vorspringend-befreienden Fursorge).When Dasein stands resolutely open it can become the 'conscience' of others(Das entschlossene Dasein kann zum 'Gewissen' der Anderen werden). (BT, p. 344/SZ, p. 298)

The consequences of these passages are quite incalculable for Being and Time.By attempting and failing to situate a 'with' at the heart of being's clearing theyblast it apart and cause it to collapse in the direction of its ungrounded


foundation, a collapse that our questioning must follow. We shall see that thissecond form of being-with brings actuality and possibility together in the guiseof death and birth and their existential response in a way that the ontologicaldifference cannot allow, restricting Dasein as it does to the stretch betweenauthenticity and inauthenticity. In this understanding, Dasein as the process ofbeing's manifestation is restricted to the possible and the Symbolic, while theactual motivations and asymptotes of this process must be left outside of thisdiscourse.

But why should we think that there is a being-with that exceeds thedichotomy of authenticity-inauthenticity? Heidegger tells us in The FundamentalConcepts of Metaphysics, as fundamental ontology is on the brink of its radicalrethinking, that mood is our very being-with: 'Mood is not some being thatappears in the soul as an experience, but the way of our being-there-with-one-another (das Wie unseres Niiteinander-Daseins)' (PCM, p. 66/GA 29/30, p. 100).26

It follows from what being-with of the second kind is said to be, conscience,since this conscience is Dasein's very openness to the excess of possibility, toactuality and the singularity of a peculiar finitude. It is the obtrusive presence ofmood in its conscientious togetherness with understanding that points toHeidegger's burgeoning awareness of Dasein's access to this excess and that wemust now examine if we are to understand the way in which being-withultimately spans the gap between Dasein and its other in a way that a discourseon the understanding of being cannot allow but which a thinking of beingeventually will.

Both mood and understanding are ways in which discourse distributes itself,and since conscience, which Heidegger has here identified with the second formof being-with, is the most original form of discourse, being-with must amountto a relation of some kind between understanding and its mood, or the veryprocess of discursivization itself which is a response to something that is notdiscursive, something actual beyond possibility, a being beyond being. Thisbeing-with will therefore lead us to cross the ontological difference itself, whichat this stage is split apart solely by the understanding. We shall see that it is thistogetherness of actuality and possibility, forbidden by the two-part schemaenjoined by the ontological difference, which being-with as conscience will jointogether.

Chapter Two

Beyond Authenticity and Inauthenticity

MOODSUnderstanding projects possibilities. Possibilities are the places or routes withinthe differential scheme of signification which Dasein may occupy. Significationthus refers to the whole of beings in their intelligibility. In contrast to this,moods reveal the way in which understanding is 'thrown', bewildered in the faceof facts over which it has no power. More specifically, they reveal mostessentially our situation within beings as a whole, with respect to which we arepowerless, 'the facticity of being delivered over' (BT, p. 174/SZ, p. 135 —italicized). This is to oppose the metaphysical understanding which claims to becapable of comprehending the whole in apparent indifference to its finitudewhich takes the form of a situation.

Understanding 'never is' without mood, 'we are never free of moods' (BT, p.175/5Z, p. 136). Heidegger will always have acknowledged this, and indeedconscience is precisely the mark of this 'with', but in his early work what he willnot have been in a position to think is precisely how this togetherness works,how an actuality can interact with a possibility, how the ontological differencecomes to be. What goes unthought in the voice of conscience will be thoughtonly later as the voice of being (Seyri).

One is, as Heidegger says, 'always already' in a mood, even when one isseemingly in a state of equanimity or 'indifference'.

Indifference (Gleichgultigkeii), which can go along with busying oneself headover heels, must be sharply distinguished from equanimity (Gleichmui). Thislatter mood springs from resoluteness, which, in a moment of vision, looks atthose situations which are possible in one's capability-of-being-a-whole asdisclosed in our anticipation of death (BT, p. 396/SZ, p. 345).

One will always have been in touch in some way with the 'enigma' uponwhich one's existence depends. Heidegger will understand this thrownness

Beyond Authenticity and Inauthenticity 35

towards enigma, a few years after Being and Time, as Dasein's ineluctablesituation within the whole of beings.1

Since it reveals facts, which are not within the power of Dasein, mood is saidto reveal in the mode of 'turning' (BT, p. 174/SZ, p. 135). We can either facefacts or turn our backs and flee, but in both cases our turning discloses facts,inescapably so.

If mood's addition to the revelation of the whole world of significance isultimately our singularity, and if moods reveal facts, then we must ask whichfacts bestow this singularity upon us? The answer is the non-existential facts ofour birth and death. Famously, anxiety turns us to face death, but Heidegger,showing greater balance than he will elsewhere, is careful to point out thatanxiety never presents itself without a concomitant joy: 'Along with the soberanxiety which brings us face to face with our individualized capability-of-being,there goes an unshakeable joy (gerustete Freude) in this possibility' (BT, p. 358/SZ, p. 310). Anxiety is the mood that faces the fact of death, while joy is themood that turns away from this abyss and faces the comforting maternal securityof birth. Joy's 'unshakeability' alone proves authenticity to be impossible.

Again, the fact that Heidegger mentions 'joy' only twice in Being and Timeindicates the prevalent reading of Being and Time that privileges death and itspossibility to have been encouraged by Heidegger: indeed it is a reading towhich Heidegger himself had necessarily to fall victim.

The most extreme of moods place Dasein in touch with the very sources of itssingularity, its death and birth. Anxiety and joy reveal death and birth preciselyin their unintelligible factuality, in other words they reveal these facts in a wayquite other to that which reveals them in the guise of possibilities, Dasein's being-towards death and birth: they reveal them in their very /^possibility.

Moods are not inessential accidents that come upon a present-at-hand subjectto disturb its pure tranquil beholding, but are equally and in their own waydisclosive. They are an experience of otherness that takes this otherness into one'sambit without sublating it (as a naive reading of Hegelian Aufhebung would haveit), 'a feeling of self in having a feeling for something' (BPP, p. 132/CzA 24, p.187). More precisely, a mood, 'directly uncovers and makes accessible that whichis felt . . . in the sense of a direct having-of-oneself (ibid.). In other words, amood is a direct contact between myself and otherness, existential singularityfacing enigma. Not only can that which mood discloses not be cognised, itcannot even be understood.

Moods reveal our unchosen interpellation in a symbolic network of signifiers,and when this begins to stifle us we feel anxiety, the feeling that our symbolicidentity does not touch upon the heart of our singularity.

Precisely what moods reveal are the factual limits to intelligibility and theydo so in a way that does not 'sublimate' these limits by taking them up in theform of possibilities. This is what understanding does, and if the significancewithin which understanding operates stands for the all-encompassing Symbolic,then moods are the ineliminable remainder which marks the occluded place of

36 Being-with

the Real. If possibilities are intelligible and are at least 'theoretically' withinDasein's power to be (Seinkonneri), then we may say that they are what Levinasdescribes as 'the Same' (le Meme). In this case, the factuality which moods revealmay be said to be that which is 'other' (I'Autre). Moods put us in touch with thevery otherness of the other.

Now that we have been introduced to what moods 'do', we must investigatethe way in which they relate to the understanding, which is where authenticityand inauthenticity have been situated. In this way we shall see how theineliminability of moods modifies the distribution of being-with betweenauthenticity and inauthenticity and instigates the stretching-out of Daseinbetween authenticity and inauthenticity, which is the very opening of existenceitself. We shall see that mood's relation to understanding, which comes about inconscience, is precisely the 'with' of being-with.

THE INCIPIENT FOURFOLD OF BEING AND TIME

There can be no peaceful co-existence between understanding and mood, ratherthey must exist in a state of constant strife, the understanding draggingeverything that is unintelligible or impossible back towards what is significantand possible, the mood resisting stubbornly and bending the trajectory ofprojection back towards the unintelligible opacity of the factual, which resistssymbolization and thus stirs ever new symbolizations. What the understandingattempts to do is to 'possibilize' the actual which moods reveal: it makespossibilities out of actualities. Understanding is the eternal optimist: somethingcan be done even in the face of the most intractable situation. The ultimateextremes of factuality are those unique facts which remain quite ineluctable andwhich exceed our power to choose altogether: birth and death. How doesprojective understanding react to this intolerable thrownness into a birth that isborn to die?

Understanding responds to the facts of birth and death with what I havecalled the 'existential response'. This means both a response that is existential inthat it projects open possibilities and the very cracking open of existence itself.Since the facts of birth and death are unique in that they cannot fully be takenwithin the power of Dasein's ability to be or made into something which Daseincan project beyond, as if to some ulterior purpose of its life, it responds to thesefacts in the form of two asymptotic vectors that in fact form the very structureand limits of its being. These are the vectors of being-towards-death and being -towards-birth or projection and thrownness, which amount to our authenticityand inauthenticity. It is in response to the facts of death and birth thatauthenticity and inauthenticity split apart and remain unified. Thus these twofacts, revealed in mood, indicate authenticity and inauthenticity as a whole toconstitute the nature of Dasein's being. In other words, the facts of birth and


death necessitate a relinquishment of the two-part schema within which Beingand Time is normally confined.

The four elements with which we propose to replace this schema comprise thecompound of authenticity and inauthenticity together with the two facts ofbirth and death which draw these two vectors apart and thereby create them forthe very first time. It is crucial to distinguish between two forms of birth andtwo forms of death, the actual facts and the existential response to these facts.We have seen the existential responses to take the form of inauthenticity andauthenticity; Heidegger's names for factual birth and death are 'indifference'(Indifferenz) (BT, pp. 275-6/SZ, p. 232) and 'the most own' (das Eigenstdkekekekekkour schema encompasses the four elements of indifference, inauthenticity,authenticity, and the most-own: Indifferdkdkkkddkdkdkkdkdalladkdklsddkkddkslkdkdklskskdkkdkdkdkkkd

Mood Understanding Mood(Joy) (Anxiety)

Figure 3. Dasein

This fourfold schema allows us to describe the inner couple enclosed withinthe outer as a compound which is the very process of Dasein itself. It is theprocess of individuation which Being and Time attempts and fails to trace,hampered as it is by the strictures of the separation of being and beingsdemanded by the ontological difference. This process is the formation of a selfand it is initiated by the primordial form of discourse, conscience, which means'being-with'.

DASEIN AS A PROCESS

What had been called 'inauthentic' being-with is in fact a being-with of thosewho remain undifferentiated or 'indifferent'. What true being-with will be, andwhat Heidegger gestures towards through the incorporation of moods and theidentification of being-with and conscience as the original togetherness of moodand understanding, is precisely the process of Dasein's formation as the tug-of-war between authenticity and inauthenticity and the actualities that exceed it.

Being and Time is a treatise on the process of individuation, but it is only withthe help of a fourfold schema that we can understand just how this process isinitiated. It is precisely this latter clause that Heidegger neglected by failing toconsider factuality as a part of being, factuality being situated rather in theposition of being's meaning — the fact of human temporaeity — which leavesunexplained the way in which being is grounded upon this meaning, the process

Indifference Inauthenticity-Authenticity Most own

38 Being-with

of discursivization that takes place between meaning and significations, whichHeidegger only begins to address in his invocation of 'conscience'.

The emergence from indifference amounts to a tearing away of the self fromthe un-individuated, but since one never actually withdraws from undiffer-entiated actuality5 this tearing away will amount to an immanent rent in thefabric of das Man itself. The word Heidegger uses for this rending is 'Entrissen'which refers to the very tearing open of Dasein itself as a site of illuminationwithin the benighted Sameness characterizing indifference. Its holding open,amidst the constant tendency of understanding to fall back into ignorance, isdescribed by Heidegger as 'resoluteness', or 'resolutely holding open anopenness' (Entschlossenheit). It is characterized by 'devotion' and will amount tothe retention of an exemplary existential singularity.

That this tearing away never amounts to a clean break explains Heidegger'sspecification of the tearing as a 'stretching' (Erstreckung) in 'the way in whichDasein stretches between birth and death (Erstreckung des Daseins zwischen Geburtund Tod)' (BT, p. 425/SZ, p. 373). Actuality is brittle; Dasein is pliant. Whatmust be emphasized again and again is the fact that any process of stretchingalways tends towards at least two asymptotic points, two ends towards which itreaches out. If Dasein is constituted entirely of possibilities, then theseasymptotes must be pure actualities, and it is these that must be taken intoaccount in any understanding of being-with which prevents itself from beingunderstood in terms of the simple dichotomy of authenticity and inauthenticity,which leaves their 'withness' unexplained.

In order to correct the erroneous emphasis commonly placed on death inHeidegger, let us allow his invocation of birth to sound and resound. The secondpassage in particular is crucial for an understanding of the way in whichHeidegger is attempting to conceive Dasein as a process.

But death is only the 'end' of Dasein; and, taken formally, it is just one of theends by which Dasein's totality is closed round. The other 'end', however, isthe 'beginning', the 'birth'. Only that entity which is 'between' birth anddeath presents the whole which we have been seeking. Accordingly theorientation of our analytic has so far remained 'one-sided' . . . Being-towards-the-beginning remained unnoticed; but so too, and above all (my emphasis]has the way in which Dasein stretches along between birth and death. (BT, p.425/SZ, p. 373)

Dasein does not fill up a track or stretch 'of life' — one which is somehowpresent-at-hand - with the phases of its momentary actuality. It stretches itsself along in such a way that its own being is constituted in advance as astretching-along. The 'between' which relates to birth and death already liesin the being of Dasein. On the other hand, it is by no means the case thatDasein 'is' actual in a point of time, and that, apart from this, it is'surrounded' by the non-actuality of its birth and death. Understood


existentially (my emphasis}, birth is not and never is something past in thesense of something no longer present-at-hand; and death is just as far fromhaving the kind of being of something still outstanding, not yet present-at-hand but coming along. Factical Dasein exists as born; and, as born, it isalready dying, in the sense of being-towards-death. As long as Daseinfactically exists, both the 'ends' and their 'between' are, and they are in theonly way which is possible on the basis of Dasein's being as care. Thrownness[i.e. being-towards-birth] and that being-towards-death in which one eitherflees it or anticipates it, form a unity; and in this unity birth and death are'connected' (hangen ... zusammeri) in a manner characteristic of Dasein. Ascare, Dasein is the 'between'. (BT, pp. 426-7/SZ, p. 374)

To think of Dasein as alternating between two states, authenticity andinauthenticity, is to remain one-sided. Dasein is rather the stretch that opens arent in the continuum of beings, a betweenness that allows it genuinely to beunderstood as being-witb. This would be the 'more originary' understanding ofDasein than that which describes its exclusively authentic existence, whichHeidegger alludes to just once in Being and Time: 'Can Dasein be understood in away that is more originary than in the projection of its authentic existence?' (BT,p. 424/SZ, p. 372 — my emphasis) Given that this question immediatelyprecedes the passages on birth, the answer is quite certainly 'yes'.

Since Dasein is this always unstable tearing it may be described as a process.Dasein is not a fully formed individual but a happening, a 'Gescheheri: 'Thespecific movement of Dasein's stretched-out stretching of its self we call its"happening" (Die spezifische Bewegtheit des erstreckten Sicherstreckens nennen wirdas Geschehen des Daseins)' (BT, p. 427/SZ, p. 375). One's self is very far frombeing a subject, an unshakeable ground for beings as a whole but is rather anindividual always in the process of becoming.

What must constantly be borne in mind is the fact that Dasein is simply notthe actuality of an individual man. It is defined precisely in opposition to thisindividual. It is the individual man stretched beyond himself towards theimpossible poles of birth and death in such a way that his possibilities areprojected towards death and this projection thrown back towards commonsignificance to form the loop of his self in 'care'. In other words, Dasein existsbetween individuality (projection) and commonality (thrownness) and is not anindividual but the always incomplete process of individuation. Dasein is formedin the between of indifference and isolation, sameness and difference. The veryprocess of the formation of Dasein is spurred by conscience, the second form ofbeing-with, and thus conscience and being-with in turn must embody a certaintogetherness of possibility and actuality, existence and facts, if they are toexplain the origination of the one in the other.

The process of Dasein's stretching beyond the punctate man is understood byHeidegger as a repetition,7 since man as finite will already have been the site ofbeing's possible manifestation: Dasein simply repeats manhood. It is in the

40 Being-with

repetition of a being that selfhood first arises. It is this novel repetition inherentto the folds of temporal existence as it bounces from impossibility toimpossibility that shapes the undulation of history in early Heidegger (seeFigure 2 on p. 29).

History as a sequence of events and lulls is thus made possible by therepetition of man's actual birth and death in the existential form of 'Dasein'.The self (Dasein) is the origin of history, that moment within being whichensures the possibility of novelty. In other words, it is man's finitude, a finitudeessential to beings as a whole, that creates a space in which a new organizingprinciple of the whole might emerge. 'Authentic being towards death, which isto say the finitude of temporality, is the concealed ground (verborgene Grund) ofthe historicality of Dasein' (BT, p. 438/SZ, p. 386). Only through repetition isthere history. There must be a space of finitude within the totality and thistotality must relate to this finitude in order for history to happen as a new worldof signification is developed in order to symbolize and thus cope with the void ofdeath. In other words, at this point in Heidegger's trajectory, history isgrounded on man's finitude.

Why are we straying into the realms of history in a treatise on being-with?Because it is at the point of 'historicization' that Heidegger broaches thepolitical form of being-with, the 'nation' (Volk), and the relation between ethicsand politics. It is also crucial to the 'turn', since Heidegger acknowledges thatthe two principal motivations for this turn were precisely history and politicsand it is in 1|74 of Being and Time that these two are linked. History, initiallyunderstood to be founded on the individual Dasein, insofar as its individualtemporality is understood in relation to beings (fallenness), later becomesidentified with being itself (Seyri) as the historical variations of givenness. Ifhistory is understood to be external to being and to amount to its fall into theontic as the symbolization of the void, then collective historical politics willsuffer from the same falling relation with the ethics of the individual temporalDasein. In other words, the relation between ethics and politics will be mimetic.The political will simply be modelled upon the ethical, its structures copied fromthe organization of the individual human being, a way which leads to 'thePeople' of totalitarianism. This is the essence of the early Heidegger's Platonicunderstanding of politics. What is necessary to a thinking of politics is tounderstand it in a way that differs from and yet is not unrelated to ethics.

Since history is founded upon a repetition, it may be understood as destiny.History is destined to us because history is formed through the repetition whichconstitutes the self and makes of its actual singularity a novel set of possibilitiesin response to its powerlessness:

If Dasein, by anticipation, lets death become powerful in itself, then, as freefor death, Dasein understands itself in its own superior power (Ubermacht), thepower of its finite freedom, so that in this freedom, which 'is' only in its

Beyond Authenticity and Inauthenticity

having chosen to make such a choice, it can take over the powerlessness(Ohnmacht) of abandonment to its having done so. (BT, p. 436/SZ, p. 384)

In other words, Dasein exists as a process, it dkdkdkdkkdkddkdkdkdkdkdkrepetition, and what is repeated in this repetition is man's actual birth anddeath. These are repeated in such a way as to make of them existentialpossibilities. In this repetition, Dasein is shaped from out of the actuality of man.In this way one can see why this repetition is a 'fateful' one, because these factsare indeed the 'fate' of us all. The questionable move that Heidegger then makesis to render this 'fate' (Schicksal) the 'destiny' (Geschick) of a nation, shifting fromthe ethical to the political register, barely pausing to draw breath:

But if fatddkdllslsldldldlslsllsldldldldldlddldldlslsdldldlls;aldldlldflflflllldldlldldlldldlin being-with with others, its happening is a with's happening (Mitgescheheri)and is determinative for it as destiny (Geschick). This is how we designate thehappening of the community, of a nation. (BT, p. 436/SZ, p. 384)

Thus in the space of two sentences, Nazism is licensed, and licensed preciselythrough an invocation of being-with passing without mediation from the ethicalto the political. I shall argue that it is due to the unthought relation betweenbeing and beings as a whole, a relation marked in later Heidegger by the 'thing',that Heidegger is forced to understand being-with according to an identicallogic at both the ethical and the political levels. This understanding of politics isclearly present in the rhetoric of Heidegger's political speeches of the early1930s and it is just as clearly an embarrassment to and betrayal of what laterbecomes of his thought. What sense can it make for Heidegger to transfer thedeath of the individual to the level of the polls, which is characterized preciselyby its endurance beyond the death of its members? This failure to differentiateethics and politics makes it clear that Heidegger's thought of the ontologicaldifference does not provide sufficient resources for thinking the originality of the'with' to being. This would mean to think being as precisely the 'with' itselffrom which history wells, a point of differentiation more original than ethics andpolitics but joining them in an original intimacy rather than through themimetic relation of 'falling'.

In Heidegger's acknowledgement that it was precisely his traumatic politicalengagement and understanding of history that stirred the future windings of histhought do we not find his admission that the problem of being-with wasprecisely the motivation for the crossing of his thought?

It is this problematic of the original 'with', the togetherness of authenticityand inauthenticity, which is broached in Heidegger's thought of conscience andwhich shall be brought out clearly by our violent imposition of a four-partreading of Being and Time. Conscience is the very process of the discursivizationof the actual facts of birth and death in the sense that it is the call of theseactualities and at the same time an existential response to them. This process is

jds

42 Being-with

precisely the arising of Dasein itself, the opening of the ontological difference,which is thus foreshadowed in this crucial analysis.

This is where the second kind of being-with has brought us, beyond theintelligible existential process of authenticity and inauthenticity to the questionof how this existence is to be roused from out of indifference. This occursthrough the intrusion of singularity, a startling encounter between twoabsolutely unintelligible facts, birth and death, the indifferent and the mostown.

What brings the stifling indifference of the Symbolic to light is precisely thefact of death, since death as absolutely our own simply cannot adequately besymbolized. Existence occurs when the stroke of death reaches into indifference.This is to say that singularity is premised not only upon death but upon death'srelation to birth, which is the indifference of the ontic totality to thedifferentiation of being.

From the full positivity and presence of the fallen understanding that remainsabsorbed in the actuality of das Man, thoroughly lacking in individuation andunderstanding itself wholly in terms of presence — possessions, and one's presentposition within a symbolic network — what is required is the intrusion of anegativity. A nothingness must be shown to man in order to bring to light thenull basis of the positivity of the present-at-hand. This nothingness is death,which shows up the nothingness of birth, the two unchosennesses which boundand condition our presence and power. These are the two nothingnesses or'negativities' with regard to which we must remain powerless and passive. Theyamount to that for which we are 'guilty' (schuldig). What calls us to our guilt andintrudes on our oblivious absorption in the positivity of indifference is thenagging voice of conscience (Gewissen). This indifference is precisely the state of'consciencelessness' within which we have the impression of being good or evil,while these determinations are in fact secondary to the real question of ourexistencdkdkdkdkkdkddkdkkdkdddddddddddkdkdkkdkdkdkkdksldkdkdkkdkddkdwithout conscience.

If conscience is the formation of Dasein in response to an actuality thatremains outside it, and if Heidegger describes being-with as 'conscience', then inthis problematic we witness Heidegger's inchoate attempt to render the 'with'crucial and originary to being itself. We shall thus devote some time to thenature of conscience, which, like being-with, is often misunderstood, in order tomake clear that it is a voice that spans actuality and possibility and therefore thevery ontological difference itself.

CONSCIENCE CALLS

Conscience is Heidegger's incipient thought of the differentiation of theontological difference (Seyn). If being-with is conscience then 'being' and the'with' are to become co-originary in Heidegger's later thought. Being will be

Beyond Authenticity and Inauthentidty 43

that which ensures that every whole is an open one, that something will alwayselude the totality and open it onto an excessive element. The excess thatHeidegger will introduce to the significant 'world' is, famously, the 'earth'.15 Ifworld is understood, then the movement of the earth is felt. This excess is preciselythe blind spot of metaphysics as Heidegger understands it and is accessed inmood. This blind spot is precisely a matter of situatedness, of 'roots'.

In Being and Time, the human being is understood to be that entity whichholds the place of being (in its 'understanding of being') and is thus the soleproprietor of this open wholeness. This is in spite of the fact that Heidegger'svery invocation of mood has begun to point us towards the open wholeness ofthe world, the inherence of a singular distortion, of a limit to the world'sintelligibility, inevitable given the situatedness of Dasein within signification.The finite openness of the world (being) is nevertheless still grounded in ourfinitude. Thus finitude alters the way in which beings appear (to us).

What is it that testifies to this possibility of being a whole in a way proper toDasein, which as we have seen means man insofar as he is open to those facts thatexceed his power to be and thus render his wholeness 'open? Heidegger asks,'can Dasein also exist properly as a whole (eigentlich ganz existieren)?' and heanswers,'... a proper capability-of-being (eigentlkben Seinkimnens) is attested byconscience (BT, p. 27775Z, p. 234 - my emphasis). Dasein's wholeness must beconstituted by an openness to its excess, which implies that there must be anexcess, and conscience must therefore be what draws our attention to ourdependence upon something that exceeds our power.

Conscience is a call or rather a calling. It is a constant trope in Heidegger'sthought that a call (Ruf) is a beckoning {Erwinken). More precisely, it is abeckoning made by something that withdraws from us, for when somethingwithdraws this movement of withdrawal always directs us to follow it. Thewhirlpool tempts us into the abyss. The calling that is the beckoning ofwithdrawal invariably evokes our own 'calling' in the sense oddlsllslsllsdldldlslslsllsDasein is the existential stretch between authenticity and inauthenticity, apower to be, then what withdraws from Dasein? That over which it has no power.Actuality. Facts. Those facts that remain always in recession and can never beincorporated into the possible are the facts of birth and death. Birth and deathforever withdraw from Dasein. When Dasein is there, they are not, and whenthey are there, Dasein is not (Epicurus). The name of the beckoning call of theirwithdrawal from our power is 'conscience'. Our response to conscience is what Ihave called the 'existential response' of being-towards-birth and being-towards-e birth) exists for Dasein only in the form of 'an existentiellbeing-towards-deatti (BT, p. 277/SZ, p. 234).

44 Being-with

CONSCIENCE AS THE ORIGIN OF DISCOURSE

Conscience is 'a primordial kind of discourse (Rede)' (BT, p. 342/SZ, p. 296).'Discourse' or discursivization is an articulation of possibilities; but conscience isthe beckoning of /^possibilities and so, if it is to be the production ofpossibilities and thus discourse then it must be concomitant with a response. Ifmoods place us in touch with actuality and understanding projects possibilitieson the basis of these actualities then in conscience we witness a short circuitbetween mood and understanding, and since these are the manners in whichdiscourse occurs, conscience is in this sense the very origin of discourse as such.It is the translation of the Real into the Symbolic.

Conscience itself is the very beckoning of actuality and is thus 'silent' anddoes not constitute any possibilities by itself. It will never be within man'spower.15 But the response to conscience's silent beckoning will amount to theprojection of possibilities and for this reason we can understand what Heideggersays in the pivotal [34 of Being and Time, on discourse: 'Hearing and silence(Horen und Schweigen) are possibilities belonging to discursive speech (redendenSprecheri). In these phenomena the constitutive function of discourse for theexistentiality of existence (Existenzialitdt der Existenz) becomes entirely plain forthe first time' (BT, p. 204/5Z, p. 161). It is in conscience that silence andhearing are primordially linked together and it is only in their link, when silentactuality is translated into vocal possibility, that existence first comes to be.Conscience is thus the origin of existence. In this passage we witness perhaps theonly instance of the word 'existentiality' in the entire book. The discussion ofconscience is seen here quite clearly to be an attempted explanation of theprocess of discursivization, the articulation of meaning into significance and theway in which this signifying system produces a 'self, Dasein. The passages onconscience may therefore be read, with the licence of ^[34, as an explanation ofthe genesis of existence itself, which Heidegger elsewhere describes solely in itsalready constituted structures, the existentiales.

Conscience is thus the original splitting apart of actuality and existence, thearising of a site for being (Dasein) within the undifferentiated mass of beings as awhole.

By following the beckoning of conscience, projection is drawn towards apossibility which das Man cannot abide, simply because it cannot be actualizedfor Dasein, and this means to enter the symbolic network of common possibilities.'Das Man never dies, because it can not die' (BT, p. 477ISZ, p. 424). This is theparadox of death it is nothing but an actuality, and the most undeniableactuality of our inescapable fate, and yet for each one of us it will never be actual,we shall never become it, and thus the only way in which it can enter our lives isthrough the peculiar organization of our possibilities. It is to this organizationthat Heidegger devotes the greater part of his attention, under the heading'being-towards-death', which presents the misleading picture that actual deathplays no role here. Conscience demonstrates that it does.


In response to the anonymous event of death, which cannot be owned, one canchoose one's own self, a singularity that amounts to a set of existentialpossibilities, a possible response to impossible actuality. The response toconscience, which never lives up to or attains the actuality herein called is,Heidegger tells us, a desiring. Dasein strives, desiring to hear the call, desiringconscience without ever being able to reach the nullities to which it beckons.Heidegger describes the proper response to conscience, one that 'understands' its'meaning', as Gewissen-haben-wollen or desire for conscience: 'Understanding theappeal (Anrufverstehen) means wanting to have conscience (Gewissen-haben-wollen)'(BT, p. 334/SZ, p. 288).

Existence is fundamentally desire. This is a desire to approach that which isbeyond existence, the nullifying Real of the facts of birth and death. This desiretakes the form of being-towards, a striving that lasts for as long as Dasein exists.One is passive with regard to these facts and therefore the only adequate responseto them is the desire to be ever more in touch with this passivity. Thrownprojection is the tendency of Dasein to translate what is actual into what ispossible, into something which Dasein 'can-be'. Thrownness is precisely Dasein'spassivity with regard to that which projection projects towards. In opposition tothis tendency to reduce everything to sameness and significance, the desire forconscience desires contact with the other as other.

Heidegger consistently describes Dasein's receptiveness to possibilities interms of the sense of hearing and for this reason in terms of 'sound'. Gerede isnoisy intrusive chatter1 but primordial discourse (Rede), conscience, silenced bydas M.an, is silent (schweigen). It is silent because it will always be betrayed whenit comes to be articulated in terms of possibilities that are common to everyonesince the possibilities which it articulates are precisely singular ones. One mustbe careful to distinguish conscience from its existential response here:conscience, insofar as it is the beckoning of man towards his death, discoursesin the mode of silencing (Schweigen), but conscience, insofar as it is the reflexivedesire for conscience, in other words insofar as we respond to conscience, isdiscreet or reticent (verschwiegen) and traces out possibilities with its voice:'Conscience discourses (redet) solely and constantly in the mode of silence(Schweigen). In this way it not only loses none of its perceptibility, but forces theDasein which has been appealed to and summoned (das an- und aufgerufeneDasein), into the reticence (Verschwiegenheit) of itself (BT, p. 318/SZ, p. 273). Itsself is precisely reticence or the evocation of possibilities in response to thatwhich remains impossible. Ver-schwiegen-heit is, as it were, the more active formof bespeaking silence, a rendering discursive that constitutes the formation ofthe singular existential self. 'Dasein . . . is called back into the stillness of itself(Stille seiner selbst)' (BT, p. 343/SZ, p. 296), which means, 'into the reticence ofits self tyerschwiegenheit seiner selbst)' (BT, p. 318/SZ, p. 273). Dasein is silencetranslated into words, actuality made to speak as possibility. The facts of birthand death belong to no-one, but our response to them can transform thisanonymity into our singular belonging.

46 Being-with

Death comes to everyone the same. It would therefore seem to reduce us all tothe same level of disgusting senescence, but what such resignation fails to see isthat this threat of sameness calls upon us precisely to assume the burden of thisanonymous fatality — 'one dies' — and to make a singular riposte, a call back, torepeat that which will happen anyway: 'The repetition makes a retort (erwidert)to the possibility of that existence which has-been-there (dagewesenen Existenz). . . it is at the same time a disavowal (Widerruf, a call back) of that which in the"today" is working itself out as the "past"' (BT, p. 438/SZ, p. 386). Theresponse to conscience projects a singular cluster of possibilities within theSymbolic in response to the impossibility of death: to make the impossiblepossible is Heidegger's definition of 'heroism'. One cannot be certain when theend will come and it is this incalculability that comes to the fore in theencouragement of the singular response in contrast to resignation.

If being is founded upon man's finitude then this means that man's finitude isthe meaning (Sinn) of being: 'a "ground" becomes accessible only as meaning,even if it is itself the abyss (Abgrund) of meaninglessness' (BT, p. 194/SZ, p.152). Man's death is precisely such an abyss. According to Heidegger, Sinn mustalways be translated into Bedeutung, which means that the senseless finitude ofman must open up the Da of Sein. The unrepresentable finitude of manarticulates (rederi) itself as the significance of a world, an intelligibility which isalways viewed from a certain position within the whole. In other words, the factsof birth and death that ensure man's unreckonable finitude never exist without acertain discursive response. This response is the existential response or theunderstanding and desire of conscience. Understanding is always a matter ofprojecting possibilities. 'Dasein is in every case what it can be, and in the way inwhich it is its possibility' (BT, p. 183/SZ, p. 143) and '{t}he kind of being whichDasein has, as capability-of-being, lies existentially in understanding' (ibid.). Tounderstand conscience is to make of our passivity a power, an ability that we canbe: '(understanding is the being of such capability-of-being' (BT, p. 183/SZ, p.144). The understanding of conscience is thus an empowering of ourselves inresponse to powerlessness.17 It is a repetition and an affirmation of our finitude.But why should we affirm this? At least because it will happen anyway and weare powerless to stop it and without its repetition our birth and death will havebeen identical to a billion others. The ethical response to such anonymity, andthat means the response which allows being a clearing, is to make of ourpowerlessness a power, to enhance this powerlessness.

Ethical existential response is a moment at which we decide to choose theunchosen nullity on which our existence depends, to hear more of ourpowerlessness. Dasein's most basic power is therefore the power to open itselfto its own powerlessness. This is its most fundamental 'ethic' and it will resonatethroughout the entire length of Heidegger's work. If ethics for Heidegger meansto dwell in the nearness of being, then man must enjoy the power to respond tohis own powerlessness.


Our singularity is the empowerment of our powerlessness: the irony of Daseinis that its singularity must be expressed in general terms and betrayedsymbolically. Our finitude, the source of our possible singularity, is a fact, andthe transmogrification of this fact into possibilities is the very essence of our'existential response' to the conscience that draws us towards these mysteriousnegativities.

The certainty (Gewifiheif) of which conscience (Gewisseri) reminds us is thatbirth has happened and death will happen and we cannot rely on three score yearsand ten in which to project our lives irrespective of what we have been given.This is a certain uncertainty which we constantly forget in the temptation of theidle planning of 'idle talk', as das Man or that which never dies. In light of thisforgetting we must constantly resolve to recall. All that is necessary in order toadd to our certainty (that death will happen) a certain uncertainty (but we do notknow when) is to join mood to the understanding, for it is this mood thatconscience imposes upon us. More specifically, it opens us to the anxiety thatfaces up to absolute unintelligibility. Anxiety is caused by the suppression ofsingularity in the symbolic order and, as psycho-analysis concurs, anything canset it off: 'Anxiety can arise in the most innocuous of situations' (BT, p. 234/SZ,p. 189).1 In the anxiety for which conscience prepares us, 'Dasein opens itself toa constant threat arising out of its own Da' (BT, p. 310/5Z, p. 265). This threatis that the Da itself will close, and only an actuality, not an existentiality, couldthreaten this closure, only something in the face of which we are powerless, andthus, 'in this state-of-mind, Dasein finds itself face to face (vor) with the"nothing" of the possible impossibility of its existence' (BT, p. 310/5Z, p. 266).

Conscience is the way in which Dasein echoes death, inculcates itssenselessness and makes sense of its beckoning, which would lead us into theabyss of senselessness.

It is because conscience is nothing without its response that it is said to callboth 'from me and yet from beyond me (BT, p. 320/5Z, p. 275). Birth and deathare 'beyond me' and beckon in conscience but Dasein is the (existential) responseto these facts, a response which thus comes 'from me'. Conscience is its ownresponse and the originally repressed (death) is nothing besides its return(existential dying). Since death cannot enter the scheme of significance — 'dasMan cannot die' — it draws us away from this significance. But one can neverescape significance, so what sense does this drawing have? Withdrawing inHeidegger means precisely to 'withdraw into oneself and always to encounterthere somebody that one did not expect to find. It is a withdrawing which isincomplete, that draws with it a certain element of that from which it withdraws,which then acts as a sign pointing into the withdrawing void (WCT, pp. 8—9/WHD, pp. 5—6). In withdrawing from significance one excepts oneself from theworld without moving outside of it, and one withdraws in response to thatexcess which refuses to be integrated into the Symbolic and thus stirs ourunderstanding to make sense of this excess by projecting possibilities that

48 Being-with

attempt — by constant alteration — to capture and be true to our real singularitydonated by death while remaining within common significance.

Dasein does not exist without conscience any more than it can exist withoutbeing born to die, and therefore it is misleading to suggest that man can everexist in blissful indifference without the singular intrusion of conscience. Hecannot. What is repressed returns precisely because it is repressed, and sinceconscience is always already happening and is indeed concomitant with the veryformation of one's 'self, any response to conscience which causes us symbolicallyto become who we are will always amount to a repetition.

A metaphysical bias on the part of the ontological difference itself will havecaused Heidegger to understand this repetition as a form of 'authenticity' or self-appropriation on the part of the individual human being which has given rise tothe reading of Being and Time within the trammels of the two-part schema ofinauthenticity and authenticity. But it is precisely this repetition which isnecessary if we are to keep the reflexive loop of the self open. It causes thisreflexivity constantly to modify itself, to avoid falling back into indifference.Man was already the negativity within beings as a whole that could allow themto manifest themselves and open 'being' as their very presentation, he wasalready characterized by disclosedness (Erschlossenheit); to repeat this self byremaining constantly open to the possibility of the collapse of this singular spaceis explicitly to seize upon this openness and to live it as one's very task, at anever greater pitch of intensity and with an explicit willingness. This would be theethical repetition of one's state and is called Entschlossenheit or 'resolute openness',a disclosedness that is constantly resolved upon. It is ultimately conscience thatcalls us to this repetition.

VORLAUFEN AND ENTSCHLOSSENHEIT

Perhaps the most important place in which Heidegger begins to question thevery foundation on which fundamental ontology is based is in Division Two,Chapter Three of Being and Time. Here Heidegger asks the question, 'How arethese two phenomena of anticipation (Vorlaufen) and resoluteness (Entschlossen-heit) to be brought together? . . . What can death and the "concrete situation" ofacting (Handeln) have in common?' (BT, p. 349/SZ, p. 302), which is preciselyto ask how the discursivizing of conscience can happen. This questioning is alsomanifest at innumerable other points, for instance in the invocation of birth, ofjoy, the constant refrain of authenticity and inauthenticity as 'modifications'9

and of course, most of all, the point around which all of these condense andwhich allows the others to form a coherent constellation: conscience or thesecond form of being-with. Here the relation between death and the opening of acrack in indifference is mooted, the cleft which conscience prises apart andwherein it dwells.

dkskdkskkdsk

Beyonldldlldld

Vorlaufedkdkkdkdkdkdkkdkddkkdkdkdkkdkdkdkdkdkkdkdkddkdkdkkdkdkkdkdkdkdkdkkdkdkkddkthe existential being-towards-death but that which stimulates it, the awaiting ofthe actual event of death which will always already have traumatized us andwhich will necessitate the rewriting of the very co-ordinates of the possible. Onemight say that 'anticipation', with its always disavowed etymology of'grasping',is in fact the perfect translation of what is intended here since we are speaking ofthe way in which an impossible fact is always prematurely grasped and broughtwithin the possible.

In asking after this anticipatory grasp, Heidegger is asking how the possiblerelates to the actual. 'Resoluteness does not withdraw from actuality(Wirklichkeit) but discovers first what is factically possible; and it does so byseizing upon it in whatever way is possible for it as its ownmost capability-of-being in das Man (BT, p. 346/SZ, p. 299)- And it is for this reason and notbecause of any 'decisionism' that Heidegger says, '{o}n what is it to resolve?Only the resolution itself can give the answer' (BT, p. 345/5Z, p. 298).Possibilities are for Heidegger always 'factical possibilities' (ibid.) and facts arealways to become possibilities in repetition: 'anxiety brings one back to one'sthrownness as something possible which can be repeated' (BT, p. 394/SZ, p. 343).Conscience, in other words, opens up the possibilities of the actual.

The response to conscience which desires more conscience is a repetition.Conscience calls to us our singularity, and our existential response to this call isto repeat this singularity in a way that empowers us by allowing us to expressthe singularity of our lives in terms of the symbolic possibilities that we are. Inother words, existence is a repetition, and a repetition which produces adifference. The vector of projection is thrust forwards until it meets theimpossibility of death and is thus thrown back towards common significance. Itis on the return vector that we see the Real of death undergoing itssymbolization, the actual made possible. What is crucial to see is that the returnof the vector returns to the same point, but in such a way that the vector haslooped around or turned back upon itself. And this return is the reflexive loop ofthe 'self. The self is the process of the repetition of one's singularity. The self isDasein.

While insisting on the equal necessity of birth and death one must also becareful to distinguish them, inasmuch as one is for the most part sunk inindifference, which is to say in a projection of possibilities which is inauthenticin comporting itself solely towards birth. And death alone is that which can,when encountered, draw projection outside of this immanence in a 'vertical'direction, to begin the process of existential individuation which is the veryformation of the Da. We are singular not in being born and dying, sinceeveryone is born and dies; what can be singular is our response to these facts.

We relate to actual birth and death passively, but this is a passivity which wemust choose since it is our own and this ownership is inescapable. We are calledto choose and appropriate it. We do not choose 'authenticity' but rather wechoose to be these flexing vectors of the authentic-inauthentic compound rather

50 Being-with

than to remain in indifference. This 'rather than' indicates the sense of preferencethat is operative here: it is a 'choice'. Why are we forced to make a choice to bean individual rather than to remain in the comfortable state of oblivion?Precisely because we are individuals already. The choice is a forced choice, forcedupon us by the urgency of death. A forced choice is one which has already beenmade for us and which we can only re-take. This is why Heidegger says that inthis case we 'retake a choice (Nachholen einer Wahl)' (BT, p. 313/SZ, p. 268). Weare singularities already, insofar as this singularity is donated to us by birth anddeath. But it is precisely these facts that the indifferent das Man must occlude ifit is to constitute itself. So we must resist this occlusion. And we ask yet again:whence the force of this imperative? It issues from the facts that we are to die andwe have been born.

It is remarkable that Heidegger should have been accused of, and indeedfallen victim to, the privileging of the individual whose isolation occurs in theactual event of their death, when in fact the majority of Being and Time isdedicated to an analysis of everydayness, das Man, which knows no death at alland is concerned solely with the ambit of birth. And similarly it is remarkablethat he is accused of ignoring the other when he attributes the most importantform of death — factual death — solely to this other!

Being-with as conscience is the process of symbolization that finds its pivot inthe distinction within conscience between call and response, which meansultimately the originary joining of the fact and its symbolization, asymbolization that produces possibilities which are in some way peculiar toeach of us. Conscience is thus the origin of the process of individuation whichoccurs in response to the anonymous and indifferent facts of birth and death. Forthis reason Heidegger can say: 'Death individualizes ... in such a manner that... it makes Dasein, as being-with, have some understanding of the capability-of-being of others' (BT, p. 309/5Z, p. 264—my emphasis), precisely becauseDasein's singularity can be expressed only in common terms.

What Heidegger found himself unable to say in Being and Time was thatmoods are in fact the very origin of understanding in revealing the unintelligiblefact which must be made intelligible by understanding. The only moment inHeidegger's early discourse which approaches this thought of discursivization isthat of conscience and therefore being-with.

The chapter of Being and Time concerned with the relation betweenanticipation and resolute openness effectively demonstrates Heidegger'sincipient thinking of the relation between conscience and its existentialresponse or between actuality and possibility. In other words, it broaches thetopic of the ontological difference itself and points towards the need to rethinkit. Insofar as being-with is conscience, it will do the same, as we have insisted.

To ask how the inauthentic-authentic compound relates to the extremes of theindifferent and the most-own, or how being relates to its meaning, is to ask howa significant whole relates to the fact of its givenness and thus to question itsfactuality and givenness as such. It is to ask what happens when death as the


most own intrudes upon indifference, as a stranger in the midst of the homelyand the comfortable. Anxious joy relates us to this uncanny guest.

CONSCIENCE-ANXIETY-RESOLUTENESS

If conscience is to draw indifference out into the form of the existential between ofauthenticity and inauthenticity then we must counter the misunderstandingthat conscience leads us to authenticity alone. As we have stressed throughoutand as we shall explore in the conclusion to this chapter, this misunderstandingcould not have been avoided given that the site of being is in early Heideggerconfined to man on the basis of his finitude and thus the relation to beingunderstood to be a matter of Wf-appropriation. But what matters is todemonstrate that conscience is precisely an element within Heidegger's textwhich subverts this very understanding. In this section we shall examine thetextual evidence that Heidegger did not understand conscience to be a call toauthenticity and certain clues that indicate this understanding to be untenable.

As discourse, conscience has both a mood and an understanding. The mood ofconscience is broadly speaking the anxiety that opens us to nothingness, whilethe understanding is the desire for conscience, the translation of death (andbirth) into existential possibilities. Conscience as the beckoning of deathdemands the response that we be ready for the revelation of death beyondunderstanding, which occurs by way of anxiety. Anxiety is the relation we haveto singularity, occluded by our interchangeable symbolic identities. It thereforeexists between the Real and the Symbolic, a response to the way in which theReal can present itself only within the Symbolic and a mark of the fact that, viceversa, the Symbolic is always a response to the Real: anxiety marks our uncannydwelling between the two.

It is crucial to notice that conscience is not simply anxious, which wouldmean that it called us to a state of utter isolation. Rather, conscience opens us tothe possibility of anxiety. To respond to death in the projection of possibilities isto be prepared for an encounter with the actual fact which these projections bothrepress and indicate. This existential empowering amounts to our 'readiness foranxiety', which means not shirking it or lying prostrate before it but beingprepared (BT, p. 343/SZ, p. 297). We can do nothing about anxiety but we can beprepared for it to happen and desire it.

If conscience 'frees us' for anxiety in the way of opening the sway of ourpossibilities, and being-with is 'conscience', then we can understand whyHeidegger uses this revealing construction in his description of the second formof being-with as what 'frees the other' for himself (BT, pp. 158—9/SZ, p. 122).This means that it opens up the possibility of a singular response to theanonymous facts of birth and death which conscience demands that we face upto. The first stage of this freeing is precisely the sharing of those moods that turnus towards the facts of birth and death: joy and anxiety. I understand the sharing

52 Being-with

of these two, the intermediary of anxiety and joy, to be love, a love whichHeidegger specifies, perhaps without warrant, as philia or 'friendship'.23

But to experience these moods is not yet to formulate a significant andsingular response. These moods, and precisely in their unusual combination, aremerely a preparation for this. Anxiety attunes us not to singularity but to thesource of singularity, the nullities of Dasein's finitude. Therefore, in order toreach the stage of anxiety one must first be opened to the fact that the symbolicorder stifles our singularity, and this is the task of conscience.

Conscience readies us for anxiety. With the understanding that createspossibilities and the mood that turns us towards the actuality which opens thesway of these possibilities we reach the state of 'resolute openness'(Entschlossenheit). For this reason, the anxiety for which conscience readies us issaid not to be identical with resoluteness but rather to precede it and make itpossible: 'But even though the present of anxiety is held on to, it does not as yethave the character of the moment of vision, which temporalizes itself inresolution. Anxiety merely brings one into the mood for a possible resolution(Entschlufly (BT, p. 394/SZ, p. 344), and even resoluteness is not authenticitybut rather the balance between authenticity and inauthenticity, which unique'mixture' amounts to Dasein's singular self. When Heidegger says, 'Anxietybrings Dasein face to face with its being free for ... the authenticity of its being'(BT, p. 232/5"Z, p. 188) we should be careful to read this 'free'. Mood is neveralone in its disclosure: understanding is required, and this is why the anxietythat precedes resoluteness and which opens up the possibility of authenticitydoes not take us all the way to the resolute revelation of being since thisresoluteness is precisely an /Vresolute swaying between authenticity andinauthenticity (cf. BT, p. 345/5Z, p. 299). But this swing has been freed upand Dasein released from indifference, the leeway opened in the direction of themost-own and authenticity by anxiety, and hence Heidegger can say that,'anxiety individualizes. This individualization ... makes manifest to it {man}that authenticity and inauthenticity are possibilities of its being' (BT, p. 235/SZ, p. 191). In other words, none of conscience, anxiety, and resoluteness takesus to authenticity. Conscience calls us to heed the occlusion of our singularitywithin das Man. Anxiety brings us before the rent that is Dasein, the self that isthe slash of authenticity/inauthenticity, 'the thin wall by which das Man isseparated, as it were, from the uncanniness of its being' (BT, p. 323/SZ, p. 278),a self that is to be repeated in resolution.

Conscience does not call us to authenticity but rather, by way of the most-own's being brought to bear on the indifferent, to anticipatory resoluteness(vorlaufende Entschlossenheit): it calls us to a double nullity and thus to the betweenof authenticity and inauthenticity. Therefore, '{t}he call of conscience ... doesnot hold before us some empty ideal of existence, but calls us forth into thesituation' (BT, p. 347/SZ, p. 300 - my emphasis).

It is not as if one could hearken to conscience and thereby immediately be ableto describe oneself as an 'authentic man'. Not at all. Rather, hearing conscience


merely prepares us for the prelude to our repetition which will open up Dasein,our selfhood. Conscience arises from the excessiveness of our finitude, theultimate source of the singularity which is our singular response to the actualfacts of death and birth.

Mood and understanding relate to one another as conscience and our responseto it. Conscience is nothing without its response. Conscience as the beckoning ofthe actual may thus be situated between the actual and the possible and thusbetween the outer elements of our fourfold schema (indifference, most-own) andthe inner two (inauthenticity, authenticity), thus to guarantee their unity.

Because conscience is a short circuit between mood and understanding, itamounts to the very origin of discourse as the symbolic articulation of meaninginto signification in response to the nullity within the whole which is thus theabyssal meaning or ground of being qua intelligibility. Thus, being-with asconscience amounts precisely to the withness of the compound (authenticity-inauthenticity) and its extremes (indifference, most-own), accessed in under-standing and moods respectively. It is thus quite clearly neither authentic norinauthentic. It bridges the gap between actuality and possibility and concernsthe formation of the singularity of the other, a singularity which comes aboutonly in the conscientious response to conscience. This relationship between theactual facts of death and birth and their existential response, between actualityand possibility or between being as identical with its Da and the quite distinctfact of man's finitude upon which it is founded is a relationship of groundingthat Heidegger does not and cannot think while remaining within fundamentalontology. Conscience builds a forbidden bridge between beings and that whichis definitively not a being. This is the bridge of the 'with' in 'being-with'. Howdoes Dasein as existence ever touch actual beings? What is their relation? ThatBeing and Time does not answer these questions is marked by the enigmatic

Figure 4. The action of conscience as the formation of Dasein

CALL CALL

Bith Death

Response(inautheaticity

Response(inautheaticity

Nullity(Real)

Dasin(symblic)

Nullity(Real)

54 Being-with

presence of a Tactical ideal' and 'ontic foundation' that can spur such a thing as'existence': according to the strictures of fundamental ontology, these mustremain mysterious interruptions. They indicate the obtrusion of the relationbetween being and beings as a whole that will remain problematic even inHeidegger's later attempts to render 'metontology', the problematic of beings asa whole, equiprimordial with ontology in 1928. All such devices will still fail tothink the true 'simultaneity' of being and beings, since this is prevented by thedeepest presupposition of Heidegger's early thought, the ontological differenceitself that identifies being with its own Da and thus with intelligibility. In fact,there is a more original being (Seyri) which is the very process of the possible'sactualization, a withdrawal into unintelligibility as the flipside of intelligiblepresence, an actualization that will have been foreshadowed in the analysis ofconscience.

THE SECOND FORM OF BEING-WITH AS CONSCIENCE:THE OTHER'S DYING

Although they foreclose death, the possibilities articulated by das Man are just asmuch a response to death as the possibilities articulated by conscience or the'proper' form of being-with. The former cannot involve possibilities peculiar toeach since the symbolic identities of man within this state are characterized by'representability'. These possibilities therefore amount to a response to death inthe form of possibilities that are potentially common to all. Das Man is in otherwords a relation to death that thinks of it precisely in terms of possibilities tothe extent of altogether covering over the incalculability of the fact of death.What it remains closed to is not being-towards-death but rather the fact. Oncethis enters the scene, the first and indifferent form of being-with becomesimpossible. Within Being and Time itself, Heidegger can assign this actual deathonly to the other, and yet we have seen that it is this actual death that consciencebeckons us towards. For this reason, by Heidegger's own lights, conscience caninvolve us in being-with. Let us relate this understanding of conscience moreprecisely to the being-with that is said to be identical with it, albeit with thecaution of quotation marks, which may be taken to indicate an uncertainty onHeidegger's part, necessitated by his understanding of being at the time.

If the being-with of indifference is characterized above all by representability,then the being-with of Dasein must be distinguished from it. It must relate tothe other in his singularity. But, as we have seen, this singularity is no simplepunctate matter but is always one with a process of symbolization that leaves realremainders. This process of discursivization, the becoming of singularity incommon significance, is precisely conscience. What stirs such a process? Theactual facts of birth and death or the double nullity of man. Heidegger relegatesthe death of the other to an irrelevance as regards being simply because thisdeath is actual and being is possible. Therefore it is our own death that opens us


to this being since, for us, this death can never be actual and thus can be only as apossibility. But this reading is precisely what must be seen to be untenable inlight of our understanding of conscience. Conscience demonstrates precisely thenecessity of the actual to the formation of Dasein.

Heidegger speaks of actual death at one and only one point in Being and Time,and this is when he speaks of the death of the other. Let us go into Heidegger'srevealing descriptions of this death in order to demonstrate that conscientiousbeing-with is precisely a relation to the actual fact of death (which Heidegger ishere compelled to restrict to the other but which we do not) and therebyamounts to a relation between possibility and actuality that spans theontological difference. Since one's response to conscience is a matter ofprojecting possibilities it is a response which can never be adequate, since that towhich it attempts to be adequate is an actuality that will always remain other topossibilities, and therefore inappropriable by either myself or the other, to whomHeidegger must assign this actual death because his location of being in Daseincompels him to think it in terms of appropriation.

We have seen that being-with is described by Heidegger as a relationshipinvolving mood. If being-with involves mood then this means that it is a relationto an actuality. It relates most 'properly' to that actuality which is the other'sdeath (and birth). The other is therefore not the concrete other ofintersubjectivity but precisely the real or Levinassian other (I'Autre): ultimatelybeing-with is a relation between singular possibilities, which are my own, and anullity, which is neither mine nor yours. Should we say therefore that guilt iswhat obliges us to the second form of being-with rather than simply making itpossible? Is this the sense in which conscience 'not only makes known that in anexistentiell manner such authenticity is possible {i.e. never an actual state} butdemands this of itself (BT, p. 311/SZ, p. 267).

When Heidegger invokes a 'guilt' inherent to being-with, this can, I believe,be explained only in light of our reading of the second form of being-with as arelation of our Dasein as possibility to an actuality which will always exceed it, asingularity that cannot be appropriated by anyone and therefore remains 'null'(nichtig).

Factically, however, any acting (Handeln) is necessarily 'conscienceless', notonly because it may fail to avoid some factical moral indebtedness, butbecause, on the null basis of its null projection (aufdem nichtigen Grunde seinesnichtigen Entwerfens\ it has, in being-with others, already become guilty towardsthem (an ihnen schuldig geworden isf). Thus one's desire-for-conscience becomesthe taking over of that essential consciencelessness within which alone theexistentiell possibility of being {Heidegger's emphasis} 'good' subsists. (BT, p.334/SZ, p. 288 — my emphasis)

We have seen that guilt is our attitude towards an unchoosable fact thatdefines our existence and thus can never be expiated. And yet here we find

56 Being-with

Heidegger making of guilt an essential relation to the other. Does this not pointunequivocally to our relation with the factual birth and death that Heideggerwill have assigned to the other and covered over with his hyperbolic stress onexistential birth and death and in particular existential death as our own?Heidegger describes our guilt towards the other as follows: 'my being guilty forthe other's becoming endangered in their existence, led astray, or even ruined'(BT, p. 327/SZ, p, 282). The other will die anyway and will already have beenborn, but what he risks missing as he remains sunk in indifference is thesingularity of an existential response to these facts. It is indeed his very'existence' that is endangered. What is crucial in this description of guilt is thatit links Dasein explicitly to actuality. A relation to otherness is thus provided atDasein's very heart, but this otherness is — mistakenly — allowed only to theother person. Heidegger thus attributes ownership to a fact which as such cannotbe owned. At this stage Heidegger can only reverse the propriety of death andthus expropriate it, rather than being true to its ^propriety. We have beenprecise: birth and death are not our singularity but they are the source of thispossible singularity.

This relation to apropriety is the very meaning of being-with of the secondkind, which therefore is not authentic but the very connection between Dasein'sstretched-out existence and its outsides.

ENTRISSEN: THE OPENING OF EXISTENCE AND BEING-WITH:TEARING APART THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE

The (act that being-with is conscience demonstrates it to be the relationbetween actuality and possibility, the fact that anonymous singularity can beresponded to, enacted or possibilized only in the form of common possibilities,gathered in us with an intensity that is unique. We witness this troublesomerelation between actuality and possibility in Heidegger's text when he speaks ofthe dying other to whom we have seen guilt to adjoin us. This other isdescribed as being 'torn' away from us, and we as 'be-reaved'. The German wordfor this process is Entrissen, tearing or rending. This will be the relation ofbeing-with, and it is here that we shall finally be clear on the relation betweenbeing-with and the ontological difference, the place of ethics in Heidegger'sthought. For the withness which being-with expresses bridges a gulf which theontological difference forbids to be spanned, since it bridges the veryontological difference itself in the sense of laying out the planks that wouldenable us to cross it.

First of all, Heidegger uses the term Entrissen to designate the very opening ofthe clearing of being, the opening of Dasein's self through the inauthenticity andauthenticity of the understanding. Heidegger tells us that Dasein in its relationto its death, 'remains torn away from das Man (dem Man entrissen bleibt)' (BT, p.3Q1ISZ, p. 263). In order to constitute a self we must remain in this state of


rending precisely between indifference (das Man) and the most own (death). Thisis a condition of the manifestation of being. The tendency of thrownness is anever-present threat to openness: 'understanding is . . . constantly torn away(Losreiflen) from authenticity and tears into (Hineinreifien) das Man (BT, p. 223/SZ, p. 178). Rending is always an incomplete process that binds what is rentasunder just as much as it severs them. It is the opening of the ontologicaldifference in the site of Dasein's understanding of being.

The second use that Heidegger makes of the word Entrissen, crucially, is tolink us to the dying other: Entrissen is the relation of be-reavement, in which weremain be-reft from the other after the fact of his death: 'The "deceased"("Verstorbene"', the one who died) as distinct from he who is simply dead(Gestorbeneri), has been torn away (entrisseri) from those who have "remainedbehind", and is an object of "concern" in the way of funeral rites, interment, andthe cult of graves' (BT, p. 282/SZ, p. 238). We should notice the apostrophessuspending 'concern' in this sentence. What do they mean? Concern is ourrelation to that which is ready-to-hand, and so the corpse can be neither present-at-hand nor Dasein, and yet because it was once Dasein it cannot entirely bereduced to a ready-to-hand object, as marked by the apostrophes. So the questionmust persist: if it is none of present-at-hand, ready-to-hand or Dasein, then whatis it? Does it not mark precisely a Dasein which has exceeded existence and splitapart as it was struck down by the very fact of death? Do those of us who survivenot dwell alongside a Dasein which stretches between existence and an utterlyunintelligible actuality, 'tarrying alongside in mourning and commemoration(Im trauernd-gedenkenden Verweilen bei ihm)' (BT, p. 282/SZ, p. 238)?

As present-at-hand and yet at the same time Dasein, does the dead other'sbeing not stretch between possibility and actuality, the Da of Sein and the actualfact that conditions this manifestation? In other words, does the empirical nothere stretch up and touch the transcendental, thereby bringing it down to earth?Do not being and beings, possibility and actuality touch one another in the deadother? Does the other in the process of dying towards their actual death notpresent us with a form of being which the ontological difference cannot providefor? Does it not therefore demand that the ontological difference be questioned,and in the most profound way, which means with regard to its origination? Thesecond form of being-with that relates to the actual death of the other deconstructsthe ontological difference. Is this why Heidegger had to occlude it from hisanalysis? Because it would have shown up all too starkly the untenability of thepresupposition upon which fundamental ontology rested?

The corpse of the dead other fails to fit any of Heidegger's 'categories' ofbeing. It is in fact a bridge between actuality and possibility, which subverts theontological difference on which this categorization rests, since the ontologicaldifference keeps possibility and actuality rigidly distinct in the form of beingand beings, when in fact, as Heidegger realizes, this understanding of being andbeings is a historically mediated one and thus the ontological difference itselfmust be questioned as to its genesis. This particular positing of difference must

58 Being-with

be understood in its differentiation, which is a historical one that changes theway in which being and beings are related to one another at different momentsin history. Entrissen, or the dying of the other, is a word that joins being andbeings together in a way intolerable to the pure positing of the ontologicaldifference. Thus, what matters is not to find new ways to think the relationbetween being and beings, as Heidegger does throughout the 1920s, but to crossout the difference altogether and to begin again from the beginning. It will takeHeidegger an entire decade after Being and Time to risk this leap of logic.

If Heidegger identifies being with its own clearing and allows it to befounded upon man's distinct finitude, does he not end up restricting being tothe way in which it appears to man? Can it be legitimate to allow the process ofmanifestation to rest on the albeit abyssal and unsure foundation of man? It isjust such questions that the corpse of the other puts to us, since indemonstrating the process of senescence he brings to light a process ofmanifestation that runs from the possible to the actual. This is the purely animalprocess of Verenden, 'perishing', or rather the intermediate Ableben or 'demise'(BT, p. 291/SZ, p. 247), which must therefore gain a renewed importance, asDerrida rightly asserts (Derrida 1990, p. 30-42 et al.). What Derrida does notassert is that it does gain a renewed importance in Heidegger's later work, as thepresent work has set itself to show.

Heidegger is blinded to the importance of actual death, and thus the span ofbeing-towards-death and actual death in 'demise' is allowed only to the other atwhose death we shall be present. If this alone is the place to which Heideggerrestricts actual death, and if actual death has taken on an unusual significance forour reading, then do not Heidegger's descriptions of the death of the other takeon a much greater import than first appears?

If moods relate us to facts and factual death cannot concretely happen to usthen might it not be the case that the experience of impending and actual be-reavement can also provoke anxiety? Or is it perhaps the case that anxiety is amood which on Heidegger's understanding is impossible actually to feel, as if itwere the limit case of moods, and the encounter with the Real were rather atrauma beyond experience and the only way in which one could comport tofactual death would be through fear, the relation, according to Heidegger, to anevent that is impending, such as 'a storm, the rebuilding of the house, or thearrival of a friend' (BT, p. 294/SZ, p. 250)? Heidegger does indeed tells us thatthe loss of the other, the only access he allows Dasein to actual death, issomething that we fear. '"That which is feared for" is one's being-with with theother who might be torn away from one ("Befiirchtet" ist dabei das Mitsein mit demAnderen, der einem entrissen werden kb'nnte)' (BT, p. 181/SZ, p. 142).


THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE AND THE MEANING OF BEING

If death is described by Heidegger only insofar as it constitutes our access tobeing, then clearly the way in which Heidegger thinks being will circumscribethe way in which he understands death. According to the ontological difference,being must be rigidly distinguished from everything actual that is in being andmust therefore be thought as pure possibility: 'Being is possibility' (CTP, VIII,p. 335/CzA 6j>, p. 475). This is clear simply from the fact that Heideggerlocates being within the understanding of being, belonging — exclusively — toman, an understanding which Heidegger is quite clear does nothing exceptproject possibilities. In other words, Being is quite inseparable from existenceor the selfhood of man, upon which it is grounded. This ground gives us theanswer to Heidegger's initial question: 'Do we in our time have an answer tothe question of what we really mean by the word "being" (was wir mit dem Wort"seiend" eigentlich meinen)? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anewthe question of the meaning of being (die Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein)' (BT,p. 19/SZ, p. 1).

To ask after being's meaning is to ask for that upon which being must beprojected if it is to be understood. Heidegger's answer to this question is'temporality'. And where is this temporality situated? It is precisely 'thetemporality of the individual Dasein' (BT, p. 477/SZ, p. 425). This is atemporaeity guaranteed by death, and therefore, '{a}uthentic being-towards-death - which is to say that the finitude of temporality (Endlichkeit derZeitlichkeii) - is the concealed ground (verborgene Grund) of the historicality ofDasein' (BT, p. 438/SZ, p. 386). As Heidegger says, 'a "ground" becomesaccessible only as meaning, even if it is itself the abyss (Abgrund) ofmeaninglessness' (BT, p. 194/SZ, p. 152 - my emphasis). An abyssal groundor meaning is precisely what man's finitude provides for being. It is abyssal inthe sense that it remains asymptotic to the process of symbolic manifestation: itis never reached by Dasein's projection. In other words, the Real of death, whichis the meaning of being, does not itself constitute apart of being. This is becauseHeidegger locates being in the understanding of being and thus in theappropriation of its meaning (temporaeity), and not in this meaning itself.

Thus, death as an actual fact presented in conscience is submitted byHeidegger to the predominance of the existential response. Death is purepossibility only from the point of view of the Dasein for whom it can only everbe possible. What is only ever a virtual point for Dasein is an actual fact for man.It is precisely this actual fact which Heidegger speaks of when he invokes thelocution, 'one dies . . . ' (BT, p. 297/SZ, p. 253), 'it happens . . . ' , das Man'srepressive attitude towards death: in other words, it is precisely the anonymouscessation which comes to smother each and every one of us and which will defineabsolutely the limit of our existence.

Heidegger says explicitly that in the other, death is accessed precisely asactual and as neither mine nor yours: '"Dying" is levelled off to an occurrence

60 Being-with

(Vorkommnis) which reaches Dasein, to be sure, but belongs to nobody in particular(niemandem eigens zugehbrt)' (BT, p. 297/57, p. 253 - my emphasis).

Since actual death relates to being solely insofar as it is appropriated by myself,Heidegger assigns it per se exclusively to the other man. The elision of the deathof the other — which means the second form of being-with — brings to light themetaphysical prejudices of fundamental ontology, and for this reason we haveexposited it here. The fact that Heidegger did not see this elision is a testimonyto his understanding of being at the time, which came about through the merepositing of the ontological difference, which precluded Heidegger's thoughtfrom thinking the historical genesis of the distribution of being and beingsbetween possibility and actuality. The actual is excluded from the essence ofbeing, which is understood as the stretch of existential possibilities projected byDasein on the basis of its own finitude. It is the actual fact of this finitude, whichis therefore the distinct ground of being, that this chapter has brought to thefore by means of the four-part schema necessitated by the second form of being-with which makes a relation to actual death in the guise of the death of the otheroriginary to Dasein.

While founding his entire understanding of being on human finitude,Heidegger forecloses this ground from the essence of being itself. He does thisby distinguishing being (the intelligibility of significance) from its meaning (anindividual human's temporaeity). He thus fundamentally restricts being to thespace of human intelligibility which erupts in response to the unintelligible factof finitude. In other words, being is confined to the Symbolic. It is taken to befounded upon the Real without including this Real and the way in which theReal and the Symbolic relate to one another is not truly understood.

Man's finitude opens up a rent or carves out a hollow in beings as a whole: it isan intrusion of negativity into positivity, 'the abyss of being-a-self' (MFL, p.182/GA 26, p. 234). The significant symbolic existence that man moulds inresponse to this traumatic void is being (Sein). This means that being is nothingbesides its own Da, and thus Da and Sein are quite inseparable in Heidegger'sthought at this stage. 'Being is inseparable from the understanding of being'(Levinas 1969, p. 45): Levinas is quite right in this. The meaning of being isindeed the singular temporaeity of an individual human being. If there were noman there would be no such thing as 'being'. Being is the symbolic translationof the Real of man's death and birth and is thus reduced to the level of humanintelligibility, to the transcendental in a still-traditional sense which locates itwithin the human understanding. The process of world-formation ordiscursivization thus remains within the purview of an already constituted'subject', in the form of Dasein's own 'conscience'. Heidegger would come to seethat this testified to an unjustified humanism on his part and that the process ofgivenness has to be understood differently. Man's finitude reaches so deeply thatit must amount to the finitude of the whole of being. The totality was never total:being must correspondingly be freed from its uni-directional founding in man'sfinitude and must itself assume the position of the Real that must withdraw


from the symbolic totality of beings (including man) in order to allow thissymbolic universe as such to form and metaphysics to determine it in its 'assuch'. Being is not its own Da and singularity is not external to it and confinedto the belonging of the human being. Rather, being is the impossible singularityof beings, a singularity instantiated in the inhuman 'thing'.

'Being' in the guise of Seyn with a y will be precisely the process whereby theReal 'becomes' symbolic, which will not be a one-way process. Being (Sein) willno longer be founded upon the finitude of a particular being (Seiende) (recallHeidegger's use of the words 'ontic foundation'). Founding will be thought as amutual rather than a uni-directional relation, a relation of differentiation thatunfolds from the midpoint of the stretch that relates the two terms of thedifference, the point at which their differentiation begins and upon which theydiffer. The name for this unfolding of differentiation, which amounts to the veryprocess of manifestation and therefore incorporates both of Sinn and Bedeutung, isEreignis. Formerly, the midpoint was the self of man, emerging in the veryprocess of discursivization (Rede) in human conscience. This withness will nowoccur across the face of the fourfold, in a face-to-face of world and earth, andmore primordially, of man and god. In other words, it will occur as a process inwhich man is not central and not the factual and ahistorical ground upon whichmanifestation would depend.

When Heidegger turns to the thinking of the differentiation of theontological difference in 1936, when Ereignis becomes his 'guiding word' (LH, p.241 n. 2/W, p. 148), being will no longer be founded upon human finitude andthus will not be situated within the individual human being's understandingand thus restricted to signification. This turn will occur as the result of anexplicit acknowledgement of what was foreclosed in fundamental ontology,which foreclosure we have attempted to indicate in this chapter by way of adeconstruction of Heidegger's second form of being-with. Being-with asconscience marks the very bridging of the ontological difference betweenactuality and possibility and the restriction of actual death to the death of theother, demonstrating that what must occur in the later work is a rethinking ofdeath on the basis of a rethinking of the difference. And it is precisely thisrethinking that will allow the other to retain a place in the later work, when thefocus of ethics turns to the inhuman being or the 'thing'. In other words, froman unjustified focus on 'existence' as the existential response to death, Heideggerwill turn to the anonymous factual event of death, which will still be thetestimony to being, and if ethics is a response to being then this ethics will beginwith an attentiveness to death.

Once being and beings are thought in their historical differentiationHeidegger will be able to think history, not as the varying significations of theunivocal and ahistorical meaning of being, but rather as changes in the verydifference between being and beings, different degrees to which the one prevailsover the other, a predominance that will be the de/cision of Seyn. In other words,Heidegger will begin to think the difference rather than presuppose it.

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In fact, the very nature of factuality will be rethought, the givenness of thegiven shown to partake of an historical and asubjectal process of giving whichcalls on man without being grounded upon him. If temporality was thefoundation upon which being rested, then later Heidegger will voice hisdissatisfaction with such a brute fact as the ultimate of his quest, denouncing itas the most basic metaphysical stratum of his work. What his work shall come tothink is therefore the very giving of the given as a historical process that changesradically across epochs to form a progression amounting to a nihilistic history inwhich the transcendental conditions of givenness (Seiri) are gradually replaced bybeings as a whole (Seiende) and therefore the still deeper process of the splittingof the transcendental and the empirical (Seyri) is thrust ever deeper into oblivion.

Thus the uni-directional founding of being upon man's finitude will beremoved, for any such ultimate ground, even if it is abyssal, will be consideredby Heidegger to amount to a metaphysical substantia, which is why 'temporality'will be replaced by a strifely balance between time and space in the 'time-play-space' (Zeit-Spiel-Raum) of Contributions to Philosophy. Fundamental ontologycould not acknowledge that grounding is not a one-way process so long as itrelied on the ontological difference, and for this reason Heidegger had to find astarting point for his thought other than that of the ontological difference. If onebegins from the presupposition of the ontological difference one begins with arelation between being and beings already in place. This is a presupposition thatphilosophical questioning, or phenomenology, must bracket out. It is preciselythis, the root cause of Heidegger's early misunderstanding, that will bequestioned in the later work. Let us examine the relation between being and itsmeaning in order to edge closer to the turn.

BEING'S FOUNDATION UPON ITS MEANING (TEMPORALITY)

In his early work Heidegger restricts 'being' to the intelligibility of beings,which is founded upon the finitude of man understood as 'temporaeity'(Zeitlichkeii). Temporaeity is thus the 'meaning' of being. This temporaeity isultimately understood to be a primal fact, without explanation, an Urfaktum asHeidegger has it in The Metaphysical Foundations of

The relation of founding exhibited here leaves unthought the presuppositionof the foundation and the nature of founding itself. The finitude that groundsbeing as well as this finitude's belonging to the individual man is simply takenfor granted. That this finitude constitutes a subjectal foundation is manifest inthe way temporality temporalizes or in other words 'generates itself (sick zeitigt).This is the movement of the subiectum: auto-affection. Temporality does notdepend on anything outside itsdkdkdkkkskskskksdkdkdklslslskfkfldldldlkdkkdkdlsllskddkthe thinking of being at this stage of Heidegger's work remains infected with asubstantial foundation ('foundationalism'), a unique foundation insofar as it is a


negativity otherwise than beings, and one hardly to be found in the history ofphilosophy, but a foundation nevertheless.

Heidegger understands his quest here as a search for the grounding meaning(Sinn) of being, a meaning that always articulates itself in signifiers(Bedeutungeri). He is thus compelled to understand being as intelligibility(yerstandlichkeitddkkdkdkkdkkdkdkdkdkkdkdkdkdkdkdldlddldlldldllddlldlddldldldl

If metaphysics in each case constructs a system that attempts to assign asignification to beings as a whole, governed by a particular master signifier — the'as such' of beings or their very 'name' — then what it forgets is that allsignification presupposes a meaning, which invariably comes to be articulated inthe form of signification. It is the attempt to isolate the meaning upon whichmetaphysics rests that constitutes fundamental ontology. Heidegger is thereforeopposing metaphysics in seeking this meaning, but he remains metaphysicalinsofar as he separates this meaning from being itself and thus makes of it anahistorical matter which only 'later' 'becomes' historical, and insofar as he locatesit within a particular being (the human being) and thereby reduces being toanthropic intelligibility.

In early Heidegger, it is man who spans the ontological difference. This is his'ontico-ontologicaT privilege. He is the moment within beings as a whole thatexceeds the whole and relates beings to being. For this reason the place of ethicscentres upon man and his achieving the task of existence: ethics, broadlyspeaking, is therefore an 'ethics of authenticity'.

'Finitude' in early Heidegger is understood to be the source of the singularityof man, since it ensures that he has but one life to lead. This life is therefore hisown, and thus finitude is understood to result mjemeinigkeit, the quality Daseinhas of owning its own being in each case. But to own it is not yet to 'own up' tothis ownership. It is therefore only when this Jemeinigkeit becomes appropriatedthat it becomes Eigentlichkeit or authenticity. Facticity is to be raised to anexistential power on the part of man and thereby become his singularity, whichhe opens for himself in response to the anonymous negativity of his finitude.

Strictly speaking, the human being which exists in indifference does not yethave a self. It is called das Man precisely because the mineness which belongs toit has not yet been appropriated, and for this reason, here, 'everyone is anotherand no one his self(Jeder ist der Andere und Keiner er selbst)' (BT, p. 165/SZ, p. 128— my emphasis).

Dasein is defined by two characteristics: the first is that it is always mine andtherefore holds something back that cannot be revealed to a disinterestedobserver. As a consequence of this mineness, Dasein's being can be understoodonly as 'existence', which is its second characteristic. This means, broadlyspeaking, that what it is will be decided not on the basis of an essence that mightbe determinable from the outside and in advance but only by the way in whichits mineness is related to and unfolded across the entire span of its life (BT, pp.67—8/SZ, pp. 41—2). This existence is not 'essence' because it is singular ratherthan universal. It is the singular way in which Dasein conies to terms with its

64 Being-with

owning its own life (mineness) with no possibility of ever owning another. It hasthis one life because it dies. Death guarantees that it has no chance of choosinganother life, or strictly speaking, death and birth together dictate this. For thisreason, Heidegger says, '{i}n dying, it is indicated that death is ontologicallyconstituted through mineness and existence' (BT, p. 284/SZ, p. 240 — myemphasis). As a result of the ineluctable facts of birth and death I find myselfriveted to this one existence for the rest of my life, however long it may be:finitude makes us irreplaceable. Because Heidegger understands this finitude tobe the property of the human being he cannot envisage the possibility that beingsas a whole might themselves be understood as finite and beings within them asthe subject of singularity. In other words, Heidegger thinks finitude ortemporaeity, the meaning of being, as owned, when in truth it is not.

Thus, being rests upon the urfactual foundation of human temporaeity, andtherefore this finitude must be rethought. In other words, the ground of beingmust not merely be asserted, but the manner of its grounding must beinvestigated. It is for this reason that from 1934 onwards Heidegger introducesa notion of 'grounding' in which one finds two elements, an essence and acounter-essence, opposing and striving against one another across a neutralmidpoint which amounts to the territory of their battle. The most famous ofthese relations of mutual grounding is that which takes place between the worldof significance ('being' in early Heidegger) and the earth as that aspect of theworld that escapes human intelligibility. But even before this, we witness theinceptual rethinking of factuality as ground in the years immediately followingthe publication of Being and Time in the alteration of Heidegger's understandingof the function of moods. Moods are precisely what put us in touch withinexplicable factuality, and the way in which they come increasingly to the fore,to predominate over understanding indicates Heidegger to be rethinking therelation between the actual and the possible, the relation of grounding.

Let us schematically trace this change in order to lead us as far as Heideggercan go while beginning from the ontological difference which strictly defineswhat I mean by 'the early Heidegger'. Far from being a gradual matter, on myunderstanding only the preparation of the turn is gradual: the turn itself is radicaland sudden, a 'leap' (Sprung), as enacted by what I am tempted to callHeidegger's true masterpiece, Contributions to Philosophy: From Ereignis (1936-8).

The way to the U-turn (Kehre) in Heidegger's thought is opened up by hisinsistence on the foundation of being in finitude, which is revealed by the moodsthat metaphysics elides. And yet Heidegger did not at first go far enough infollowing the consequences of this finitude and did not sufficiently awakenmoods from their slumber through the long reign of metaphysics. Being andTime was the alarm call, but moods were not yet seen with unbleared eyes, freefrom the disintegrating memory of the metaphysical dream.


MOOD CHANGES

In Being and Time moods reveal facts: more precisely, as indicated in theirontological correlate, Befindlichkdldldldldldlldlddldllddldldldldlddlddklddldlddldlldldldllddlin which it 'finds itself (sich befindet). They place it in touch with the fact of itssingularity in various ways, according to how far this singularity is allowed toexpress itself in that Dasein's current symbolic position. What occurs later, asthe gradual elision of the word Befindlddlldldldldlldldldldlldddldlldldlldldldlllllflldlddddthat this 'mood' comes to be understood as transporting Dasein not so much toits own finitude as to the finitude of beings as a whole. This means first of allthat it places man in touch with his situation within the whole, which willrender the whole finite in the sense of being revealed only to the situated Daseinand thus within a certain horizon centred upon its locus.

This transposition, along with the increasing importance that moods come toassume in Heidegger's thought between 1929 and 1938, is crucial since it marksthe fact that Heidegger is attempting to remove the troublesome elements of hisearly thought, and most particularly the foundation of being upon the finitudeof man with which moods (in his early understanding) put us in touch. Moodwas taken to reveal the meaning of being and yet to require the understanding inorder to appropriate this meaning and therefore to reach being itself. Given thesituation of being within Dasein's capacity for understanding, mood had to revealthe finitude of man since this was the only entity possessed of an understandingthat could appropriate this finitude and thus open a site for being. In the laterwork, as being is shifted beyond the understanding of man, finitude is disownedand moods therefore come to reveal the finitude of the totality itself m the sense ofthe impossibility of our occupying a stance outside of this totality, theinexorability of a singular perspective on the whole and the consequent necessity ofthe metaphysician's blindspot, which deconstruction is to point out. In this way,Heidegger begins to establish a full critical distance from metaphysics and itspositing. For it is precisely the intelligibility of the whole that Heidegger findsmetaphysics to assert,31 searching as it does for the name of beings as such as awhole (das Seiende als solche im Ganzeri), which Heidegger distinguishes from hisown matter (Sache) by later calling the latter 'being itself (das Sein selbsf): In theend an essential distinction prevails between comprehending the whole of beingsin themselves and finding oneself situated (Sichbefinden) in the midst of beings asa whole' (WM, p. 87 W, p. 7).

This new description of moods is quite crucial, since it begins to apply theword Ganze, totality (totum) or whole (boloskkskskskdkdkkdkdkdkdkdkdddkdkdkdkdkDasein, which in Being and Time was taken to be the sole proprietor of an 'openwholeness', a totality that opens onto an excess without incorporating it. If wewere to describe the shift that occurs in the 1920s in preparation for the turn, itwould be to say that Heidegger begins to understand the finitude of man morebroadly as the finitude of beings as a whole.

66 Being-with

Moods place us in touch with precisely what metaphysics has always missed,and that is /întelligibility, resulting from our factual positioning within thatvery whole at a certain place and time within a discursive tradition. Heideggerwill later become more extreme and understand us to be situated within acertain distribution of the terms of the ontological difference itself.

This unintelligibility, for the early Heidegger, takes the form of the very/actuality of the givenness of the intelligible whole of beings. In other words,even if the whole of beings is intelligible there is something about this wholethat remains unintelligible, opaque to understanding, and that is the factualgivenness of this whole. It is the fact that Dasein remains thrown without choiceinto a certain scheme of significance that moods put us in touch with. Themoods that metaphysics depreciates as obstacles to the understanding in fact putus in touch with a feature of intelligibility that exceeds the grasp of theunderstanding, and this is the problematic that fascinated the early Heidegger:'factuality' (Tatsachlichkeit) or, as it is understood in the case of Dasein, 'facticity'(Faktizitaf). Heidegger's own early emphasis on the understanding demonstrateshis thinking of being to remain metaphysical in insisting on being's full identitywith intelligibility.

Actual death and birth lend Dasein its specific finitude, which amounts to itspositioning within the world, which irremediably alters its perspective on thatwhole of common possibilities, since it cannot take up a position outside of it orassume that its position does not matter. This finitude of situation amounts tothe singular distortion in one's own perspectival revelation of what is alsorevealed to everyone else who inhabits this world. This perspectivalityintroduces the inevitable factual blindspot that will besmirch any purportedlycomprehensive survey of the whole. By rendering understanding and mood equalin their revelatory power and always concomitant with one another, Heideggerinsists that Dasein reveals the whole in a manner that is in some way peculiar. Itis because moods reveal to us that our revelation of the whole is always somehowanchored in our position that one is absolutely justified in using the word 'dis-position' to translate Stimmung, although the German means something muchmore particular than the English 'disposition' and refers to the manifold degreesand kinds of 'feeling well disposed' and 'indisposed'. Thus, due to the limiteduse English makes of this 'disposedness' it is better perhaps to retain the more

specifiable 'mood'.Moods do not colour our view on the whole, as if it would be possible in a

pure understanding to reveal this whole without prejudice. This would be tothink from the standpoint of the comprehensive intuition of an infinite being.When one begins from the non-metaphysical standpoint of original finitude onehas to realize that there is no such thing as a whole without a certain singulartwist. In other words, the distortion is inherent to the whole itself and what moodsreveal is not a distortion that we must 'allow for' in our attempt to reach thepure objective whole, but the fact that any revelation of the whole will always beperspectivally distorted. One must begin not from man's finitude, but from


original finitude. If finitude is truly original then one is to understand moods asputting us in touch with the finitude of the totality as such.

Although Heidegger opposes metaphysics by placing moods on a par withunderstanding in their revelatory qualities, initially this continues to restrictbeing to the understanding and the Symbolic. But what Heidegger movestowards is the awareness that moods should be made prior to understanding as anaccess to the traumatic Real which metaphysics supplies with a signification. Inother words, despite Heidegger's assertion that both understanding and moodare discursive, moods should be to an extent excluded from discursivity and thehistoricality that symbolic mediation brings with it. But the relation betweenthe Real and the Symbolic changes over history: anxiety was assumed always tohave been the mood that transports Dasein to its symbolically stifled finitude.But if the predominance of the Symbolic over the Real changes over time, then somust the moods that provide us with access to this Real within the Symbolic.Heidegger's early ahistoricism was in ignorance of what Lacoue-Labarthe aboveall insists upon and that is 'Darstellung. The immediate presentation of a thesison being is exactly what Heidegger realized to be impossible as he came to thinkbeing as always already having withdrawn from the totality and therefore fromman, as a />re-original withdrawal in whose wake the entire metaphysicaltradition must exist in a constantly frustrated attempt to understand its ownlossdkdkkdkdkdkddkdkkdkdddkskslskddkkdkkdkdkdkdkdkdkkddkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkabeyance. The early Heidegger presupposed that direct access to the Real waspossible in moods, although this Real was exterior to being, while the laterHeidegger realized that the Real could be accessed only through the effects anddistortions it wreaks on the Symbolic, and that this Real was being itself and anyattempt to circumscribe it with a 'meaning' was doomed to remainmetaphysical. In other words, the question of Darstellung became inherent tothe question of being.35

Thus, at one and the same time, with mood Heidegger goes both too far, inattempting to access the unmediated Real, and not far enough, in that he fails tothink through the intertwining of mood and understanding. Moods should havebeen thought as providing a certain access to the Real in the Symbolic, as beingbeyond metaphysics' ken but not so far beyond that the access would beunmediated by the Symbolic.

But no matter how far the early Heidegger alters the original functioning ofmoods, he still operates within the framework of the ontological difference,which prevents him from properly understanding their relation. Before the turn,being will always be assigned to the understanding (the Seinsverstandnis) whilemood will be assigned to beings as a whole. We are still confined within theoriginal distinction between being and beings (as a whole) that characterizes theontological difference. Mood and understanding are linked in Being and Time bythe voice of conscience and we here witness a stuttering and inchoatedevelopment of the original intimacy of the two, but this problematic is leftundeveloped by Heidegger until the turn itself, when this voice will be

68 Being-with

rethought as the voice of being itself. Until that point, between being andbeings there will remain a relation of falling, a depreciative Platonic mimesis,which is reflected in the a priori separation of understanding and mood.

The problem of this separation troubles Heidegger, and leads him constantlyto question the relation between the ontological and the ontic, as alreadysymptomatized by the 'ontic foundation' of Being and Time and culminating inthe brief appearance of the notion of 'metontology' in The Metaphysicalfoundations of Logic. Let us allow this last appearance to shine in full beforeimmediately snuffing it out as in fact does Heidegger, realizing that this was asfar as one could go if one began from the standpoint of a presupposed ontologicaldifference, and that this was not far enough.

Since being is there only insofar as beings are already there (im Da),fundamental ontology has in it the latent tendency towards a primordial,metaphysical transformation which becomes possible only when being isunderstood in its whole problematic. The intrinsic necessity for ontology toturn back to its point of origin can be clarified by reference to the primalphenomenon of human existence: the being 'man* understands being;understanding-of-being effects a distinction between being and beings; beingis there only when Dasein understands being. In other words, the possibilitythat being is there in the understanding presupposes the factical existence ofDasein, and this in turn presupposes the factual extantness of nature. Rightwithin the horizon of the problem of being, when posed radically, it appearsthat all this is visible and can become understood as being, only if a possibletotality of beings is already there.

As a result, we need a special problematic which has for its proper themebeings as a whole. This new investigation resides in the essence of ontologyitself and is the result of its overturning (Umschlag), its metabole. I designatethis set of questions metontology. And here also, in the domain ofmetontological-existentiell questioning, is the domain of the metaphysicsof existence (here the question of an ethics may properly be raised for the firsttime).

{...} To think being as the being of beings and to conceive the problem ofbeing radically and universally means, at the same time, to make beingsthematic in their totality in the light of ontology. (dksksssffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffpp. 199-200)36

Once being is understood outside the trammels of the ontological difference itcan exceed man's property and encompass more than merely that which hisunderstanding is capable of projecting. It can also encompass the impossible,which was formerly the immovable fact of man's finitude upon which it wasfounded. If being ceases to be intelligible then it is no longer founded upon afinitude that belongs to man and exceeds it, but rather itself amounts to thefinitude of the whole, as the Real which withdraws from the Symbolic draws the


world towards a vanishing point and thereby bestows upon it a certain historicalperspective. This withdrawing point of finitude is no longer man, but man is theone who is drawn towards this withdrawing and who thereby testifies to thiswithdrawal in his symbolic response to being, his ethical dwelling.

TRANSITION

What occurs as we move through Heidegger's oeuvre is that Sein becomesseparated from Da, the Real from the Symbolic, first with the hyphen, whichwill mark the differentiation of time and space that explains being and beings'differentiation, and then separated altogether. Heidegger will no longer speak of'Da-sein' but of the 'man' who is peripheral to the 'fourfold', which describes in acertain way the differentiation of being and beings. Heidegger realized thatbeing and intelligibility should simply not be placed next to each other.

But stages in Heidegger's development cannot be missed out if one is tounderstand the rhythm of his work as a whole. We must begin with the hyphen.Being becomes nothing but the hyphen or the 'with' of Da and Sein, and thusHeidegger's work becomes nothing if not a thinking of the way in which theReal and the Symbolic are related. Our obsession with 'being-with' is notarbitrary with respect to Heidegger's work since the thinking of being (Sein)itself becomes a thinking of the 'with' (Mit), Mitseyn. We shall come to askwhether the originality of the 'with' to being allows Heidegger to rethink therelation between ethics and politics along the faultlines of the rift of theontological difference and indeed by his own lights to render thought co-extensive with a certain ethics and politics.

What Heidegger came to realize was that his thesis on being, the ontologicaldifference, was historically determined and demonstrated the nihilistic history ofbeing to have him in its clutches, albeit by the very fingertips, and if theontological difference was determined by a history, then this history must bedeeper than the ontological difference itself. Indeed, Heidegger names it with anolder word for being: Seyn. With this word he attempts to think a more original'being' as history, which would explain the way in which being can give andwithdraw itself in varying ways throughout history. This thinking of being'shistory (Geschichte des Seym) is Heidegger's attempt to trace the genesis of theontological difference, a genesis that I shall describe, with Heidegger, as a'crossing'.

This is the only way in which to avoid reducing being to a world ofsignificance that is only founded upon the unintelligible fact of finitude, andconflating this fundamentally 'dark' clearing with the openness of the whole.'Clearing' is rather a process whereby an open place is hollowed out, in whichlight and dark can play or the relief of a historical field of presence unfold itselflike a map. This will ensure that man is no longer the privileged site of being'smanifestation but rather the guardian of those other sites within beings as a

70 Being-with

whole at which being shows itself, sites for the moment of disclosure whichHeidegger will call 'things'.

Being is not founded upon anything, not even man's abyssal finitude; nor doesit found. Sein is not founded upon Da, nor Da upon Sein. Being is not the Dabut the mutually grounding play of time and space, the Real which opens theDa as the moment and site at which, in a single thing, being (Sein) becomesvisible as that which organizes the way that the totality of beings appears to us.The thing marks the abyssal ground of the whole and instantiates being qua theReal which must withdraw if the Symbolic or the whole of beings is toconstitute itself. Since the Real does not precede its symbolization we arespeaking of being (Seyri) as the 'with', as Rede or the process of symbolization.

In other words, being becomes the singular and thus withdrawn condition ofthe way in which intelligibility is presented to us. It encompasses the non-symbolic Real, a Real concomitant with the process of symbolization as itsremainder, an other beginning to the first in which we still live.

This tracing of the genesis of the ontological difference, the place of ethics,therefore issues in an ethics of the thing, the thing being the placeholder ofbeing itself within beings as a whole. Hence, ethics as nearness to being will be aGelassenheit of the thing, allowing it to act as a precious and endangered markerof being. Ethics was formerly the demand for repetition which would keep thereflexive loop of the self open and thus ensure a site for being within beings, amatter — some said — of 'authenticity'. But the site of being is no longer locatedwithin man's property or selfhood but is removed to any finite being within thewhole, and ethics amounts to the guarding of these sites, which man alone cancarry out.

Being-with, though it spurred our crossing, seems then to be discarded,excluded from the place of ethics. And if being-with is eradicated, then will notthe possibilities of a complete and productive thinking of ethics and politics belost to Heidegger's later work?

No, because the role death continues to play in Heidegger's later thought willallow us to specify a being-with of those 'mortals' who are said to dwell aroundthe fourfold thing. References to death in later Heidegger are so few and farbetween that one could be forgiven for thinking that its role is to a large extentdepreciated in comparison with its centrality to Being and Time. It is for thisreason that we have indicated the failed intimacy of being-with and death inPart I and begin Part II with an explication of the nature and role of death in thelater work, as that which opens us to being in its forgottenness and thus opens aspace for ethics in a time of consummate and concealed nihilism. This nowanonymous event opens us to the actual in its actuality, and thus to theontological difference. In Part III we shall make clear the way in which thisallows Heidegger to unfold fully the being-with that results from this actualityof death in the guise of the being-with of mortals.

The rethinking of being in later Heidegger allows him explicitly toacknowledge the aproprietdkkkdkdkdkkdkddkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkkddkdkkdkddkdkdkdkdkdkdk


condition ofBeing and Times existential understanding. In Being and Time, deathopened the difference between self and other, and man's later 'mortality' is stillwhat binds us to the other, in the sense that each man shares a relation ofsingularity to this absolutely anonymous event, which distributes itself equallybetween all beings. And it is this relation to the thing that dies that will foundan ethical and political being-together.

The continued presence of death in Heidegger's work acts as a flag markingthe place where we shall burrow in search of the forgotten other of being-with. Itgives us hope that the place of ethics in Heidegger might yet involve being-with. In fact, it shall involve two: one before it, and one after it; the first anethical, the second a political being-with, and these two shall mutually groundone another around the midpoint of the thing. It is this midpoint to which wenow turn, as our path-breaking crossing must begin again after the dead end ofthe ontological difference, blocked in its stride by the ever-conscientious friend.We strike out a winding path that wends towards the thing. This discussion ofthe very heart of ethics constitutes the central part of this book and the pivotaround which it turns.


Part II

Crossing

The question of being ... would have grasped nothing of what is most question-worthy about it (ihrem eigenen Fragwiirdigsten) if it had not immediately drivenonwards towards the question concerning the origin of the 'ontological difference'(Ursprung der 'ontologischen Different). (CTP, VIII, p. 327/GA 63, p. 465)


Chapter Three

Death as the Origin of Ethics

The oncological difference is the place of ethics. The metaphysical prejudicesinvolved in Heidegger's early understanding of this place have beendemonstrated by the second form of being-with, understood as it is in theform of conscience, spanning actuality and possibility and thereby crossing overthe ontological difference itself. As a relation to the singularity of the other,being-with has brought into sharp relief Heidegger's restriction of singularity tomy own existence, ultimately indicating him to understand being in terms ofintelligibility. The fact that Heidegger attempted to isolate a 'meaning' forbeing that was distinct from being itself proves that he understood being as theSymbolic rather than the Real of this foundation and therefore to be foundeduni-directionally on the primal and ahistorical fact that man is temporary. Theabyss of finitude which carves out a hollow in beings as a whole and allows thiswhole to reflect on itself was situated within the human being and this restrictedbeing to intelligibility as an openness that was anchored in man as its organizingcentre and ground.

This is not to think the ontological difference but to presuppose it, and topose it on the basis of the supposedly unthinkable fact of man's finitude,distributing being and beings between possibility and actuality withoutthinking the process of actualization. In other words, it is to fail. It is to fail tothink the way in which a negativity within the whole is crucial if this whole is tomanifest itself in the light of being, which comes to fill this hole. In otherwords, the ontological difference is not thought in its genesis or origin, a moreoriginal 'being', an origin which is split or rather which is the point at which thetwo of being and beings split, a split which Heidegger names a 'de/cision' (Ent-scheidung),1 a decision called 'Seyn'. For this reason Heidegger describes his laterrelation to the ontological difference as follows:

Now what becomes of the differentiation of being(s) and being (aus derUnterscheidung von Seiendem und Seyn )? Now we grasp this differentiation asthe merely metaphysical — and thus already misinterpreted (mifideuteteri) —foreground of a de/cision which is being itself (Vordergrund einer Ent-scheidung,die das Seyn selbst ist). (CTP, VIII, p. 334/GA 63, p. 474)

76 Crossing

For this reason, a question based on the presupposition of the ontologicaldifference remains incomplete:

The question of being ... would have grasped nothing of what is mostquestion-worthy about it (ihrem eigenen Fragwurdigsten) if it had notimmediately driven onwards towards the question concerning the origin ofthe 'ontological difference' (Ursprung der 'ontologischen Differenz'). (CTP, VIII,p. 327/GA 65, p. 465)

This origin is the very differentiation of the difference, and the way in whichit occurs is through the de/cision of a more original 'being', Seyn, whose essenceis therefore the very event of this differentiation, Ereignis:

The understanding of being (Seinsverstandnis) moves within the differentiationof beingness and a being, without as yet Validating' the origin of thedifferentiation from within the de/cisive essence of being (ohne schon denUrsprung der Unterscheidung aus dem Entscheidungswerew des Seyns zur 'Geltung').(CTP, VIII, p. 320/GA 65, p. 45 5)3

Thus, the ontological difference must be left behind, leapt over, a leap thatleaps back over what has issued from the differentiations of this differencethroughout history, to the origin (Ur-sprung) reached only by such a leap(Sprung). Only from its point of origin can the ontological difference be thoughtin the way that its two terms differentiate themselves in different waysthroughout history. Thus, 'the task is not to surpass (iibersteigen) beings(transcendence) but rather to leap over this difference (Unterschied) and thus overtranscendence and to inquire inceptually (anfanglich) into being (Seyn) and truth'(CTP, IV, p. 177/GA 65, pp. 250-1).

Seyn as the ontological differentiation, the historical de/cision on the relativepredominance of beings over being, is what goes unthought in the history of theWest. It is the exchange between withdrawal and giving which determines anhistorical scene. For reasons that will become clear, this Seyn, as the peculiar andhistorically varying form of being and beings' withness, may be described as acrossing: both a passage (U her gang) in which we must currently be engaged out ofnihilism and metaphysics; and a striking-through (Durchstreichung) of beings as awhole, which in its varying stages will trace the recollection of the memory ofbeing within the overwhelming predomination of beings as a whole. 'Being'(Sein) as the intelligibility of this whole is crossed-through and intelligibilitythereby anchored to a point within the whole which remains unintelligible,thereby introducing a perspectival distortion into any outlook upon the whole, aperspective whose lines meet at the vanishing point of the very centre of thecross, which we shall identify as the 'thing' described by the 'fourfold'. Torepresent being by means of the 'ontological difference' is to remainmetaphysical and to think being ahistorically as the intelligibility of beings

Death as the Origin of Ethics 77

as a whole. It is to fail to think the historical event of clearing which mustpuncture beings as a whole if this openness is to occur. This clearing withinbeings is marked by the cross struck through being (Seiri), and to traverse thiscross is to trace out the always historical opening of the ontological difference asit is settled throughout the various 'epochs' of its history. Since the ontologicaldifference is the place of ethics, to traverse this crossing is to describe theorigination of ethics and to mark a place for ethics in an age when (the cross of)being is forgotten.

This crossing is the bridge that joins being and beings in simultaneity. Seyn isthus the very 'withness' of being and beings, a withness therefore which has notyet fully been thought: the intimacy of being and beings has been leftunexplained. They have been distinguished by the assertion of the ontologicaldifference, which is thus the first and necessary stage in recalling being from itsoblivious submersion in beings, but they have not yet been brought backtogether. Heidegger's later thought therefore comes to supplement the thought ofthe ontological difference with a thinking of the 'with' and we are thuscompelled to examine this thought if we are to understand how an ontologicaldifference can be restored in today's oblivion, a relation to being, in other words,that will be related by the 'with' to the contemporary configuration of beings as awhole. In other words, we must cross being if we are to find a place for ethicstoday. We are still thinking being-with, but in the form of Seyn. Part III of thiswork will be necessary in order to show how this 'with' relates to the withness ofmen in a way that is both ethical and political, in tune with timeless being whileacutely aware that this being is nothing besides the void that organizescontemporary actuality. This will be achieved by specifying the cross of being asthe fourfold of earth and sky, divinities and mortals.

Part II of this work thinks the essence of Seyn, Ereignis. But no essence can bethought without its co#»/er-essence, even the essence of being (Ereignis). Thecounter-essence of Ereignis is Geste/l, the essence of technology. And inHeidegger, technology as the manufacturing of beings as a whole and politics asthe governance of the manufacturable whole are intimately linked. To reach theproper balance between essence and counter-essence — our ultimate aim — it isnecessary first to explain the way in which 'being' works in later Heidegger, thenature of the 'with' that being is.

The place of ethics, if it is not to remain an unjustified presupposition('perhaps there is no place for ethics today'), must be thought in its veryorigination. The site of ethics in early Heidegger was man in his repetitivelyassumed finitude, since this temporaeity was the foundation of being and ethicsis nearness to being. But today man has been decentred and swept up in thecirculation of energy and the stocking up of resources, to the point at which it isimpossible to attribute to him this centrality. If this is the case, then we mustsay that Heidegger was wrong in his assertion that the place of ethics was manand that the difference between being and beings was spanned in the stretch ofhis existence alone. Rather, we shall see that this place may be centred on any

78 Crossing

being, which Heidegger shall denominate as 'the moment-site* (Augenblicksstatte)or 'the thing' (Ding) as described by the operation of the time-space and thefourfold respectively. The thing is precisely what becomes of the ontologicaldifference in its crossing through, it is being and beings joined for once insimultaneity (Gleichzeitigkeit) (CTP, I, p. 10/GA 65, p. 13), a simultaneity whichprecisely forbids explanation through a single primal ground and requires rathera differing or counter-essencing balance through which it might be understood.Temporality as the ground of being no longer generates itself (sich zeitigt), forgeneration is always a matter of simultaneity or mutual upholding: in otherwords, it is a matter of differentiation.

If being is no longer founded upon an ahistorical fact — man's temporaeity —then we find the later Heidegger thinking being not in terms of man's beingdrawn into the abyss of his own finitude in order to appropriate it, but as thevoid which withdraws from the totality of beings in other ways and at otherplaces. It is indeed the very extent of this withdrawal, decided upon by Seyn, thatdictates the way in which beings as a whole appear throughout history. Seyn isHeidegger's word for the historical way in which being and beings differentiatethemselves from one another: its essence is Ereignis. The event of being'swithdrawal (Ereignis) is precisely the gift of beings as a whole to man, and thusbeing in its varying withdrawal is itself history, or rather, Seyn as the ontologicaldifferentiation is, in the form of Seynsgeschichte, the very source of history. Seyn isprecisely 'truth' as a-letheia, and therefore we may say that Seyn is the truth ofSein.

According to Heidegger, being is now at its utmost withdrawal, and beingsutterly predominate in the form of actuality. If this is the case, then there is nosuch thing as the ontological difference today. It has collapsed, and ethics withit, if ethics is the nearness of a being to being or the crossing of the ontologicaldifference. If this difference is to be the place at which an ethics might be formedthen we must demonstrate the way in which its occlusion could come to ourattention, and indeed how it did come to Heidegger's attention. The nihilismcharacteristic of today is not a bleak and cold staring into the nothingness ofuniversal values, but the very avoidance of the void, the losing of oneself in purepositivity.

From the point of view of the positivity of beings, being is 'nothing'. And toovercome nihilism and find a place for ethics today it is necessary to draw man'sattention to the void that his reality covers over. It is necessary, in other words,to trace the origination of the ontological difference between void and positivity(beings as a whole in the form of actuality). And the way in which the void firstshows itself is in that event which first questioned the early Heidegger'sthinking of the ontological difference and with which we must begin our tracingof the origination of this difference: death. But it will be a different kind ofdeath that things die today, different to that of 1927.

This death will be an actual death, an anonymity, since being is no longer theproperty of man. As the mark or shelter of being, death will therefore no longer


need to be my own. It is just such a factual death that we saw to be involved inthe second form of being-with, which questioned the ontological differenceitself. Death crossed out (of) the 'Sein of fundamental ontology and demandedthat we think finitude as a cross placed over the whole of beings to indicate anegativity within positivity. This finitude will be the finitude of the whole assuch, a finitude that will alter the way in which we understand and speak aboutthis whole's historical intelligibility.

The question is how this finitude comes about: how does negativity relate topositivity, being to beings? This is Heidegger's later question. His response to itis demonstrated in this Part and amounts to a directive regarding how one is tothink on the basis of a finitude absolutely originally understood, rather thanmerely on the basis of our own (which leads to an ethics of 'authenticity'). Andsince this finitude is the crossing of the whole, a crossing that is the originationof the ontological difference, this will amount to a description of how ethics canbe possible, an ethics without standards or archetypes (eide) and even withoutauthenticity as the self-appropriation of man and his polls. An ethics of the voidor the Real.

If being must be recalled today, when its withdrawal has been obliviated byoverwhelming positivity, then in order to make room for ethics, death must beexperienced and held onto since at the present time the cross of being hasbecome invisible and death alone can reveal this invisibility.

Let us first of all describe how the cross of being became invisible, by tellingthe nihilistic story of being.

THE HISTORY OF BEING

The beginning of the history of being, the Anfang, is not a chronological point.It is something which is in the process of begin-ing throughout this history,gripping it (fangeri) and defining it as a unified totality. This constant beginningis the withdrawal or retreat (Entziehung) of being (Sein) from the totality ofbeings, which amounts to the process of 'clearing' necessary for the totality topresent itself. This withdrawal is later Heidegger's way of describing theontological difference: being 'refuses' to be counted as a being and consequently'withdraws' from beings as a whole. Why does Heidegger use the word'withdrawal', which suggests a movement over time? Precisely because themanner in which being and beings are differentiated changes over time, as doesthe relative predominance of beings over being. Being's withdrawal from beingsensures a certain predominance of beings as a whole over this withdrawingbeing, which means that the withdrawal of being is the giving of the whole ofbeings in its wake. In order not to reify it, we must say that being is this wake orthis refusal of itself, this absence which nevertheless leaves something in itsplace. The whole of Western history is in the grip of this beginning and indeedthis grip defines it as Western history. This means that Western history remains

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in the wake of being, forever unable to catch up with it, render it present, andhold it in its hands as we would a being, so today it has given up. Westernhistory in each of its metaphysical positions is an ever renewed attempt tosymbolize this original traumatic loss, a loss, it should be noted, of somethingwe never possessed: being never was a being, it was never not withdrawn. Thissymbolization amounts to providing a univocal term for the whole of beings.These terms are the fantasies that bestow totality upon beings while occludingthe fact that something always withdraws from this determination. That whichwithdraws is the very determination itself. If beings are denned as actuality thenwe may ask: is actuality itself actual? Metaphysics answers 'ydddldldlddddddland thus tacitly supports a thesis of essential sameness, a relation of resemblancebetween a being and its essence, grounded and ground, or simply, a being andbeing which begins with the Platonic mimesis of copy and original.Deconstruction intends to pick out the moments of exception to these universaldeterminations, the blind spots of each metaphysical position, which must beoccluded in order for a coherent metaphysical position to form.

Although this withdrawal remains a constant feature of Western history —being is never a being — it does not remain at a constant degree. Rather, thehistory of the West amounts to the unfolding of this withdrawal as theeradication of all traces of the first time it was forgotten, in Greece, in the gloriesof the systems of Plato and Aristotle, so glorious that they disguise the fact thatin them an original withdrawal conceals itself, a withdrawal upon which theirradiance is premised. It is this covering over that is forgotten in the laterphilosophy that unfolds on the basis of this Platonico-Aristotelianism.

Being withdraws, but this withdrawal, as we have seen, gives something inexchange, and the name for this de/cision between withdrawal and giving, theways in which the exchange takes place over history, is Seyn. And while beingremains withdrawn, always already having abandoned us, the historical decisionthat dictates the relation between this withdrawal and the givenness of beings isforgotten. This progressive historical forgottenness (Vergessenheii) takes place, then,on the basis of a constant historical abandonment (Verlassenheit). It amounts to theway in which the given (beings) conies to the fore while the process of its giving(being) becomes submerged. This is why Heidegger writes Seinsverlassenheit andSeynsvergessenheit. Thus, on top of the withdrawal of Sein comes theforgottenness of Seyn.

Seyn is the progressively erased mark within beings that something like beingmust have withdrawn in order for them to constitute themselves. It is thesteadily forgotten navel that marks the foreclosed process of their origination.We lose being {Sein) through our forgetting of Seyn or rather through its ownobliviation. We forget the withdrawal and focus solely on that which it hasgiven us. We receive the gift but forget to thank. We forget the decision thatcuts an unsuturable gash between being and beings, the slash called Seyn, theumbilical cut. A forgetting of the negativity that characterizes totality allowsone to posit the very wholeness of the whole, and this is precisely what


metaphysics, forgetful of finitude and origination, carries out, positingfantasmatic figures or 'names' for being, which cover over the fact thatwholeness can never be complete.

History is what actually happens or the way in which totalities are formed atparticular points and places through fantasmatic constructs. But we must askwhat makes this actual history possible, because every openness, every globe oflight requires its clearing, a void in which to shine. This void is Sein. Thegesture of being's withdrawing is precisely that of the hollowing or thinning outof the whole, which carves out a clearing (Lichtung) within beings, a moment offinitude in which a negativity broaches the positivity of the whole and the wholeis allowed to reflect on and become light to itself. A clearing thins itself outfrom the thickets of the forest of densely populated beings as a whole. We mightsay that being 'clears off. This hollowing out of beings as a whole is whatHeidegger means by being's constant abandonment of beings, its consistentrefusal to be a being. Thus it is through an exception to the totality, or the wow-totality of the totality, that something like light is allowed to enter beings,allowing them to become intelligible within the clearing. Heidegger insists thatclearing and openness must be distinguished (cf. Krell 1986, p. 92) and this isprecisely what Heidegger did not do in his early work, where he identifies Da andLichtung. Clearing is a participle, at least partly a verb, while openness is only anoun. Clearing is the formation of the void of being while openness is the voiditself, in which beings present themselves as a totality, filling in and therebycovering over the void. The gift of the open is the compensation offered by beingin exchange for its primordial clearing (off).

Sein is the void of the totality, while Seyn is the trace of this Sein within thetotality of beings (Seiende). Although we shall come to explain this more fully inChapter Five, this means that Seyn must always be instantiated in and as acertain being within the whole, a privileged yet 'humble' being that Heideggernames 'the thing'. It is the genesis of the whole, the conditions for itsconstitution that are obliviated, and yet they remain marked by the senselesssingularity of the thing, which masks the void of the origin by its refusal to beunitarily determined, even if only for a short while. The thing is that beingwhich covers over the void of being while at the same time holding its placewithin the whole, distinguished from the rest of beings by not entirely effacingthe dimension of withdrawal, a dimension instantiated in the being in the formof 'earth' and 'god'. The thing is thus Seyn as the trace of the erasure of thewithdrawal which is sought out by Heidegger's deconstructive readings ofmetaphysical positions, 'deconstructive' in the sense of demonstrating thosemoments within the totality that undermine it as a totality by exceptingthemselves from the unitary trait that defines that totality as a totality. Today,this unifying trait of 'beingness' is named by Heidegger as 'technicizability' or'makeability', and it is precisely those singular and fragile beings called 'things'which technology is by definition unable to make, this inability marking its ownblind spot. We shall return to this.

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The way in which the whole is hollowed out and thought drawn intothinking by this negativity within being is deemed by Heidegger a 'call' (Ruf),which, as we have seen, means the beckoning gesture made by a withdrawal. Avoid 'calls' in the sense that it demands constantly new symbolic presentationsbecause it simply cannot share any positive trait with other beings and therefore'fit in' to a totality: indeed, it has no positive traits at all. But without this voidin the midst of positivity there would be no symbolization and no totality sincethere would be no exceptional point around which the whole could organize andorientate itself. Symbolizations require a trauma to set them in motion.

The changes in the Seyn-thing that both covers over and marks the elidedcondition of possibility of the totality (Seiri) constitute events in being-history.Why such changes occur is precisely a 'mystery' to us, they elude thought, andwhat is often missed in readings of Heidegger's being-history is that the reasonthese changes are mysterious to us is that they are contingent.

According to Heidegger, the withdrawal of being has never been thought inthe history of philosophy. Although it could convincingly be argued that bothHegel and Lacan will have thought precisely this withdrawal, let us see whyHeidegger thinks that it is today and only today (save perhaps for the moment atwhich Holderlin poetized in his psychotic refusal of the prevalent metaphysicalsymbolizations of his own day) that this clearing and the process of giving whichit entails can be thought.

If Seyn is that which becomes obliviated within the history of metaphysics andthis Seyn is Heidegger's description of the way in which a withdrawal (being) cangive (beings), then what goes unthought in metaphysics is precisely the way inwhich a withdrawal can give or an abyss ground. Ground in the history ofmetaphysics has always been thought as substantial ground, a ground morepresent, more in being than that which it grounds: precisely a god. Whatmetaphysics does not think is a ground that would be less in being, in fact quiteabyssal when viewed from the perspective of beings as a whole. This process ofabyssal grounding is Seyn, whose essence is Ereignis, the exchange in which beinggives beings in its stead, which is ultimately understood in terms of the relationand difference between time and space (Chapter Five).

The forgetting of the abyssal nature of ground, the whole's dependence on acleared void of another order to the ontic, is manifest in the historical fact thatbeing comes to be thought in ever more positive ways and is thus brought closerand closer to the status of a being. Transcendence is more and more devalued, aprocess that culminates in Heidegger's Nietzsche, for whom being and beingsbecome identified in the pure positivity of value-positing immanent life withoutneed of transcendence, which it sees as an invention on the part of immanencefor the sake of the growth in power of certain forms of life. Thus, 'being' isunderstood merely as a 'vapour', an evaporation or emaciation of immanentbeings themselves whose mysterious ungraspable swirlings captivate thoseunable to tolerate the totality of immanence and who consequently turn theirmisty gazes to the heavens in search of redemption. With the Nietzschean


assertion of the totality of immanence the way is paved for the rampancy oftechnology and the full availability of actuality for exploitation, which meansactualization. Technology, as Heidegger understands it, is the means used byimmanence to promulgate itself to the »th degree.

It is only in its absolute stifling that the void of being can be heard to cry out.This cry is known as being's 'distress' (Not). It is precisely this distress that is felttoday amidst the supposedly increasing global prosperity brought about by thespread of liberal democracy and wealth-generating post-industrial capitalism.Being's distress is felt in the characteristic intimation on the part of the sensitivethat 'something is missing'. According to Heidegger, only the purest positivitycan, in its denial of negativity, allow this negativity to speak from its eclipse: awell-known Heideggerian logic according to which we begin to noticesomething for itself only when it fails to work.

What is uniquely promising about Nietzsche is that the destruction of theontotheological god of transcendence and the abolition of a transcendent voidthrough the affirmation of immanent positivity can point us in two directions.One towards the abolition of all negativity, anything beyond immanent beingsas a whole themselves; and the other towards the realization that if there is to bea void at all then it must be an immanent void which metaphysics hasmisunderstood as a transcendent void, masked with an excelling positivity, god:this is the ontotheological god of metaphysics, the god who is 'dead'.7 Accordingto Heidegger, Nietzsche and the thinkers of pure immanence take the formerdirection and thus arrive at a more subtle kind of nihilism than that whichNietzsche recognized in Platonic metaphysics as turning away from immanencetowards the transcendent void. Nietzsche's own nihilism is simply the avoidanceof the void, the refusal to think the void that must be immanent within beingsthemselves. What Nietzsche determines as nihilism, the absence of universalvalues, the lack of an ought consequent upon the voiding of the transcendentrealm, is the absence of a Platonic ethics. To move beyond this and even beyondan ethics of trueness to immanence and the moulding of a life without anytranscendent standard, it would be necessary to acknowledge the void withinimmanence itself as an ineradicable element of beings as a whole. To be nihilistic isto look for transcendence and to find none, when the nihil is rather withinimmanence itself; not an illusion projected by life-forms within this immanencebut more real than actuality itself.

Philosophy as a series of theses on beings as a whole is over (cf. NIV, p. 183/N//, p. 241) since there is now no 'as such', just an ever-growing whole definedsolely by its totality, a constant exploitation of what-is in the way of forcing it toyield up its actuality or energeia, as energy. Beings are present only to the extentthat they have an effect or effectivity (Wirklichkeit, actuality). What matters tothis exploitation is that the void be constantly covered over. If something fails ordies, if a negativity appears within positivity, then whatever has failed must berenewed, replaced or repeated identically in an infinitesimally short space of timein order to retain the constancy of actuality. Thus every being must be

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'makeable', and this is why Heidegger defines the essence of technology in 1936as Machenschaft, or having the capacity to make all beings reconstructable.

The constancy of presence achieved through technology's ability to repeatbeings identically is thus the consummation of metaphysics' understanding ofbeing as pure presence (eidos), which has hitherto been only partially representedin the iconic instances of this essence's appearance. Now, the khorismos has beenbridged and being brought down to earth since the ideal of full presence cantoday for the first time actually be achieved by technology's ability to repeatidentically. This is why Heidegger says that metaphysics today is at the stage ofits completion and in this completion takes the form of science and technology.Whatever ends, technology can repeat; whatever withdraws from appearanceinto darkness, science can illuminate or technology banish; thus, all negativity isexiled from beings. For this reason Heidegger describes the most essentialessence of technology as follows: 'the essence of modern technology — thesteadily rotating recurrence of the same' (WCT, p. \QfylWHD, p. 47) and,'{w}hat else is the essence of modern power-driven machinery (modernenKraftmaschine) than one offshoot (Ausformung) of the eternal return of the same?'(N //, p. 233/VA, p. 122)

'Virtual reality' is actuality with all the gaps closed up, constant presence, anidentical repetition of the so called 'real world' in which we may be reborn aninfinity of times and everything brought before us, made immediately presentby the Internet, which has ensnared the entire surface of the globe and theuniverse. 'Die Technik' in German refers not only to technology but also totechnique and engineering, and 'technology' for Heidegger amounts to thismaking in the way of pre-ordained techniques: for this is what has become ofpoiesis — whose arete is techne — or production as bringing essence to appearance inbeings through the foresight of techne. Once the process of revelation itself(poiesis, Seyri) as the configuration of withdrawing and giving has vanished, allthat remains are techniques of reproduction and representation, framings andorderings of beings in the most efficient way possible: 'Machination and constantpresence: poiesis-techne (CTP, II, pp. 75/GA 6.5, pp. 107).

All that remains now that the void has been closed off is the ordering ofbeings in such a way as to maximize their potential resourcefulness (technology),which demands that we know everything about them, about their properties andpossibilities (science) in order that there be nothing unpredictable orincalculable about them. Both of these amount to an actualization oreffectualization, ruled by the technological goad and the scientific probe.

What fails to be noticed in the overwhelming enthusiasm of actualization isthe fact that science and technology depend upon this exclusion of theunpredictable, upon a certain withdrawal from the whole of beings on whichthey operate. Thus what goes unnoticed and is systematically occluded is the factthat science and technology are both a response to the way in which beings as awhole are currently given to us. What is unique about science and technology istheir utter denial of anything beyond the given: 'beyond beings, there is


nothing' as Heidegger recognized to be science's credo in 1929? In explicitlydenying all notions of 'being' apart from beings, science and technology in factshow themselves to be a certain form of revelation of that which is, a revelationwhich denies its own revelatoriness and thus its own historicality: being hasnever been, earlier times did not have our power of enlightenment, and now thatwe have this ability we should use it, unconditionally. By denying being,'technology itself prevents (verhinderi) any experience of its essence' (WPF, p.117/HW, p. 295). And 'what is modern technology? It too is a revealing(Entbergeri)' (QCT, p. 14/TK, p. 14). This revealing is precisely an 'actualization'.We have described this as the constant renewal of actuality in the attempt tocover up the fact of negativity as such.

In order to avoid the nihilism of full positivity, this positivity must be shownto be premised upon a withdrawal into negativity, on a call that beckons it toreveal the whole of beings in the way of actualization. The supposedly 'positive'or even 'positivist' denial of negativity (being) must be shown up in all itsnegativity, which is to trace the historical process of the crossing-out of beingupon which techno-science tacitly depends. If the void that allows the whole tobe revealed is being itself and the difference between this void and the whole isthe place of ethics, then to show up technology's concealed negativity is to beginto mark out a place for ethics in the midst of nihilism. And it is here that deathfinds a place.

Death presents technology (the means by which the actualization of the wholeof beings takes place) with an event that points towards something in excess ofthe actual, something that cannot be made effective or profitable, somethinganeconomic. Death is an event that ensures that an entity cannot be repeatedidentically since it is the very source of that entity's singularity. It thusintroduces a hitch into calculation, a negativity into the constancy of presence.Death introduces a cross into actuality. The crossing or traversal of this cross isprecisely the concern of Heidegger's later work, which may therefore beunderstood to be a search for a place for ethics within contemporary actuality.And because the experience of death initiates the crossing of being we mustinsist upon this experience as crucial to Heidegger's later work in order to showhow ethics can begin. This stage of the cross will be our concern in this chapter,while the subsequent chapters of Part II will investigate this cross's developmentinto the abyss of grounds presupposed by technology in its revelation of beingswhich occurs through the introduction of a certain questioning into the self-assertive whole (Chapter Four); and finally this cross will be shown to be thefourfold 'thing' that holds the place of this abyssal void within beings as a whole,that point which escapes a totalizing grasp and thus organizes the whole thatsurrounds it, the mark within beings of being as void and thus the instantiationof Seyn as the cut between being and beings. This 'thing' will be the ultimateobject of Heidegger's ethical attention, a thing in need of saying in the way offostering and tending to its contingency and singularity, an act which preciselydraws attention to those moments within the whole that escape technological

World God

Death Seifi

Figure 5-

Sevn

So deeply is negativity concealed by technology that the preparation for itsrevelation is a long drawn-out one. Death is needed first of all to awaken whatHeidegger calls 'need' or 'distress' (Nat). Heidegger describes this as 'the distressof the lack of need' (Not der Notlosigkeit). I propose that we understand thisdistress as the gesture made by being as a result of its utmost stifling. In theabsolute predominance of the actual it is the noise that being nonetheless emitsthrough death: it is the cry of its distress at being stifled. Death awakens us tothe way in which technology systematically occludes all negativity, bypresenting it with an insistent disturbance, indeed a shattering experience ofirrecuperable negativity.

Once this stifling has been heard, the possibility can be intimated that thisnegativity which hereby makes itself known might be crucial to technology: thisis to say, the possibility that this nothing is being dkdkdkdkkddkkdkdkdkkddkkdkdkdkdkdtechnology depends. The positive sound of what has been stifled is named byHeidegger the Anklang, appeal or echo of being.10 This is the positive form ofwhat cries in distress, the unsmothered void which can speak wherever we do notavoid death. It results from the fact that death's intrusion of negativity causes usto question the self-assertion of positivity, which claims no need of groundbeyond itself. This questioning therefore demonstrates the abyss of grounds,which undermines technology itself and which may subsequently speak as theecho of being as it withdraws from positivity. Echo is the noise of the 'call', thetemptation to follow the beckoning of the withdrawal.

We need to see that the withdrawal of being, which technology denies, is infact a condition of the very positivity of the totality which is now technological.

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reproduction, even if only for a while (Chapter Five). The thing holds the placeof the void due to the logic of essence and counter-essence, which stipulates thatbeing cannot simply refuse itself but must hesitate in this refusal and give somesmall part of itself in return.

The three stages of the crossing traced out by these chapters may berepresented by the following three diagrams:

Beings as a whole Man__ Earth


The nothingness of being must be seen to be our ground. Absence of groundscannot be taken for granted. We need to ask the question to which death alonecan bring us: how can it be that 'nothing' grounds us? What about this'nothing?

What Heidegger's later thought risks is taking technology at its word andthinking being not as transcendent but as immanent to beings, as a void withinthem that is represented by a being, the singular being known as the thing. Thushe risks identification with the nihilism of positivity. It is indeed preciselytechnology in its full adequation of essence and appearance in actuality thatallows us to rethink what being can mean: 'It is technology itself that makes thedemand on us that we think in a different sense what is usually understood by"essence"' (QCT, p. 30/VA, p. 38).n With Nietzsche's 'death of god' we areprevented from thinking 'being' either as a transcendent being or as animmanent (actual) being.

Technology is unique in that its ahistorical denial of being replicates the pre-historical withdrawal of being from beings as a whole. Through its similarity tothe truth (the intimacy of being and beings) technology reflects in its gleamingcarapace its own flipside, the beginning (the withdrawal of being). In a sense,technology's ahistorical denial evinces an even more precise mirroring in that theoriginal withdrawal is itself ahistorical or rather pre-historical as a constant thatoccurs throughout history. Thus technology closes off all possibilities ofthinking and responding to being, except the most proper, and that is aswithdrawal (Sein) and what today ordains its occlusion (Seyri). Whatdistinguishes the two, technological denial and Heideggerian crossing, is amindfulness (Besinnung) or attention to the 'nothing', a questioning oftechnology's assertion that its operation depends on 'nothing'. And whatinitiates this questioning, as the criticality characteristic of an ethical stance, isdeath.

Death as an intrusion of negativity must be excluded by technology. It is theultimate worry from which all others stem, and for precisely this reason it mustbe repressed. The stresses of the maximization of actuality, of the inhumandemand for 'efficiency' and 'productivity', are quite enough for human beingswithout worrying about negativity and how it might 'feel' at its suppression!Stress fills the aching void of distress. There is no ground, no transcendent ideal,there is only 'this life' and the striving for personal gain and satisfaction, andthat is difficult enough. In demanding this pursuit, therapeutic technologytoday achieves the stifling of real distress in a tranquillized boredom, theboredom of curiosity, which demands the forever new, always beings, alwayspositivities (CTP, II, p. 1Q9/GA 65, p. 157). The constant satisfaction of ourown needs blinds us to the fact that the real need is not our own. If it did not,then the question might arise, almost unintelligible to us today, 'What is manto do, if in truth the need is a need of being itself?' (N IV, pp. 245-6/N //, p. 392— my emphasis)

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Death is the way in which thinking can begin today, in opposition to thedocile boredom of stress and its therapeutic relief, and how such a book asContributions to Philosophy could have been written. For this reason, Krell is rightto insist that death is the Grunderfahntng or fundamental experience that stirsHeidegger's thought from beginning to end (Krell 1986, p. 9).12 This is whyBeing and Time remains a necessary step along the way to being,13 for it is notincidental that here we find Heidegger's most sustained engagement with death.

Let us therefore examine the way in which — in later Heidegger - death stirsus to awaken the distress of being, the protest of the nothingness of grounds atits stifling beneath the positivity of beings. 'Distress' is a form of anxiety, butthis time on the part of being, the gesture of the occluded void.

DEATH AND DISTRESS

In the indifference of pure positivity the totality of actuality remains quiteunquestioned. The ground or reasons for the whole's being revealed as a processof insatiable actualization are not sought because they are not deemed necessary.The fact that the whole requires a process of revelation is occluded by technologyby way of a constant replenishment of self-standing actuality. Questioning isprecisely that gesture which undermines whatever claims to be its own ground,justification or explanation. Questioning does not accept the simple assertion atface value. It is as questioning that Contributions to Philosophy speaks. It bespeaksnot the distress but the appeal (Anklang) of being in its abandonment. In otherwords, it speaks only when the stifled void has been unblocked and becomevisible as the immanent abyss (Ab-grund) that is being itself. In other words, theappeal can sound only when distress has been allowed to speak. It is a questionrarely asked, but how can this distress sound and Heidegger's thought begin?This is a question that precedes and conditions Contributions to Philosophy and so wecannot expect it to be answered there.

We have seen that, '[distress (Not) ... animates [the] crossing as an access towhat is to come (den Ubergang ... ah den Zu-gang auf das Kunftige befeuert)(CTP, II, pp. 78—9/GA 65, p. 112) in the sense that distress is necessary for thequestion of the origination of the ontological difference to be initiated and itscrossing traversed. But must not distress first have been awakened? Heideggerhimself admits this necessity: 'This distress does not first need help but mustfirst of all itself become helping. But this distress must still be experienced (Aber dieseNot mufi doch erfahren werden)' (CTP, I, p. 19/GA 65, pp. 25—6 — my emphasis).Heidegger even determines this awakening and experiencing as one part ofphilosophy's 'task' (Aufgabe) (CTP, I, p. 8/GA 65, p. 11). Preliminary to thetransition or crossing that Contributions to Philosophy traces, philosophy isprecisely the stirring and the sustenance of distress: 'The distress of needlessness(Not der Notlosigkeit). First of all to let this resound (anklingen)' (CTP, II, p. 75/GA 65, p. 107).14 This is philosophy's own 'necessity' (Notwendigkeit) in the


sense that the necessary condition of questioning as such is that 'it should noteliminate that distress but must rather persevere in it and ground it' (CTP, I, p.32/G.A 65, p. 45).15 If questioning refuses to accept a positivity at face valuethen this means that one can question only when something in excess ofpositivity has been revealed.

When distress has cried out, the appeal of being may be heard andContributions to Philosophy written. But how is distress to be awakened andexperienced?

Heidegger first of all names the type of entity that awakens distress: it is thequestioning entity, in 'the epoch of the total lack of questioning' (CTP, II, p. 76/GA 65, p. 108), those who are dis-turbed by the most acute distress (CTP, VI,pp. 218-9/GA 65, pp. 397-8). 'It is only through questioners that the truth ofbeing (Seyri) becomes a distress' (CTP, I, p. 10/GA 65, p. 12). But as we haveseen, questioning is not without its preconditions. Questioners question only onthe basis of an experience of something beyond positivity. Today, this means thatthey must have experienced death. Death alone, as the presentation of a voidwithin actuality itself, can demonstrate to us the way in which positivity stiflesthe void. Following the death of god, death cannot incline us towards atranscendent realm and must therefore lead us to a void within immanence itself.Thus, when we face the anonymous fact of death we are brought to realize thatthe void is what is closed out by contemporary actuality. This stifling of the voidis the Notlosigkeit of today, the absolute lack of breaks in the continuity of thetotality, and the noise of this stifling is precisely the Not belonging toNotlosigkeit. Death awakens us to this Not.

It is crucial to insist on death if ethics is not to be restricted to those who candiscern the traces of withdrawal in the texts of pre-Socratic Greece: 'Theenactment (Vollzug) of being-towards-death is a duty (Pflicht) only for thinkers ofthe other beginning. However, every essential human being among thosecreating in the future can know of it (wisseri)' (CTP, IV, p. 200/GA 65, p.285).

Heidegger is now in possession of a way of thinking being that will allow himto understand death as an anonymous fact which belongs to no-one, anunderstanding to which Part I of this work has brought us, since the site ofbeing is no longer man's appropriated self-belonging. 'Death' can now signifyany instance of negativity: 'As the shrine of the nothing, death is the shelter ofbeing (Gebirg des Seins)' (Th, p. 179/V.A, p. 171 - my emphasis). As the soleshrine to the nothing, death alone can stir distress as the protest of the void atthe overbearing of the whole.

Technology's attitude to death is therefore that of John Donne: 'Death, thoushalt die!' Or, as Heidegger more prosaically has it: 'The self-assertion oftechnological objectification is the constant negation of death (Das Sichdurch-setzen der technischen Vergegenstandlichung ist die standige Negation des Todes)' (WPF,p. 125/HW, p. 299). Cryogenic freezing and the immortalization of man as a setof actual patterns in the form of the genome are just two manifestations of the

1

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way in which technology steers us away from the abyss of death by minimizingits power. Every facet of man's being is to be 'actual', determinable in advance:possibilities are not allowed to constitute a part of his being. It is this 'constantnegation' that ensures the continuation of Notlosigkeit. This constant negation isprecisely the neurotic insistence of technology on the instant renewal andreplacement of anything that wastes away or dies.

It is for this reason that Heidegger says: 'it is precisely [machine-poweredtechnology} and it alone (sie alleiri) that is the disturbing thing (dasBeunrithigende), that moves us to ask the question concerning technology assuch (das uns bewegt, nach "der" Technik zufragen)' (QCT, pp. 13—14/VA, p. 17).This does not contradict our assertion that death stirs distress, since technology'sclosing out of the void is the precondition of distress, which is nothing but theprotest of the void as it is suffocated in the total positivity which technologybolsters. Technology dictates that the only way in which to experience thisdistress is through death, the very last outpost of negativity in which it can findshelter. If negativity were not so instantly and repeatedly stifled, then it wouldnot be necessary to dwell so insistently upon death. For this reason, Heideggertells us that in the technological era specifically, being 'irrupts in a singularuncanniness (bricht in einer einzigen Unheimlichkeif)' (QB, p. 313/W, p. 242). Thismeans both that the time of technology is a privileged time, perhaps the onlytime in history at which being could be revealed to us as withdrawal or void, andthe time in which being can show itself only in the form of a 'thing', and thatwhat ensures the singularity of beings today is the fact that they will die and bebut once only, despite technology.

Death is for technology merely an inconvenient disruption of production. It issomething with which technology attempts to reckon. The aneconomy ofAuschwitz is perhaps the starkest example of the failure of an attempt to make ofdeath an utterly efficient extermination, a death that would leave no trace of itsoccurrence, a death that would not exceed the positive fact of its actuality. Thisis how I would understand Heidegger's location of the Shoah within the essenceof technology,17 as an expression of technology's cruel relation to death, in itsneed to make of it a quick and unobtrusive liquidation.18 This is why we havebeen rendered 'technicized animals' (cf. CTP, I, p. 68/GA 65, p. 98 — myemphasis), animals, one recalls, being those who lack death as such.

But death refuses its reduction: it is described in Contributions to Philosophy as'the highest and most extreme testimony of being (das hochste und auflersteZeugnis des Seym)' (CTP, IV, p. 200/GA 65, p. 284; CTP, IV, p. 165IGA 65, p.230). And for this reason Heidegger can invoke 'sacrifice' as part of our ethicaltask: 'The highest form of pain (Die hochste Gestalt des Schmerzes) is dying one'sdeath as a sacrifice on the part of human being for the preservation of the truth ofbeing (der das Menschsein opfert fur die Wahrung der Wahrbeit des Seins). Thissacrifice is the purest experience of the voice of being' (P, p. 167IGA 54, pp.249-50). Pain is the rift (L, p. 204/US, p. 27), the riving open of the difference,Seyn. To die one's death in a way that does not blind itself to this death and what


it means for our lives is to counter the obliviation of being, and thus to beginethics.

In an exceptionally curious passage of Contributions to Philosophy, Heideggerjoins together joy and mourning and describes them as preserving the hint ofgod, while suggesting that being (Seyn) opens only to those who hold death inmind in the form of 'mourning':

How this hint [of the last god} is preserved (bewahrt) as hint in restrainedreticence (in der verhaltenen Verschwiegenheit), and how such preserving alwaysresides in taking one's departure and arriving, particularly in mourning andin joy (in der Trauer und in der Freude), in that attunement to ground of therestrained (Grundstimmung der Verhaltenen) to whom alone the cleavage ofbeing (Seyn) opens and closes. (CTP, VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 400)

This joy should be related to the joy of Being and Time where it indicated theinauthentic attitude that turned away from singularity and immersed itself inbeings, and for joy death was indeed something that happened only to otherpeople, others whose death would be mourned. Only here joy does not turn awayfrom death but is precisely an attitude which turns towards it, in recalling thelost joy that was shared with the one mourned. Mourning is that moment inactuality in which one does not attempt to minimize the intrusion of death. Iwould argue that if Heidegger had had the Freudian distinction at his commandhe would have replaced 'mourning' with 'melancholy' here,20 as an attitude todeath that does not attempt to assign a meaning to it and thus develop symbolicco-ordinates that would allow us to 'cope', but rather holds on to death as amoment of sheer trauma, a Real which cannot be fully captured within anysymbolic interpretation. Only in this way can death act as an access to anegativity within beings as a whole and thus awaken distress. Anything less thana melancholic obsession with death would recuperate it for the services ofactualization.

The cleaving of Seyn between the withdrawal of being and the giving ofbeings will always already have happened and yet it is something that mustalways be recalled, particularly today when the exchange has been utterlyforgotten. It can be related to only by memory, Gedenken. Even in Being andTime, mourning is related inseparably to such memory: 'tarrying alongside inmourning and commemoration (Im trauernd-gedenkenden Verweilen bei ihm)' (BT,p. 282/SZ, p. 238).21 This is a memory which will never have been perception,because that which is recollected was never actually present.

With the introduction of the mood of joy we are brought to the way in whichHeidegger marks the fact that death is that which initiates the crossing of theontological difference as the place of ethics, stirring being's distress at itsforgottenness. We should recall from Part I that mood puts us in touch withfactuality, and given that factuality or the givenness of the whole is no longertaken for granted in later Heidegger, but is rather thought as the historically

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variant decision of Seyn, moods, if they are to relate to being, will follow acertain progressive sequence of change as being undergoes different stages of itsobliviation or erasure from memory. We shall examine this sequence of moods inorder to justify further our assertion that death stands at the origin of ethics andto demonstrate how it relates to the later stages in the development of ethicsoutlined in Chapters Four and Five of this work. We have seen that joy has beenbrought into relation with death, marking the elision of death's ownership inthe later Heideggerian problematic. We should recall that the mood we found torelate to factual death in Chapter Two was fear (Furcht). The mood that attunesus to death in Contributions to Philosophy is indeed no longer 'authentic' anxiety,but terror (Erschrecken).

THE FOUR MOODS OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHILOSOPHY

To begin with, let us make clear the broad alignment between these moods andthe chapters of Part II of this work. Erschrecken, or terror, is addressed in thischapter on death; Verhaltenheit, or restraint, in Chapter Four on questioning; andScheit, or awe, in Chapter Five on saying. That there is a fourth mood, Ent-setzen,or horror, indicates the necessity of a move beyond Contributions to Philosophy andthis Part of the present work, which concern the essence of Seyn. Why is thismove necessary? Because essence always has its counter-essence, and we must notleave this out of consideration. What shall largely be deferred in this Part is adiscussion of the counter-essence of Ereignis, which is Gestell or the essence oftechnology, the counter-essence of Seyn, which is power, and the counter-essenceof ethics, which is politics. These induce 'horror' in us, and this mood willconcern us only in the transition from Part II and in Part III as the 'return' of theessence of being to beings as a whole.

The English translation of Contributions to Philosophy translates Erschrecken as'startled dismay', but let us remain with the more simple 'terror'. Heideggerdescribes the experience of this mood as follows: 'what has long been familiarturns out to be estranging (das bislang Gelaufige ah das Befremdliche ... sicherweist)' (CTP, I, p. 11IGA 65, p. 15). Crucially for our argument, suchalienation is said by Heidegger to be the result of an experience of death. 'Whatis most unaccustomed or extraordinary (das Ungewohnlichste) in all of what-isopens up (eroffnet sich) in death's extraordinariness (das Ungewdhnlichkeit) andsingularity (Einzigkeit), namely being itself, which prevails upon us essentially asthat which alienates (ah Befremdung west)' (CTP, IV, p. 199/GA 65, p. 283).

[I}n the uncircumventable ordinariness (das unumgangliche Gewb'hnlichkeit) ofbeings, being is the most extraordinary (das Ungewb'hnlichste); and thisestranging (Befremdung) is not a manner of its appearing but is rather beingitself.

0


In the domain of the grounding of its truth, i.e. in Da-sein, the uniquenessof death corresponds to the extraordinariness of being (Der Ungewohnlichkeitdes Seyns entspricht im Grundungsbereich seiner Wahrbeit, d.b. im Da-sein, dieEinzigkeit des Todes). (CTP, IV, p. 163/GA 65, p. 230)

Death is quite inhabitual to our common habitation of the world as theperpetual motion of actualizing. Heidegger even acknowledges the presence ofSchrecken in Being and Time as precisely the response to an event that suddenlybreaks in upon our dwelling: 'If something threatening breaks in suddenly uponconcernful being-in-the-world ... fear becomes shock (Schrecken)' (BT, p. 181/SZ, p. 142). This is what death has become, an anonymous threat to everythingin the world, a negativity that menaces the positive whole.

Erschrecken is precisely an attunement to the way in which negativity, in theform of death, is closed out in the utter predominance of beings. Heidegger'sword for our relation to an occluded negativity is ahnen, intimation or inkling.Thus, Erschrecken is said precisely to intimate, as is Verhaltenheit, the primaryattunement of Contributions to Philosophy, which arises after distress has beenawakened and the appeal of being sounded (CTP, I, p. 11/GA 65, p. 14).22

Since Erschrecken puts us in touch with the occlusion of being beneath thewelter of beings, it is said to be the other beginning's equivalent to the firstbeginning's thaumadzein (CTP, I, p. 11/GA 65, p. 15). The wonder that beingsare has been replaced by the terror that being is smothered by beings. Onlysomething as violent as a traumatic shock can open us to the way in whichtechnology stifles negativity. One feels terror before the break in positivity,which technology simply cannot account for since it denies the possibility thattotality needs anything beyond itself: it cannot think the immanent void thatallows its positivity to presence.

Death changes over history and this is what dying can be today, when there isno hope of an afterlife, nor of direct access to transcendence in erotic fusion (asdeath has been from Plato to Bataille). Death can merely demonstrate the brutefact that technology utterly denies all withdrawal and thus disavows the beingupon which it depends. But this is at least a start, a first step on the road toethics as a way in which we might cope with life amidst technological actualityand yet respond to the most fundamental call which resounds as silence in thedeafening roar of machine-technology.

The disposition to terror must necessarily be in place before Contributions toPhilosophy and the crossing of the ontological difference take place. As we haveseen, this is because Contributions to Philosophy speaks from out of the appeal ofbeing, not its distress, which appeal is thus put into words in the attempt toawaken in us an attunement to being's own peculiar reticence, an attunementwhich will be described as Verhaltenheit. The following passage begins the planeof Contributions to Philosophy entitled 'Appeal'. 'The appeal (Anklang) of theessential prevailing of being (Seyn) out of the abandonment {withdrawal] ofbeing through the needful distress (notigende Not) of the forgottenness of being

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(Seyn)' (CTP, II, p. 75/GA 65, p. 107 — my emphasis). In other words, beingcannot appeal unless its distress has been awakened from out of the utmostobliviation of being. And, with the aid of the conjunction of moods inContributions to Philosophy, I argue that it is death that stirs this distress. Theconnection between distress (Not) and death's terror (Erschreckeri) is illustratedperfectly in the following passage:

But from where does future philosophy receive its need and distress (Nor)? Must it not• itself awaken this distress (Not) - inceptually (anfangentf)? This distress is

something other than the troubles and concerns which always haunt onlysome corner or other of installed (verfestigten) beings and their 'truth'. Thisdistress, on the other hand, cannot be eliminated - although it can be denied— by the cheerfulness of a supposed delight in the 'wonders' of 'beings'.

As ground for the necessity (Notwendigkeif) of philosophy, this distress (Not)is experienced by terror (Erschrecken) in the jubilation (Jubel) of belonging tobeing, which as hinting shifts the abandonment of being (Sein) into the open (insOffene). (CTP, I, p. 69/GA 65, p. 99 - my emphases)

Terror hints in that it brings withdrawal or abandonment out of itsforgottenness and into the open, by means of death. It is the terrifying part ofthe celebration of our being inherently drawn to being in that it attunes us tothe absolute predominance of beings, which stifle that to which we areexistentially drawn.

Why is it only death that can demonstrate the stifling of the void and attuneus to being's distress? Because 'a being is never sufficient for letting being (Seyn)even be intimated' (CTP, VIII, p. 335/GA 65, p. 476). To begin from a being inthe attempt to determine being is to attempt a metaphysical transcendence thatwill end up determining 'essence' on the basis of its 'appearance'. This is Uberstieg(transcendence), rather than the Ubergang (crossing) which is painstakinglytraced out in Contributions to Philosophy and which demonstrates the true'simultaneity' of being and beings in the differentiation of Seyn. Being does nottranscend beings but is immanent to them. Even Being and Time made thismistake, or at least risked seeming to do so (CTP, IV, p. 177/GA 65, pp. 250-1). Heidegger's attempt in Being and Time was more essentially incomplete thaneven he realized in that it focused exclusively on being's withdrawal or differencefrom beings, represented as 'the ontological difference'. The giving quality ofthis withdrawal or the balance between withdrawal and giving was notrecognized there, and this is why Heidegger introduces the older word for being(Seyn) to describe his attempt to balance these two in his later work.

If being cannot be divined from any being, then what is left? Preciselynothing. 'In the other beginning a being can no longer supply the measure forbeing' (CTP, IV, p. 175/GA 65, p. 248).24 Being can be intimated only from itsequal, the nothing, which is incommensurable with anything actual, 'theoverflow or excess (Ubermafj) of pure refusal (reinen Verweigerung)' (CTP, IV, p.

)


173/GA 65, p. 245 - italicized; CTP, IV, p. 176/GA 65, p. 249). This refusal isbeing's withdrawal, its refusal to be a being. It is this pure refusal withoutgiving, this void in beings, that death puts us in touch with.

The nothing exceeds the measure of the actual. It cannot be calculated orreckoned with any more than it can be manufactured or machined. It cannot bepart of 'the gigantic' (das Riesenhafte), which is Heidegger's determination of awhole that experiences no limit to calculability and thus thinks solely in termsof quantity, to the extent that this quantity becomes a quality to be pursued forits own sake. The incalculable is thus denied the status of 'a being'.

Because the gigantic never knows (kennf) what overflows (iiberfluf) — theinexhaustible unexhausted (das un-erschb'pfliche Unerschb'pfte) [i.e. what cannever be used as a resource and so used up] — therefore what is simple must berefused to it (das Einfache versagt bleiben).' (CTP, II, p. 96/GA 65, p. 137)

Being itself is 'that which withdraws from all estimation (Schatzung)' (CTP,IV, p. 176/GA 65, p. 249). In other words it dictates that there be a moment inwhich calculative thought or reckoning must come to an end.

If a being cannot provide the measure for being, then what could be themeasure of that which cannot be measured? Heidegger gives the answer: 'Death isthe as yet unthought standard of measure for the immeasurable (Mafigabe desUnermefilicben)' (PR, p. 112/SG, p. 187 - my emphasis).26

DISTRESS TO QUESTIONING, THROUGH RESTRAINT AND AWE

This chapter has established that distress at the stifling of being's withdrawal isexperienced in terror, and that this terror is precisely our response to the fact ofdeath. In order to lead into the next chapter and the next stage in thedevelopment of ethics, let us anticipate the way in which the attunement tobeing develops out of this terror. Thus, refusing to close our eyes to death andadopting a stance of melancholic attachment to the dying is the first stage in thedevelopment of an ethics and the first inscription of the cross of being.

Death introduces a negativity into beings as a whole and thus opens us to itsstifling. Restraint (Verhaltenheit), the probing questioning attunement ofContributions to Philosophy itself, is one possible attitude towards this stifling, areserved response which does not overreact either in the way of technology'sclosing out of this negativity or of turning this negativity against technologyitself and eradicating it. Technology and being mutually depend on one another.Questioning is the response to death's negativity which is alive to the possibilitythat technology's stifling of negativity is necessary to being, that it expressessomething essential and is not a merely epiphenomenal exclusion. Thusquestioning turns its attention to the 'nothing' of grounds that technologyasserts for itself.

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Terror attunes us to pure refusal, the void insofar as it is stifled by theoverwhelming presence of beings as a whole. The questioning mood of restraintattunes us to this Stirling's link with the technological whole of beings, in thesense that it thinks this negativity as the whole's very ground. In other words,restraint opens to the possibility that death might show us not just nothing, butbeing. One is prepared for the insight that this withdrawal is itself what givesthe whole, a refusal that hesitates and thereby gives itself away. He who hesitatesis lost. Thus, restraint opens up the possibility of awe (Scheu), which attunes usto the way in which '{t}he nothing, as other than beings, is the veil of being(Scbleier des Seins)' (PWM, p. 258/W, p. 107). Restraint is said in Contributions toPhilosophy to open us to the possibility that refusal might also be a gift: it is'preparedness for refusal as gifting (Schenkung)' (CTP, I, p. \2IGA 65, p. 15). Itprepares us for the thought that the abyss revealed in terror might ground Inother words, it opens us to the possibility that the withdrawal of being mightamount to its 'sending'.27 In other words, awe attunes us to hesitation, thecounter-essence of refusal.

Restraint is thus a response to terror, which itself opens the way to awe. As weshall see, restraint characterizes the stage of ethics known as Gelassenheit, whichboth assents to and withdraws from technology, holding itself at a sufficientdistance from the assertion of positivity to be open to the possibility that thewithdrawal evinced in death might in fact be the very condition of possibilityfor positivity itself. It thus hesitates before accepting the factuality of facts 'as agiven' and begins to question totalities in search of those moments in whichtheir totality is undermined. Restraint is said to preserve the hints (Winke) ofwhat terror has intimated (CTP, VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 400).

Once withdrawal is determined as a condition of the gift of the whole,restraint becomes awe, which shies away from making a being of being. This iswhat awe intimates, and it is the stage of the overcoming of nihilism, in thatnothingness is understood not as annihilation but as the condition of possibilityof the gift. Thus awe is described as the attunement closest to the leap (Sprung)which is the leap into Seyn as Ereignis, the explanation of how it is that abyss canground, how the exchange can take place between being and beings (CTP, IV, p.161/GA 65, p. 227). Thus it amounts to 'nearness to the distant, which hints'(CTP, I, p. 12/GA 65, p. 16). As we shall see, what is distant and what hints isthe god. It is what initiates the beckoning (Erwinken) of being as that whichrefuses itself (versagen), a refusal which is an eloquent one, a saying (Sage), andwhich may thus be said to hesitate (zogern) (CTP, V, p. 265/GA 65, p. 380).28

We shall return to this god.Heidegger is quite explicit in connecting the shock or terror of death with the

awe felt in the face of the nothing as the veil of being: 'the shock (Schrecken) ofdisclosing being's abandonment and at the same time the awe before the pealingEreignis (anklingenden Ereignis)' (CTP, VI, p. 211IGA 65, p. 396 - my emphasis).Restraint is elided here because it is the midpoint of the two moods in the sensethat it responds to the former while preparing for the latter. Restraint is the

World God

Voic Abyss Abyss Abyssoi ground fhat grounds grounding

as thing

Figure 6. The four moods of Contributions to Philosophy

beings in the novel form of the thing. The first three moods clearly map onto thestages of the cross of being that we are describing.

Terror corresponds to pure refusal, restraint to refusal, and awe to hesitance;horror corresponds to hesitant refusal, which amounts to the full essence ofEreignis. The horrific counter-essence of this Ereignis will be the subject of PartIII of this work: here we describe how the essence of being 'grounds' 'in practice'in the form of the singular thing that 'bears' and 'gives birth to' an entire world.This chapter has described the first of the four moods outlined above togetherwith the death that arouses it.

Once the nothing enshrined in death is recognized as directing us towards theabyssal ground for beings as a whole that technology denies, this whole will besubjected to questioning which undermines a totality in its pure factual self-


between of terror and awe (CTP, I, p. 12/GA 65, p. 15), both of which are saidto be 'guiding moods' of the second plane of Contributions to Philosophy, 'Appeal'(ibid.). One cannot intimate the appeal of Ereignis from out of being'sabandonment without these two moods being in place. 'Shock (Schrecken) and awe(Scheu) together first let the appeal be enacted in thinking (denkerisch vollzieheri)'(CTP, VI, p. 211IGA 65, p. 396). Death breaks through the encrusted sedimentwhich has obliviated all trace of being's withdrawal. Awe lets us understand thiswithdrawal as the gift of beings as a whole. Only with terror at withdrawal andawe at the gift can the full balance of Ereignis be reached.

It is restraint that joins the second and third planes of Contributions toPhilosophy, Appeal and Zu-spiel, the latter being the place at which Heideggerdescribes the relation of play (Spiel) that exists between withdrawal and giving,and is therefore attuned by awe. Restraint should be our attitude to theunintelligibility of Contributions to Philosophy itself, which merely brings outand holds before us the hints of being as 'boulders of the quarry' (CTP, VIII, p.297IGA 65, p. 421).

The moods of Contributions to Philosophy may be presented graphically as inFigure 6. By way of anticipation I include Ent-setzen which throws us back to

Terror Restraint Awe Horror\Erschrecken) (Verhahenhe.it) iScheu) (Entsetzeri)

Man Earth

2

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assertion and seeks those points within it that hint at the moment at which itsassertion is rendered void by those beings that resist a totalizing determination.

The first stage and the precondition for ethics in the technological age is thusan experience of death, a demand that we set up a shrine to the nothing in theanonymous fact of death, which we are to hold constantly before us in joyfulmelancholy. Death opens us to the danger of technology in the sense of itsincompleteness and deception. Here is a negativity it can do nothing about.Melancholy rather than mourning attunes us to the meaninglessness commonlyexperienced in the face of death, a meaninglessness that by way of questioningcan come to infect the whole of what-is. Death puts the question: what is thepoint of this circuitry of energy, information and capital? To what end does itflow? The question is surely the very beginning of an ethics that can beaccommodated within and remain critical towards the technological age.

Chapter Four

Questioning, Void

Death has brought us to question the self-sustaining subjectal circuit of energy,information and capital that is achieved by way of technology. The ever-greatergrowth of the positive totality of beings through Technik has been called intoquestion by the intrusion of negativity that is death. This death has shown,through the terror that it can evoke, the suppression of negativity thattechnology carries out. The response to this terror which will allow being toecho out of its distress is restraint (Verhaltenheit). This hesitance with respect tonegativity prepares us to understand being's own hesitance, its withdrawal asnecessary in order for the whole of beings to present themselves in the way thatthey do. This restraint towards negativity, which refrains from smothering it yetagain with positivity, is precisely the initial stance of thinking or ethics proper,the second stage in its formation overall: it is constituted by questioning.

In other words, in a restrained response to distress, questioning refuses merelyto accept the factuality of what-is as a given, simply because this facade has beenrevealed to be a sham: it excludes a negativity that death has shown us to be thecase. Questioning undermines the confident self-assertion of facts and burrowsafter the grounds of these facts. To demonstrate the tenuous character of atotality, it attempts to open up an abyss beneath the totality, which will be theclearing in which any position must first of all place itself. The whole hasbecome co-extensive with objective 'facts and acts' (CTP, VII, p. 311/GA 65, p.442) and questioning is the refusal to accept these facts at face value, and thus itprepares for the possibility that we might one day have access to the process ofthe given's very giving, the historical constitution of the accrued sediment thatis the actual. The presence of a question means that the whole has acknowledgedthat it does not fully grasp itself and does not provide its own ground. It is notsimply because we are finite that the whole is given to us in this way: since weare part of the whole itself, this finitude may be said to belong to the whole. Thetotality of beings is itself incomplete, finite, and therefore puts itself into questionwhen a negativity intrudes upon it.

Questioning is the way in which man and the whole of beings taken togetherget drawn into the abyss. This abyss is the abyss of the totality's own grounds. Itis the motion by which the whole moves unto the place where grounds should be

2

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but are not. Questioning, in other words, is our initial approach to being.Questioning is the form that thinking takes at the second stage in thedevelopment of an ethics. 'Thinking' is identical with ethics in Heidegger'sthought, since '{tjhinking accomplishes the relation of being to the essence ofthe human being' (LH, p. 2V)IW, p. 145). Thus what counts as 'thinking' isanything which does not remain oblivious to the void or simply, as Levinasmight say, to the excess of the totality, 'infinity'. Thus, Heidegger's is not an'intellectualist' ethics in any sense.

Questioning is precisely to institute an 'ontological difference' in the totality,which allows something that is not of the order of the thing but is literally 'no-thing'.3 It thus places the cross instituted by death squarely over the whole ofbeings, as a question mark with regard to their apparent self-grounding.

Questioning is the whole's awareness of its own finitude, of the fact thatpositivity or actuality might not be able to expand indefinitely further throughthe technological forcing of what-is to yield up its resources in the form ofenergy. It does not remain blind to death but rather permeates the whole withdeathliness. This restrained questioning is the proper response to the terror thatcorresponds with distress. It is the allowance that allows being to come and thetotality of beings to open to that which exceeds them. For this reason the stanceof restraint and questioning may be deemed one ofSeinlassen — usually translatedas 'letting-be', but let us say 'allowing being to enter' - or Gelassenbeit, the 'yes'and the 'no' to technology, which admits its necessity while probing the limitsof its expansion and capability:

We can use (benutzen) technical objects, and yet with the correct (sachgerechten)use also hold ourselves free of them (freihalten) so that we may let go of themat any time . . . I would name this bearing (Haltting) towards the technicizedworld of a 'yes' and a 'no', by an old word: releasement towards things (dieGelassenbeit zu den Dingen). (DT, p. ">4IG, p. 24-5)4

EN-GROUNDING

This questioning, which opens the totality to the void, is called by Heidegger'engrounding' (Ergrundung) (CTP, V, p. 216/GA 65, p. 307). The word has atleast two senses that must be brought out. The dictionary translates this word as'fathoming', 'getting to the bottom of something' or travelling in the directionof its reasons or grounds (Grande) in thought and deed. It is thus the movementtowards the abyss in the sense that if we need to seek after grounds we cannot yethave found these grounds, and therefore there must be an abyss where groundsshould be. The second, more literal meaning is brought out by separating theprefix of the word with a hyphen, Er-grundung. This is the action that thinkingapplies to the totality of beings: it ew-grounds or gives the totality grounds forthe first time. It allows it the possibility of grounds that are not of the same

)

Questioning, Void 101

order as beings themselves, which would make the whole self-grounding andcapable of being understood purely 'horizontally' in terms of causation. Butquestioning does not yet find these grounds. This would be the stage of awe atwhich withdrawal is seen to condition the revelation of the positive whole. Thiswould be the stage at which abyss grounds and 'Abgrund becomes 'A^-grund'.As yet, ethics as questioning is merely to open up the abyss of being wheregrounds might one day come to be. Because ground is futural in this way, thestance of questioning is one which awaits and prepares. It cannot bring down thegod to haunt the shrine but it can make hale the stone.

Since the totality will already have had a ground, but one which has beenoccluded by the utter predominance of beings, this en-grounding is determinedby Heidegger as a 'repetition' (CTP, V, p. 216/GA 65, p. 307). Since this abyssalground is covered over, the repetition amounts to the bringing to light of thesegrounds for the first time. When beings have become utterly stable and constant(Bestand) in their self-identity, questioning pulls the whole asunder between itsactual identity and its abyssal grounds. This is what Heidegger means when hedetermines ground as abyss. Essence for Heidegger is always different in kind tothat of which it is the essence. If it were not, then it would at the very least beentirely non-explanatory since it would itself stand in need of explanation. Wewould then be embroiled either in an infinite regress of grounds or in a feeblerecourse to a founding subiectum. Repetition of ground thus re-introducesotherness to the being and this is why it may be identified with an ethics ofSeinlassen.

'Ground' or 'reason' (Grund) is understood by technological thought in theway of a 'cause' (Ursache) or that thing from which another issues: it is preciselythe causa efficient or just another entity of precisely the same order as that whichit causes, an actual order. The principle of reason (Satz vom Grund) indeedgoverns all, but with the occlusion of being as of another order to the actual theweil ('because') of Weilen (essential whiling) has become the 'be-cause' of efficientcausality (PR, p. 127ISG, pp. 207—8). The idea of verticality and depth has beenlost in favour of the reckoning form of reason, whose sole criterion for being isefficiency. This is what Heidegger means by the circular phrase he introduces tocharacterize the present age: will to will. In other words, there is no ground orreason of any order other than that which actually is, and that is will, which asHeidegger says in his lectures on Nietzsche is always the will to expand itself, toaccrue an ever greater power of willing. But why does will will? Because it wills.Here, there is no 'why'. Constant production and consumption satisfy oneanother and see no need for a ground or measure beyond the actual process itself.

Technology as the means of production thus denies its own ground (being). Inpursuing the abyss, questioning opens up the ambiguity of this denial.Technology, as Heidegger understands it, is a response to the death of god. Thismeans that with the death of transcendence the only imperative that seems toremain for the immanent whole is the expansion of immanence, the plugging ofany gaps in the continuity of the whole, in order to obliterate the void and

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reassure itself that the void of transcendence was wholly of its own making andthat it must therefore be capable of populating it with its own self-positedvalues of efficiency and productivity. But this is not the only response to thevoid: stirred by the negativity of death, questioning takes into account the deathof transcendence, and rather than covering up this negativity it assigns it to itsproper plane, which is not transcendent to the positive whole but ratherimmanent to it. It is the void upon which the whole depends, the Real withinthe Symbolic.

Technology denies a being (Sein) transcendent to beings, and questioningagrees. It does not ask after an onto-theological god exterior to the whole thatwould explain it causally, but rather seeks the immanent void which must be inplace in order for the whole to present itself in the way that it does. In otherwords, the cross of negativity delineates an incipient site for ethics within thetechnicized whole. It does not call us to a removal from this whole, as if inretreat to a rural apoliticality far from the city and its incessant technicization:ethics cannot be of 'alternative lifestyles' or even of total revolution since thiswould inevitably amount merely to a response to the status quo and remain on aterritory whose nature would already have been decided upon by its 'enemy', andenter into a dispute that would be conducted solely on its terms. What isdemanded is an interrogative attitude that acknowledges its situation withintechnology and the impossibility of its total destruction, since the scars that thewound of man has engraved upon nature will never altogether heal, and ethicsmust acknowledge this. The attempt to eliminate every trace of one's humaneffects, while admirable, cannot entirely succeed.

What is necessary is to respond to the technicized whole in which one findsoneself and to repeat precisely the gesture that technology makes in its denial oftranscendent negativity, an otherness which would transcend the whole, and byrepeating it to bring it to light in the way that it should be understood, which isto say not as an imperative to pure positivity but as an imperative to turntowards the immanent void necessary to any totality. To repeat technology'sgesture of actualization is to show it up as a. revelation and thus as occurring inresponse to a call which exceeds it, which is otherwise than technological: thiswill be the call of being as Gestell. This repetition of the technological nature ofthe whole will be the repetition of engrounding, which opens up an infinitesimalyet abyssal distance between the thinker's questioning and technology'sassertion.

What is occluded from the technological totality, as from all totalities, is itsorigin or the vertical process of its constitution. The whole is to be sure a grid ofever-expanding energy, but how did it come to be revealed in this way? Whatneeded to withdraw in order for the whole to present itself as energy reserve?What had to be excluded? The answer is clear: everything that was not of theorder of actuality, energy and the will. That which Heidegger calls 'the nothing'or 'abyss' and which we have called 'void' is precisely that element which mustwithdraw in order for beings to present themselves as a whole in a certain way,


because it can by definition never be present. It is thus the occluded origin of atotality's historical formation.

The ethics of questioning must turn towards the immanent void of thetotality of beings and thus open this totality onto its excess. Technology isunique in denying the transcendent excess and for this reason we can understandwhat Heidegger means when he tells us that the ethical stance of questioning isprecisely to 'go along with' the operation of technology, to take it at its word andthus to draw the most extreme conclusions of its denial of transcendent being.

GOING ALONG WITH TECHNOLOGY

Technicized animals say 'being is nothing to us' and questioners agree. In thedoubling of this agreement the statement is heard again and in repetition itresounds in a new way: "being is the nothing to us', which is to say that being isnot of the order of the being. It is the nothing that must be nothing in order forbeings to present themselves as constant and complete presence. For this reasonit is necessary to repeat technology's denial in order to demonstrate it to be theocclusion that is necessary at any stage in history for a totality of beings to formitself. If something is denied, there must be a need for it to be denied or a reasonfor this occlusion. Otherwise, why make the denial? This is the question thatrestraint makes of death. Death introduced us to technology's stifling of thevoid; questioning asks technology why it committed this murder. The answer isthat denial is necessary in order for the denier to constitute its own identity.

The questioning of the whole which repeats its denial of being is preciselywhat is enacted by Contributions to Philosophy, where it is described as therepetition of a crossing that is already taking place between the first and theother beginnings, the metaphysical understanding of being as a higher actualityand the rethinking of essence which we have already seen technology to demand.This repetition does not leave technology's denial unchanged, but rather 'bringsthe crossing into the openness (Offene) of history and grounds (jbegriindet) thecrossing as perhaps a lengthy dwelling (Aufenthali)' (CTP, I, p. 3/GA 65, p. 4).It is technology's very crossing out of being that we must dwell on, for we alreadydwell in it. As shall become clearer when we begin to understand the withdrawalof being as the giving of the whole, this crossing (Ubergang) is identical to thetracing out that occurs as the crossing through (Durchstreichung) of being (QB, p.310/\f, p. 239),5 but only when it is repeated. The doubling of the cross tracesout the origination of the crossing and this is the task of thinking as the searchfor the place of ethics.

In light of its peculiar crossing, technology is ambiguous: not merelydangerous, but also potentially salvific, and it is crucial to bear in mind that itshall always harbour this ambivalence (QCT, p. 26—8/VA, p. 30—2). For thisreason, Heidegger invokes the word 'hope' (verhoffen) when speaking oftechnology (QCT, p. 33/VA, p. 37). Hope requires the possibility of an

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alternative if it is to exist. The barring of being which technology institutes isthe sign that marks the crossroads between the devastation of all notions of'essence' and the rethinking of essence that today may be seen to be necessary.

Both ways of a crossroads need one another in order for the cross to form. Therethinking of essence that Heidegger initiates could not take place without theutmost denial of essence that takes place in technology. We cannot choose theone without giving thanks to the other: what matters is the de/cision, which iscalled Seyn and which is always split between itself and its counter-essence, towhich Part III of this work therefore of necessity turns its attention.

By fully adequating appearance and essence in the way that it maintains atotal constancy of beings through repetition, technology bridges the gapbetween beings and being. But this deprives being of its distinctness frombeings and thus renders the distinction unnecessary. Technology is thus led todeny a fixed essence to things which would in fact prevent their modification(which technology engineers, to the end of efficiency and actuality). Themanipulability of what-is at the hands of technology is an expression of the factthat an unchanging eidos can never have been and was rather an illusion broughtabout by man's inchoate grasp of the tools which defined him as human from thevery start and the material upon which they are now brought to bear. An essencewould be something that technology could not make, and there is nothing itcannot make.

But this is to think essence as essentia, quidditas, the answer to the questionquid est . . . ? or ti estin ... ? In the light of technological revelation, this questiontoday finds no answer, and the only conclusion to be drawn seems to be thatessence was always an illusion, one brought about by the limited perspective ofman's perception. Essentia is thus reduced to existentia or the quod, the mere factof a being's existence, written with the existential quantifier (Ex).

If essentia refers to the generic qualities of a type of being, and if it is this formof 'essence' that technology destroys, then we should go along with thisdestruction,7 and this is Heidegger's first imperative. Only thus shall we becomeattuned to the true sense of this destruction. Only by travelling this road shall weglimpse what is to be found at the end of it: which will be another thinking of'essence' as the flipside of technology's closing out of being as transcendent tobeings as a whole. We should be clear that this attunement is a possibilitybelonging to technology. If technology were not in place we could not question inthe way that we do. This amounts to saying that being cannot be understoodapart from its historical manifestations, but neither is it exhausted in suchmanifestations.

To go along with this destructive attitude of technology is precisely toundermine technology in its subjectal self-assertion, and in this case toundermine means to demonstrate that beings as a whole are not as self-sufficientas technology likes to think. Now we are in a position to understand Heideggerwhen he says that to hasten or consummate the destructive tendency oftechnology is to undermine it, that technology sways essentially between its own


indefinite installation and the self-destruction of its tyranny. The denial of beingbecomes the prohibition of representing being as belonging to the same order asbeings. Thus, Heidegger explicitly recommends us to 'unconditionally actualizethis spirit {of technology} so that we simultaneously come to know the essenceof its truth' (HI, p. 53/GA 53, p. 66). This will demonstrate the way in whichtechnology is itself a manner of revealing the whole and is premised upon anexclusion, a void which it does not think (cf. QCT, pp. 12—16/VA, pp. 16—20).Thus we might understand Heidegger's assertion that 'in the most extremewithdrawal of being thinking first brings the essence of being into view' (PR, p.56/SG, p. 101 - my emphasis) and his instructions in Contributions to Philosophyto 'accomplish (bringen)' a crossing of being that is already taking place (CTP, III,p. 122/GA 65, p. llletal.).

What we are attempting to understand here is the way in which technologyand being cannot be detached from one another, and if ethics is nearness to beingthen ethics will exist as a response to technology which admits its inevitability.

In his later understanding of technology, Heidegger came to see that man hadmoved beyond the 'Cartesian' position of primary subject or ground of the whole— as it had been even in Being and Time — and was becoming swept up in the self-steering processes of production and consumption or the energy exchange andgrowth characteristic of technology. In other words, man was becoming just onemore resource for the processes of increasingly self-steering technology and itwas becoming clear that the real subject was the whole itself, which was comingmore and more to deny anything outside of itself by expanding in an effort toconsume the entire universe. Thus technology arrives at 'cybernetics' as themimicry of natural systems by artificial ones in the sense of forming self-organizing and thus self-regulating totalities understood by Heidegger to resultfrom the artificial steerability of all processes at the behest of man, whichbecomes auto-mdbilhy, the self-steering and uncanny self-sustaining of processesignited by man but unfolding quite independently in the way of the universe ofthe watch-maker god.

This is another way in which technology is unique, in what it does to man,who has since Descartes taken over the position of the inconcussable support forthe whole of what-is. Heidegger tells us that being's truth 'will be given over toman when he has overcome himself as subject, and that means when he nolonger represents (wrstellen) that which is as an object' (AWP, p. 154/HW, p.104)8 and technology makes possible this overcoming by decentring man andallowing the systems which he has built to carry on without him, no longerneeding even to be grounded within him.

Technology prevents the representation of essence, which sets upon the thingand grips it with a conceptualizing and thus humanizing grasp (Ti>, p. 181/VA,p. 174; OWA, pp. 32-3/H\^, pp. 21-2 et al.) and thereby opens up thepossibility that essence should be thought non-representatively. Since re-presentation always involves a relation of resemblance between thought andwhat it thinks, this will allow us to think being as of an entirely different order to

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actuality. Technology stifles the non-actual in its denial of being, but this hasthe exceptional advantage of preventing us from thinking 'being' in an actualway and allows us to think it as a void within actuality itself. By denying thatthere is any longer or ever truthfully was a name for the whole, technology allowsus to think being in a way other than this name for the 'being-ness' peculiar toeach epoch (eieios, entelecheia, ens creatum, etc.). Technology extends the reach ofthe actual whole without limit in its striving after energy resources and if wethink this to its extreme, 'consummating' its tendency, we shall become aware ofthe limitlessness of the whole and the fact that nothing borders it: if the wholeuniverse is then viewed as an energy resource and there is nothing left to befuelled by this energy except the very process of resourcing itself, we are surely ledto ask the question why there should be energy here at all? What do we need itfor? What is its purpose? 'How come'? Thus we are brought to enquire afterbeing beyond the actual, as the withdrawing call that dictates that beings berevealed in this fashion.

Questioning is the second stage in the development of an ethical stance, astage that we must pass through in order to become properly ethical for anystretch of our existence. Heidegger translates 'ethos' with the word 'dwelling'(Wobnen, Aufenthalten), thereby allowing us to hear in it the trace of the olderword 'ethos' which retains a trace of something that was never thought butneeded to be in place and to withdraw into the background in order for all futuresignifications of the word 'ethics' to accrue, and this is man's dwelling near tobeing. Questioning and therefore ethics is not some theoretical activity carriedout by scholars alone, as I have insisted, but a basic way of dwelling or living',as the everyday translation of Wohnen would have it, that is a possibility for eachone of us.

Thinking is "the highest activity' (LH, p. 239/W, p. 145) or 'authenticactivity' (eigentliche Handelri) (T, p. 40/TK, p. 40). Why? Because it is not a mereparticipation in an activity or process that is occurring without our impetus andcould occur without us. It is authentic in that it brings to light that foreclosureupon which every activity rests. For this reason, when Heidegger issues his rareethical imperatives which suggest that we 'do nothing', it is rather the form ofaction known as praxis that we should refrain from. This action is solely thebusiness and the busyness of actualization, an action already occurring as thecalculative operation that characterizes technological activity. Proper acting is, aswe have seen, not a withdrawal from such a technological expansion of actuality— such a thing would be both impossible and undesirable from the point of viewof being — but rather a repetition or continuation of this praxis which takes it toits logical conclusion: this extreme will make it clear that such will to will,ultimately for its own sake, rests upon nothing, is carried out for no ultimatepurpose and so skirts an abyss to which it must blind itself, a blinding which isitself the revelatory process of actualization. It is not in opposition to praxis butthrough its very repetition that Heidegger comes to think action as poiesis. If'thinking' means precisely this form of activity that by repeating praxis renders


it poietic then we can in no way accuse Heidegger of a Platonic theoreticism, andthe following imperative becomes much more interesting: 'before considering thequestion that is seemingly always the most immediate and the most urgent,What should we do? (Was sollen wir tun?) we {should] ponder this: How must wethink? (Wie miissen wir denken?)' (T, p. 40/TK, p. 40) This is not an example ofthe traditionally philosophical prioritization of theoria over praxis, the formerworking out the rules that govern the latter and constituting our foresight of theessence which praxis in working on unformed material must bring to appearance.If thinking is questioning then it is a form of dwelling and thus of originalacting which stands open to the abyss upon which action for its own sake isobliviously based. The action that is demanded by the technological age, whichencourages praxis and nothing else, and the action to which Heidegger urges usis a form of action that is otherwise than practical.

In many ways this ars vivendi, as has been recognized since Socrates' 'meletethanatou is an ars moriendi.11 It is the gradual learning of what death means, ofwhat it means to die and how deeply this finitude extends. In early Heidegger,death was thought as the property of man. Later Heidegger came to see thismoment of finitude as the finitude inherent to the whole itself and finally as afinitude which characterizes every being insofar as it is a being. Questioning, thesecond stage in the development of ethics, is the second stage in man'sassumption of mortality. It maps the negativity demonstrated by death onto thecross of denial, which technology inscribes over beings as a whole in order toexpand this whole indefinitely, stretching this whole to its absurd limits andwith every creak rendering the cross more manifest as a. founding exclusion. Thisincreased gaping makes of technology's denial an abyss. It indicates both itsdependence on this denial and the absence which this denial indicates.

Questioning is 'active renunciation' which 'takes refusal into the clearing'(CTP, VIII, p. 315/CzA 65, p. 447). Thus questioning draws us into refusal, butnot yet to its hesitance, and only the two together constitute the essence ofEreignis. To take refusal into the clearing can, I think, mean only to link thisrefusal of being to the manifestation of being, to demonstrate the dependence ofbeings as a whole on (the foreclosure of) an abyssal void. Questioning thus opensto the withdrawal of being, but not yet to its essence, which is precisely Ereignisas the event of the differentiation of being and beings, which means not just towithdrawal but equally to giving.

Heidegger goes one stage further than merely thinking the transcendentalprocess of giving as belonging to an order distinct from that of the given; heunderstands this process of giving (being) to 'hesitate' and leave a mark withinthe totality of the given, a sign pointing beyond the totality. The void of beingis precisely something that cannot appear as a being, but, in order to dictate themanner in which the whole of beings reveal themselves, this void needs toassume a form in which it can, as it were, 'influence' the organization of thewhole. It needs to take the form of a being, the 'thing'. This is why Heideggerlinks the following curious phrases together: The immeasurability (Unmafi) of

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the mere being (nur Seienden), the non-being of the whole (Unseienden im Ganzen— the being that refuses totalization), and the rareness of being (Seltenheit desSeins)' (CTP, VI, p. 281/GA 65, p. 400). UnmajS is a word that Heideggerformerly applied to man's death: its application to the 'mere being' indicates thatthis death may now be understood as what comes to any being insofar as it issingular.

Thus, Heidegger exceeds the mere thinking of Sein in its withdrawal andthinks Seyn as the way in which withdrawal gives and must therefore take theform of some being which is both within the whole and yet exceeds this whole inorder to span the difference between being and beings. It will exceed the wholeby refusing the unitary trait that determines the whole as whole.

Questioning is a dwelling that 'hopes' in the sense that it prepares for therevelation of withdrawal as a manner of grounding: it hopes that the wholemight one day 'leap' into its own abyss and thus come to understand not justthat this abyss is the absence of ground but the way in which grounding occursaround an abyss. The preparation of questioning cannot force this leap but it isnecessary if the leap is ever to occur. In answer to the foremost question ofpractical philosophy, 'what should we do?' Heidegger answers, in the guise ofthe teacher of the 'Conversation on a country path', '[w}e should do nothing, butwait (Wir sollen nichts tun sondern warten)' (DT, p. 62/G, p. 37). This imperativeis to be situated at the second stage in the development of ethics, whichquestions.

Here, in questioning, we undermine the totality of the whole by gentlyprobing entities to see if, for a time, they might escape the totalizingdetermination — reproducibility - imposed on them. We are thus waiting forone among these entities to come to stand for the void of being and thus assumethe status of a 'thing', a contingent being that acts as the navel of the totality,marking its foreclosed relation to its origin, which is disavowed in the umbilicalcut (Seyn). We cannot say which object will come to stand for the void and thusbecome 'the thing', for it remains concealed in the future, unknowable andunpredictable: 'in the course of Western thought . . . the thing is represented asan unknown X' (BDT, p. 153/VA, p. 148): 'X' signifies the unknown other ofUtopian hope, which always involves the possibility that it may never come.

Gelassenheit towards the thing is the second stage of ethics within thetechnological age, but it is not, as is popularly believed, the last. It is an attitudeto Sein as withdrawal but not yet to Seyn as the giving of withdrawal or the thingwhich will hold the place of this void within the totality. Gelassenheit comportsitself towards the thing in the sense of the necessity of a place-holder for thestructural void of being, but it does not yet ethically respond to the particularthing in its contingency and singularity. Questioning, then, has its limits. Itcannot think how it is that the abyss grounds', it knows only that the abyss is ourground. The way in which the clearing is temporo-spatial and the way in whichthe cross placed over the whole in questioning may be identified with 'thefourfold' remain beyond it.


Questioning stares into the abyss opened up by death, the refusal orwithdrawal of being, but an abyss from out of which being can speak with the'voice' (Stimme) to which the mood (Stimmung) of awe might attune us, in theAnklang to which we might become attuned through questioning. This is aquestion that questions so thoroughly that it forgets itself as questioning andbecomes attuned to what calls it to think in the first place (Seyn or the difference)and responds to this grant that is to be said (the Zusage) and exhausts itself in itsutter - and unquestioning - devotion to such saying (Sageri):

Reflection is needed as a responding (Entsprechen) that obliviates itself in theclarity of ceaseless questioning away at the inexhaustibility (Unerschopfliche) ofthat which is worthy of questioning - of that from out of which, in themoment properly its own (geeigneten Augenblick), responding loses thecharacter of questioning and becomes a simple saying (einfachen Sagen). (SR,p. 182/VA, p. 66)13

By turning us towards the abyss, questioning allows us to hear the dumbleaden silence of technology on the topic of being as the silence proper to being. Itis a preparation that allows us to learn to hear the saying (Sagen) of the grant(Zusage) that we shall come to see is the necessary flipside of the refusal(Versagung) of being (EL, p. 71/US, p. 175). Today, this silence can be voicedonly as the silence of technology when it comes to being. It is a silence for whichgrief prepares us in its wordless tears, melancholically refracting death into anungatherable non-significance, the terror over which rouses us from ourabsorption in the world of significant beings.

Thus ethics enters a new stage, or acknowledges another of its facets, that of'saying', to which we turn in the following chapter.

Questioning is an attitude to the whole in that it attempts to indicate to thewhole its dependence on a void or abyss, by probing its totalizing edifice forcracks that might open onto the abyss, crumbling beings which, through theirvery fragility, might hold the place of the void of being within the whole ofbeings, for this void is always, miraculously, represented within the totalityitself by some contingent and precious being which Heidegger calls 'the thing',a singular being that refuses for a time to be engulfed, and refuses precisely bycrumbling, resisting through its very fragility or powerlessness. The voidapproached in questioning is structural in that it is the foreclosure that isnecessary for any totality to form itself; while the thing, responded to in saying,is a contingent place-holder of the void, the historically variable way in which theabyss 'grounds' or organizes the whole. Being is 'nothing besides the being' inthe sense that it is the nothing that resides alongside the being which holds itsplace. This is the thing which spans the ontological difference, folding itselfpliantly1 between, marking the foreclosed place of being. It grounds the wholein the sense of providing us with a reason for its organization, since all must beorganized around this senseless little piece of the Real which refuses the unitary

11

)

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trait that would define the totality as a totality. Since it cannot be incorporatedinto the totality, the totality must arrange itself so as to accommodate thissingularity, naturally with a view to its ultimate incorporation and thusdestruction, but the void is structural, and even though a particular thing mayand always will be destroyed, the possibility remains open that another thingwill arrive to take its place.

The thing as the ground of the whole is precisely what is described inHeidegger's notion of the fourfold and is therefore what becomes of the cross ofbeing which marks the differentiation of the ontological difference and theorigination of the place of ethics. We thus reach the final stage of the ethics ofthe thing, which we might call an 'ethics of the Real". The description of thething as a fourfold gathering demonstrates how it can be that, as Heidegger tellsus, the thing 'bears' the whole world or gives birth to that world in the way thatits parts are distributed, as the temple organizes the entire space of Greekexistence in the polls. The fourfold thing is the topic of the third stage in thecrossing of the cross, the concern of the 'topology of being' (Topologie des Seyns)(PLT, p. \2IGA 13, p- 84) which responds to being's topoi in things and therebydemonstrates how withdrawal can give and organize a whole, for it does so onlyin the form of the thing which excepts itself from the totality.

Heidegger's works on language tell us that language speaks from out of thedifference, the interstice of beings as a whole, a rent which pulls the totalitytowards the immanent void of being. The thing is this interstice and it is to thisthat our speaking must respond, this pain to which we must give voice.Speaking does not take place with the tongue {lingua) but is more originally a'saying' (Sagen), which should be understood to be any form of dwelling that isresponsive to the singularity of the thing with which it dwells. It is the thoughtthat responds to the inspiration of being, that draws its own breath andsustenance from being itself and thereby tends it through speaking. It is drawninto the withdrawing-drawing or drafting-call of being in the configuration ofits current withdrawal. In other words, dwelling near to the origin, as thewellspring of presence itself, sways according to the draft of this springing, inorder to find the words and deeds that might be adequate to both the hardenedcrust which forms the stable identity of the entity and the unfolding gatheringprocess of their upsurge into presence. The 'sense' of being, unlike its 'meaning',is the way in which being breezes into beings and sets them aflurry, vibrating intheir temporary sway, the shine and vivacity of their colours.

Being speaks only when the void of being takes on the positive consistency ofthe thing: this and this alone is what may be said. The void beckons, but the thingspeaks. We are moving from attunement to the withdrawal of being in restraint, toan awareness of the hesitance of this withdrawal, the sense that the nothing ismerely the veil of being or the veiledness of the fact that withdrawal gives, a matterto which awe attunes us. In moving from Chapter Four to Chapter Five we aretherefore moving from restraint to awe, or from questioning to saying, and fromSein to Seyn, and Seyn is always instantiated in the thing that is said.

Chapter Five

Saying, Thing

The essence of Seyn is Ereignis, and the essence of Ereignis is not merely refusalbut hesitant refusal (die zogernde Versagung) (CTP, I, p. 12/GA 65, p. 15 etpassim). It is precisely the differentiation of being and beings and therefore itcannot simply be the gesture of withdrawal that characterizes the Sein of theontological difference; rather, it must also involve the gesture of giving.Questioning drew us only into the movement of withdrawing: it was merely aSeinsfrage. Questioning indicates that every totality treads upon a void, inparticular the greatest totality of them all, which is beings as a whole as thesubject of metaphysical positions. This positing reaches its apogee in today'svery reality, technology, which is the consummation of metaphysics in the sensethat constant presence achieves itself here in instantaneous repetition andrenewal. That this is achieved means that being, which is of a distinct order toactual beings, is utterly concealed and the void lost in the pure positing ofpositivity.

Ereignis, if it is the essence of being, must explain not only the withdrawal ofbeing but also the way in which this withdrawal gives, the way in which theabyss grounds. What does the withdrawal of being give? Precisely beings as awhole in the way that they are organized and present themselves. How can beingdo this? How can being touch beings in this way? The only way for it to do thisis by having some form of presence within beings as a whole, and this means thatsomething that is itself a being must represent the void for all of the other entitieswithin the totality. This entity will span the very ontological difference itself andmay therefore be deemed an instance of Seyn, whose essence is Ereignis and whoseinstantiation of the togetherness of withdrawal and giving will be understood interms of the togetherness of the time-space (Zeit-Raum), and ultimately therelation between the two motions of Entriickung and Beriickung, enrapturing andcaptivation. A configuration of time-space 'is' only in the form of itsinstantiation at a certain time and in a certain place, in what Heidegger callsa 'moment-site' (Augenblicksstatte): 'moment' being an instance of time, and 'site'being an instance of space.

This moment-site that instantiates the configuration of time-space willcapture the way in which a particular withdrawal of being organizes the whole of

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beings in its wake. Why? Because the moment-site is precisely what Heideggercalls 'the thing' (das Ding), and the thing gathers (dingen) and so 'bears' or 'givesbirth' (gebaren) to the whole world (L, p. 2QO/US, p. 22): this means that thething organizes this world, for 'world' (kosmos) is denned precisely by its being anorganized totality in the sense that it is joined together (ftigen) or governed by dikeas Heidegger understands it.1

The way in which the part relates to and supports the whole is described inHeidegger's vocabulary by the fourfold (Geviert). The elements of the fourfoldare precisely that which the gathering thing is said to gather or fold into a unity.The fourfold is thus a description of the thing, but it is also and moreimportantly a description of the way in which the thing is folded into a worldand manages through this very folding to organize this world as a whole. For thisreason the whole of the fourfold is described as 'the world' (Th, p. 179/VA, p.172).

Heidegger's descriptions of certain instances of gathering are clearlydescriptions of singular things, such as the bridge, the vine, the jug, thetemple. In order to achieve a preliminary sense of how such things couldorganize a world, one should think first of all of Heidegger's early examples ofthe Greek temple (OWA pp. 41-5/HW, pp. 30-2)2 and the hearth, whichorganizes the living space of the house.3 In the age of technology it is lessobvious what these things might be, since the homogeneity of space and timenecessary for the calculative reckoning of beings and the maximization of theirenergy yield systematically occludes such privileged sites.

Thus the fourfold is precisely the third stage of the crossing, which wasintroduced by death at the very first stage in the development of an ethics in theage of nihilism. It is precisely the ultimate differentiation of being and beings inthe sense of Seyn. The cross introduced by death and applied to the whole inquestioning turns out to be precisely the thing in the sense of a being that relatesto the whole of beings, whose unobtrusive influence extends over the entirety ofwhat-is and which may therefore be deemed 'Seyn', the origin of the differencebetween being and beings.

It is from out of the difference between thing and world that speaking speaks(L, p. 190/t/S, p. 12). The void itself is silent, but its placeholder speaks, albeitreticently, shyly, for the thing in itself is nothing grand. Quite the reverse: it is asenseless and contingent piece of matter. The difference between the placeholderof being and the whole, a difference which is stretched out as the fourfold crossitself, is precisely Seyn. Therefore, the speaking of this difference that bespeaksthe thing as it entwines its world is ultimately the voice of being, and it is this towhich we must respond in our ethics of Saying: not merely in language, but inour very dwelling within the world, a dwelling in the world precisely which doesnot remain oblivious to the relevance of such simple things to this dizzyingtechnological whole, however implausible this may seem. This saying inresponse to being is precisely the third stage in our ethics and truly an ethics ofthe thing. For Seyn is nothing but the singularity of the being that is singular

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and thus finds its instance in the thing, the site for the moment — being'smoment.

What matters here is to act in a way that responds to the manner in whichsingular beings temporarily exist in a unifying fit with their world and neitherto immortalize these things nor to tear them out of their world. Once again, weshould recall the scope of the words 'being' and 'thing' in Heidegger'sterminology, which can encompass anything at all that is, be it a building,mountain range, animal, deed, or text. As we have said, the thing marks thevoid, and it does so by resisting whatever trait unifies the totality in which itpartakes. It is in this way 'senseless' or 'useless' from the perspective of thetotality, and for this reason the totality will ultimately desire its destruction,which will mean either its integration or its expulsion. The resistance oftotalizing determination amounts precisely to the thing's singularity oruniqueness. The thing must therefore be that which is only once — 'ein jeWeilige (Th, pp. 181— 2/VA, p. 173) - and it is neither a traditional matter thatshould be held onto in the face of technological modernization nor somethingthat could be blithely exported to another totality and institute the sameorganization as it did previously: 'torn out of their own native sphere . . .placing them in a collection has withdrawn them from their own world' (OWA,p. 40/HW, p. 30). Thus the ethics of the thing calls for a constant watchfulnessand precisely for the changes that take place within the totality itself: thedevelopments of science and technology if we are thinking in terms of beings asa whole. Through this watchfulness alone can we know precisely what thesingularity of the thing will need to amount to and when it has come to outliveitself, which would mean when its subversive possibilities have becomecommonplace, generally in the way of being taken up into the cycle oftechnological reproduction.

What characterizes these contingent objects that arise uncertainly andsuccessively to hold the place of the void is that they are not permanent or easilycaptured by a calculating attitude and so not automatically capable ofreproduction (one thinks of Walter Benjamin and the destruction of aura asbeing very close to Heidegger on this point). This impermanence and fragility iswhat necessitates the fact that the place of the void must be held by a succession ofentities. Precisely for this reason the thing must be 'nimble' and 'lightweight'(leicht) (Th, p. 180/VA, p. 173), ever ready to adapt to the changing situation bycrumbling, precisely by remaining fragile in the face of an ossifying andsedimentary totality, in order to ensure that a void be left within whatevertotality arises to consume it and thus to leave room for another thing that mighttake its place. In other words, the thing is the moment of fragility in the wholewhich refuses the totality, and when an epochal change in the totality takes placethe thing does not harden itself and persist through the change but allows itself todie and to die within the new configuration and thus to demonstrate a moment ofnegativity or void within this new constellation, however complete it may seem.The dead thing comes to represent a lack in the renewed symbolic universe, a

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demand that a new thing come — if possible — to take its place. In the face ofhomogenizing technology such things are few and far between and requireconstant watchfulness if they are to be glimpsed when 'all of a sudden,presumably' they arise: for, 'things are also compliant and modest (ring undgering) in number, compared with the countless objects everywhere of equalvalue (gleicb gultigen)' (Th, p. 182/VA, p. 175).

The ontological difference between being and beings is a historically varyingprevailing of the one over the other according to the de/cision ofSeyn. Therefore,the thing that instantiates Seyn will continually change, arising when the thingof the previous totality has decayed amidst the new symbolic co-ordinates of arenewed world, when a void has been left within the new totality in which itmight take up its temporary sojourn.

Heidegger's name for this little piece of the Real is Kleinod, the small andprecious jewel (EHP, p. 198/GA 4, p. 174) and it is important to recall here howbroad a range of signification this 'thing' has:

Inconspicuously compliant is the thing (Ring ist das Ding): the jug and thebench, the footbridge and the plough. But tree and pond, too, brook and hill,are things, each in its own way. Things, each thinging from time to time (jeweilig) in its own way, are heron and roe, deer, horse and bull. Things, eachthinging and each staying in its own way, are mirror and clasp, book andpicture, crown and cross. (Th, p. 182/VA, p. 175)

In order to broaden a somewhat rustic impression we should recall the rangeof the German 'das Seiende within which Heidegger identifies, in particular,'thinking, poetizing, building, leading (fiihrend), sacrificing, suffering, celebrat-ing (jubelnd)' (CTP, V, p. 213/GA 65, p. 302), and crucially, we should bear inmind Heidegger's earlier determination of an event of truth in 'The Origin ofthe Work of Art':

One essential way in which truth establishes itself in the beings it has openedup is truth setting itself into work. Another way in which truth occurs (west)is the act that founds a political state (staatgrundende Tat). Still another way inwhich truth comes to shine forth is the nearness of that which is not simply abeing, but the being that is most of all. Still another way in which truthgrounds itself is the essential sacrifice. Still another way in which truthbecomes is the thinker's questioning. (OWA, pp. 61—2/HW, p. 50)

The correct attitude to these entities is one that holds onto them withoutclinging and is described by Heidegger with the word hegen or fostering: 'Hereand now and in little things (im Geringen), that we may foster (hegen) the savingpower in its increase' (QCT, p. 33/VA, p. 37). Hegen is perhaps related to theEnglish word 'to hug' and implies a non-possessive love that is prepared to

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release the thing when it has outlived itself, when fostering would be a sheernostalgia.

The fact that a succession of fragile beings must hold the place of the void andbecome lost in the cycle of reproduction is the meaning of beings' sacrifice 'for thesake of being (Seyn)' (CTP, IV, p. 163/GA 65, p. 230). This is how I think weshould understand Heidegger's repeated invocation of 'sacrifice' throughout hisoeuvre? Beings are to lay themselves down because the historical configuration ofpresence is always liable to change and therefore there is no single enduringbeing which could stand as the constant organizing factor of the whole for alltime.

Responsiveness to the thing and its temporaeity, to the changes within thewhole that necessitate new things, amounts to the third stage of our ethics, andalthough questioning can turn any totality towards its occluded abyss it is notguaranteed that it will be able to find a foothold within that totality in the senseof a void in need of a being that will hold its place. It may not be able to find theSeyn which holds the place of Sein. For this reason, Heidegger identifies thisrethought form of ethics as not fully within man's power to bring about. Hecannot respond to being if the pain of the difference has not scarred him, if losshas not bereaved him.

We cannot force the revelation of things and make something that is singular,thereby forcing a being to become a 'thing' that would represent the void ofbeing (cf. BDT, p. 151/VA, pp. 145-6; Th, p. 174AM, pp. 166 a seq.). Thegiving half of the exchange of Ereignis between withdrawal and giving 'neversucceeds by a merely human impetus (Antrieb)' (CTP, VIII, p. 320/GA 65, p.455), 'Ereignis cannot be forced to suit thinking (das Ereignis, ist nicht denkmafiigzu erzwingen)' (CTP, IV, pp. 166-7IGA 65, p. 235). For this reason, Heideggerspeaks of this stage of ethics as follows:

Ethics (Moral) as a mere doctrine and imperative (Forderung) is helpless unlessman first comes to have a different fundamental relation to being(Grundverbaltnis zum Sein) - unless man of his mm accord, so far as in himlies, begins at last to hold his essence open for once to the essential relation tobeing (Beziige zum Sein), no matter whether being specifically addresses itself toman (sich ihm eigens zusprichi), or whether it still lets him be speechless becausehe is painless (spracblos, weil schmerzlos sein Idftf). (WCT, p. 89/WHD, p. 34 -my emphasis)7

Thus we see that ethics in a sense more original than that of a concreteimperative is a matter of dwelling in a way that is open to the possibility of thething, even though it is not within our power to bring this thing about. Thething is the subject of saying, of speaking, which is why in the passage justquoted Heidegger accords to being the power to allow us speech, as it bestowsupon us the pain that is the splitting of the humble being between being andbeings, one of being's interstices, the pain of the threshold joining the homely

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interior of the house with the cold indifference of the outside world, the pain ofthe fragile and contingent thing having to bear the entire structure of thehistorical world, with the strain of the keystone attesting to the abyssalgrounding of the totality upon utter contingency. This dizzying pain is what weare called to endure in the final stage of Heideggerian ethics.

Should such a contingent being show itself in the specific singularity that setsit at odds with the world in which it partakes, should we reach this stage ofresponsive 'saying' with the arrival of a new 'thing', then the question for ethicswill be as follows:

whether in every relation to a being we take over that self-concealing(Sichverbergung), and thus the hesitant refusal (zogemde Versagung) ... and ownourselves over to it (uber-eignen) ... [whether] we effect, produce, create,protect (behiiten), and in each case let a being be actual according to the callthat belongs to it (dafi wir das je^weilige Seiende nock dm ihm gehorigen Geheifierwirken). (CTP, V, p. 244/GA 65, pp. 348-9)

Which is to say, 'we must know (wissen) and be bound (halten) by the way inwhich truth shelters itself within the being (die Bergung der Wahrheit in dasSeiende)' (CTP, VII, p. 290/GA 65, p. 413) or, as Heidegger audaciously has it,'to anticipate each everyday experience (jeder alltdglicbm Erfahrung) and includewithin it what Heraclitus says in Fragment 54'8 (EHP, p. 203/GA 4, p. 179).This suggests how we are to understand the following call: 'the task remains: torepeat beings from out of the truth of being (Die Wiederbringen des Seienden aus derWahrheit des Seyns)' (CTP, I, p. BIG A 65, p. 11), to 're-create them (CTP, VII,p. 293/GA 65, p. 417 et al.).

It is at this point in Heidegger's thinking that he begins to rethink amovement in the thinking of being that he formerly condemned as'metaphysical', and this is the overstepping of beings through 'transcendence'or the thinking of being which begins from beings. It is this risk of transcendencewhich Heidegger finally wagers in his work after Contributions to Philosophy in the1940s and 1950s with its lovingly sculpted depictions of singular entities,already practised as early as 1934 in 'The Origin of the Work of Art' with itsunforgettable description of the way in which the entire world of the peasantmay be read from the folds and creases of his shoes. In the lapidary pebbles of hislate work, no longer the toil-marked quarry boulders of Contributions toPhilosophy, Heidegger's attention is frequently directed towards the 'thing' as theplace-holder of being, a focus that, along with the counter-essence of Ereignis, isnot fully recognized in Contributions to Philosophy itself. But the former at least isforeshadowed by Heidegger, as the following passage bears witness: 'The contraryway (Gegenweg),/r<?#z "space" and from "time" ... is most securely to be taken insuch a manner as to interpret and make visible the spatiality and temporality ofthe thing ... proceeding from the thing {my emphasis], the interpretation itselfmust awaken new experiences' (CTP, V, p. 271/GA 65, p. 388).

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At this stage in Contributions to Philosophy, uniquely, two directions, oneleading from beings to being (moment-site to time-space) and the other leadingfrom being to beings (time-space to moment-site), are said to tessellate andrequire one another:

Philosophy is finding the simple looks and secret shapes (einfachen Anblicke undheimischen Gestalten) and letting them appear, in which appearance theessencing of being is sheltered (geborgen) and taken to heart (in die Herzengehoben wird) ... both: the distant look in to the most concealed essence ofbeing and the nearest cherishing (Gliicken) of the emerging shape of beingswhich shelter. (CTP, I, p. 50/GA 65, p. 72)9

It is useful to be aware, when reading later Heidegger, in which direction aparticular work is moving, since in this way the unity of his concern maybecome evident. We shall attempt to understand the tessellation of the contraryways of approaching being in the following two sections of this chapter, whichare devoted to the essence of being (Seyn) in the interplay of the time-space, andto the fourfold, which describes the difference between a thing and the worldwhich it organizes.

The recreation of a being (scho'pfen) is achieved through the shepherding(schaffen) of this being back into the fold in gratitude for the gift of being, whichmeans to enfold the being back into its world in the sense of opening it to theway in which it already organizes that world of which it is a part. This Scho'pfen,or creation - meaning also to fetch water from a well — is the flipside of theEntschopfen or desiccation of all beings in the homogeneity to which technologyhas reduced them (CTP, VII, p. 293/GA 65, p. 417). Heidegger describes thisshepherding as re-placing an entity in 'the open of the strife of world and earth'(CTP, I, p. 6/GA 65, p. 7), and since it is withdrawal or negativity which hasbeen stifled by technology's positivity, to allow beings to become 'shelters ofbeing' (cf. CTP, I, p. 48/GA 65, p. 70 et passim) is to allow them 'to become re-rooted (zuruckwachsen) into the closedness of the earth' (CTP, V, p. 273/GA 65,p. 391).10

Questioning is to search for those beings which might be shepherded into thefourfold, to the centre of the void, and thus assume the status of singular thingsor beings that die and thus construct a shelter for being.

Let us first investigate Heidegger's notion of the time-space in order to specifyprecisely how this innocuous thing, the place-holder of the void of being (Sein),is to ground the whole of what-is; then we shall examine the way in which thenotion of the fourfold develops from out of the problematics of Heidegger's earlywork in order to demonstrate how it continues the project of phenomenologybeyond fundamental ontology and renders Heidegger's later works morerigorously phenomenological than the early. In this way we shall come tounderstand the way in which the two directions of investigation tessellate andthe abyss of time-space ground as the fourfold thing. We shall therefore

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understand how the thing welds the world and thus learn better how to comportourselves within it, in our ethics of the thing.

TIME-SPACE

How does Heidegger explain the way in which an abyss can ground? How is itthat being's primordial and constant withdrawal from the whole of beings canallow this whole to present itself to us in a certain way? Seyn is the name for thisprocess and we know that its operation or essence of withdrawing-giving iscalled Ereignis, but how is the operation of Ereignis actually explained?

IfEreignis is the essence of Seyn then let us begin by asking what in turn is theessence of Ereignis? Heidegger names this essence explicitly and on manyoccasions throughout Contributions to Philosophy: it is the refusal which hesitates(die zb'gemde Versagung). This refusal which hesitates is precisely the gesture thatwill explain how it is that a withdrawal can give. Heidegger goes on ever moresimply to specify the relation between withdrawal and giving, replacing thesewords — withdrawal/giving, refusal/hesitation — with others that bring usgradually closer to an understanding of the way in which this process 'actually'occurs, the process of abyssal grounding.

So far we have seen this process to comprise: being/beings, abyss/ground,withdrawal/giving, refusal/hesitation.

'Hesitant refusal' is the essence of Ereignis as the name for the slash or theprocess of rifting that separates and joins the contrasting processes named aboveand that is ultimately the differentiation of the ontological difference called Seyn.It is necessary to follow this process to the point at which being can be seen fullyto 'join up' with beings, in such a way that we may explain, as Being and Timedid not, how being's withdrawal from beings as a whole allows them to form anorganized totality or 'world'. In other words, it is necessary to follow this processuntil we reach the thing. We are but two steps away from this.

The next stage is reached as we ask Heidegger the direct question: how can anabyss ground? Heidegger gives an equally direct answer: 'abyss grounds ... inthe manner of temporalizing and spatializing (in der Weise der Zeitigung itndRaumung)' (CTP, V, p. 267IGA 65, p. 383).n

Time-space is thus the explanation of the way in which abyss can ground, andcaptures in a more basic manner the essence of Ereignis as refusal and hesitance.The motion of time is that of refusing to be captured in the concrete and stableform of a being, while the motion of space is that of restricting this expansiveecstatic gesture of temporality in a stable mass, a spatiality that is absent fromHeidegger's fundamental ontological understanding of temporality as the'horizon' or 'horizonal schemata' whereunto the 'rapture' of temporality's ecstasyextends itself (BT, p. 416/SZ, p. 365), as befits its questioning of Sein in itswithdrawal rather than Seyn as withdrawn giving, the stabilizing of rapture in alimited form.

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Heidegger goes on to investigate the opposing yet complementary tendenciesof time and space at a still more elementary level, where he describes the gestureof time as Entriickung and the gesture of space as Beriickung, enrapturing andcaptivation, the strifely intertwining of which explains as profoundly as possiblethe relation between time and space (see CTP, V, pp. 268—9/GA 65, pp. 383—6).To go into this any further would not be directly relevant to the question ofethics, but it would be crucial if one were to attempt a materialist understandingof Ereignis12 with being as the Real and the hyphen of Da-sein as the linkbetween the Symbolic and the Real which will always have been Heidegger'sconcern.

This temporo-spatial manner of grounding is not a generic essence of beingbut always takes the form of a concrete configuration in the sense of a particulardecision between being and beings. This decision will always be instantiated in aparticular being which manages to hang on within beings as a whole and yet alsoto elude them in the direction of being: this eluding allows the being to bring tolight the being of these beings which would otherwise be invisible. This being iscalled the 'moment-site': 'time-space grounds itself as the moment-site of de/cision' (CTP, V, p. 266/GA 65, p. 382).

We know that the de/cision is Seyn as that which stretches between being andbeings, and thus the moment-site can be nothing but the being which representsthe void of being within the totality of beings. The moment-site is thereforeprecisely the temporary thing which instantiates within the totality itself thevoid which the totality must occlude in a unique and historical way in order toconstitute itself. What this means is that time-space never is apart from itsconcrete instantiations in the moment-site: in other words, the ahistoricalessence of Ereignis always presents itself in a historical form: Time-space . . .whose essencing becomes historical in the grounding of the Da through Da-j«'»'(CTP, V, p. 270/GA 65, p. 386 - my emphasis).

For this reason we are justified in identifying the moment-site of Seyn withthe thing of the fourfold, to which we must now turn.13 In this way we shallbegin to understand how the thing torn open between world and earth can existas a singularity only within a wider arena, that of beings as a whole as defined bythe stretch between man and god, the other leeway of the fourfold. I shall arguethat this demonstrates the ethics of the thing, for all its apparent apoliticality, totake place only within the political situation of its historical time. As Foti andBernasconi have recognized, and as Foti aptly puts it, Heidegger's 'attentivenessto "the thing" cannot be dismissed as an apolitical retreat' (Foti 1991, p- 34; cf.Bernasconi 1993, p. 136).

THE FOURFOLD

It is crucial to understand the fourfold in some depth for at least two reasons.The first is that by identifying its members Heidegger has been accused of

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transgressing metaphysics (in the sense of positing another thesis on being thatwould be 'post-metaphysical' and speak in a phenomenologically unjustifiedway1 ). The second is that it will allow us in Part III to return to our originalconcern, being-with, which we shall be able to recover once the four regions ofthe fourfold have been brought more sharply into focus, in particular the regionof man and the region of god. This focus, and the consequent stress on the unityof the four, will allow us to rethink the relation between ethics and politicsaccording to the new manner of grounding described by Heidegger with thefourfold and its logic of two interlocking essences and counter-essences: worldand earth, man and god, or rather earth and sky, divinities and mortals. We shalltherefore suggest that the fourfold (Seyri), which describes the way in which thething is folded into the whole world, will amount to the very joint around whichethics and politics swing. We shall return to this, and to the being-with that weshall demonstrate to exist between the members of the 'man' or 'mortals' of thisfourfold.

Let us take the fourfold first in the form in which it appears in Contributions toPhilosophy as comprising man and god, world and earth. This is crucial since thelatter pairing allows us to trace the genesis of the fourfold back to 'The Origin ofthe Work of Art', where earth is first introduced as the necessary counterpart tothe phenomenological world. The way in which this complementation is thereshown to be necessary will allow us to link the fourfold back to thephenomenological problematic of 'world' and therefore to demonstrate the wayin which the fourfold, far from being unphenomenological, is in fact a necessarydevelopment of phenomenology itself.

With regard to the other pairing, we must also begin our consideration (inthe subsequent chapters of this work) with the original quartet. To begin withthe fourfold in this form is important if we are to understand the politicalimplications of the way in which the relation between man and god isunderstood and also in order that the very political nature of the man—godrelation does not become lost when 'man' is transmuted into 'mortals'(Sterblicheri) and 'god' into 'divinities' (Gb'ttlichen) in Heidegger's laterdescription of the fourfold as consisting of 'earth and sky, divinities andmortals'.15

It is important to trace this genesis since these overtly Holderlinian terms aredifficult to comprehend in their phenomenological necessity when taken inisolation, and have given rise to the suspicion that Heidegger is transgressingphenomenology and without sufficient criticality merely adopting certain ofHolderlin's poetic motifs, as well as reintroducing a 'god' without justificationand abandoning philosophical rigour together with any sort of political potency.The virtual absence of Holderlin from our discussions is an extreme measureadopted in order to counter such suspicions.

The fourfold is the very cross of being itself. It is Seyn or the thing whichspans and thus instantiates the difference between being and beings as a whole,the time-space as it opens up in the form of a moment-site.16 Very broadly

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speaking, then, it must incorporate dimensions of both withdrawal and giving.The dimensions of giving, or rather those dimensions which are given to us asmanifest, are 'man' and 'world', while the dimensions of withdrawal are 'earth'and 'god'. These are what must withdraw from us in order for that whichbelongs to 'man' and 'world' to be given, and equally, according to the logic ofcounter-essence which stipulates that one cannot have one half of a pairingwithout the other. For this reason Heidegger describes the mutually groundingrelations between man and god as one of 'en-countering' (Entgegnung) and thatbetween world and earth as 'strife' or 'striving' (Streit). In other words, therelation is one in which the relata can never have done with one another andassert themselves as victors in their struggle or posit themselves as the uni-directional ground of their other. Each grounds the other as its counter-essence.

We have seen in Part I that it is possible to identify 'being' in early Heideggerwith 'world' as the intelligibility of the Symbolic or the totality of signification(Bedeutungsganze), the jointed and discursive form of its distinct 'meaning',temporality, or the way in which a symbolic universe comes to form around theinassimilable traumatic core of man's finitude. Being-in-the-world, Dasein'sbeing, consisted of the entirety of the significations of the ready-to-hand and thepossibilities of Dasein which organized our limited horizonal experience of thesesignifications. Being was identified with its own Da, the humanized world. Itwas thus separated off from its meaning (Sinn) which would 'found' it.

Being was the transcendental condition of the always limited intelligibility ofthe world and was founded upon man's individual finitude. It is precisely thisfounding which renders being fundamentally anthropocentric in precisely thesense that it is the limited horizon within which entities can become intelligibleto human beings. In this way Being and Time indeed constituted a 'paroxysm' ofmetaphysics (Taminiaux 1989, p. xix) as 'onto-theo-ego-logy' (HPS, p. 126/GA32, p. 183). If being is limited to the Symbolic then it simply does not 'exist'outside of man's understanding of being (Seinsverstandnis). For this reason,entities could not be accounted for within the framework of fundamentalontology except in a way that reduced them to intelligibility and thus as turnedtowards the ends of man in the scheme of instrumental significance, as we haveseen in the case of nature and as is most poignantly revealed in the troublingform of the animal.17 If Dasein did not have the capability-of-being to 'go alongwith' (mitgehen) a certain kind of being, then its being was excluded from thesignification of 'being' altogether, and precisely because it was not intelligibleand therefore could not be contained within being as intelligibility.

What Heidegger came to realize around the time of The Origin of the Workof Art' was that, despite their unintelligibility, these beings could not beexcluded from the denotation of the word 'being'. In other words, as wewitnessed at the end of Chapter Two, being was beginning to escape itsconfinement within the human-Symbolic and to slip towards the Real. Whyshould being be confined to that one entity who happens to have been blessedwith philosophy and who is after all, as Nietzsche has insisted, an aleatory and

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short-lived affair: more importantly, the whole cannot simply be founded uponhis finitude, for this finitude is its awn. If certain entities refuse fully to bedomesticated within the human world then what they may be said to belong to isin fact 'the earth''.

If saying in the third stage of our ethics says the fourfold as the difference thatspans thing and world, then to bespeak the fourfold is quite the reverse of atransgression of metaphysics' end and the production of a new 'thesis' on beingor name for beings as a whole. The fourfold is invoked for two reasons, and one isprecisely to set a limit on the thinker's saying. In another sense, it is also, whencompared to the 'being' of Being and Time, an expansion. It allows 'being' todenote more than just 'world'. If 'earth' sets a limit, then it is 'the god that allowsthe expansion of the term 'being' to include this 'earth' as that which remainsbeyond the possibilities of man's understanding. 'Earthen' elements wereadmissible to fundamental ontology but only as constitutively beyond Dasein'sken. They were not included within the denotation of the word 'being'. Is itnot the case that the word 'god' prevents this exclusion? God would then simplybe the subject of those possibilities that man does not have. If god is crucial tobeing, then so is the earth, which lies beyond man's understanding.

In this way man's finitude is taken not as foundational to being but, throughthe introduction of god, as something that may be predicated of the whole, sincegod, as we shall see, provides man with a counter-essence and thereby forbids hismortality to constitute a uni-directional ground for being by stretching manbeyond himself and understanding him as it were 'in the whole': his finitude isthus understood to belong not to him alone but to the whole, as the abyssalfoundation of the whole's revealing itself.

Thus, finitude is later re-understood as the finitude that characterizes beingsas a whole. The fact that being depended on man's finitude or, in other words, onthe comportment towards death as the absolute limit to projection, forbiddingany projection of man's possibilities beyond this limit and indeed beyond theworld, meant that philosophy was to be rigorously atheistic.19 Man was notdefined in opposition to the god: after all, what could be more ontotheological,more metaphysical? So why does this oppositional determination return in laterHeidegger?

In many ways, it will seem as if nothing changes and it is merely that thename of god is reintroduced to describe something that was already in place inthe earlier works. If man was defined as Dasein insofar as he was finite, which isto say insofar as his projection found its limit in the unintelligible fact of death,then it is precisely this limit to his possibilities (of understanding), or rather thebeyond of these limits, that is named 'god' in the later works. And why? Becausethe relation between man and being is no longer uni-directional: Dasein, as thesite at which the whole becomes partially intelligible to itself, is no longerfounded on the ur-fact of man's finitude. Founding is now no longer understoodby Heidegger to work in this fashion. Man in his finitude must therefore havehis counter-essence.

Saying, Thing 123

Thus the introduction of earth and god through the fourfold allowsHeidegger to continue phenomenology while evading the common accusation ofits anthropocentrism (cf. Lyotard 1991) and is the reason why Heidegger laterdescribes his work as a 'phenomenology of the inapparent' (FS, p. 80/GA 15, p.137). From being the very foundation of being, man has been removed to ahumble corner of the process of manifestation.

TRANSITION: THE ETHICS OF THE THINGIN THE WORLD OF POLITICS

As an instance of the fourfold, the thing is not merely what it is given to us tobe, but reserves an 'otherness' in the sense of a dimension that withdraws fromour grasp, and it is this withdrawal that allows the being to represent being(Sein) within the totality and thus to be that unique being which stretchesbetween beings and being and instantiates Seyn or the time-space. The beingthat may be understood as a case of the fourfold is a 'thing'. As we have seen, it isprecisely the dimension of withdrawal that is elided in technology and whosereintroduction we have traced through the course of Part II of this book,beginning with death and moving on to questioning and saying. Thisreintroduction is a precondition of the place of ethics, which will thereforeultimately be an ethics of the thing.

Thus the event of being has its site in the thing. The thing as fourfold foldsitself into the entire world as a singularity which organizes the whole byretaining elements which withdraw from this world (earth) and thus cause theworld to make provisions for this thing which eludes it. Attending to this thingin the way we have described is the final stage of ethics. Are we then at the endof our quest? Perhaps not, for we notice that we have described only three of thefour moods of Contributions to Philosophy. The fourth, Ent-setzen, is largely ignoredin the book itself for rhe reason that its topic, as its essential title suggests, isEreignis. But every essence must have its counter-essence. And just as the mannerof approaching being that begins from the thing is not discussed in any detail orattempted in any full-blooded way in Contributions to Philosophy, so is thecounter-essence of being not yet fully understood in the extent of itsdomination.

Geschichte des Seyns, one of the two companion volumes to Contributions toPhilosophy?0 understands the other of being to be power, and Contributions toPhilosophy itself makes clear, particularly in its second section, Zu-spiel, that theother of being is machination, the essence of technology as Heideggerunderstands it in the 1930s. But the extent of the predomination of thistechnology was, before the Second World War and particularly beforeHeidegger's engagement with Jiinger and the will to will, not fully recognized.Heidegger's full recognition of Gestell as the counter-essence to Ereignis willcome later and, importantly, in tandem with Heidegger's increasing dwelling on

124 Crossing

the singular thing: the temple, the hearth, the poem, the jug, the bridge, thevine, the tree, spoken of in Heidegger's translucent 'sayings'.

These two (Gestell and the thing as temporary instance of Seyn) shalldemonstrate for us the relation between politics and ethics, the former beingconnected with the massive predominance of technology and the actuality ofbeings as a whole, and the latter with the response to being. The connectionbetween them will become clear in Part III of this work. Here the alteration inthe members of the fourfold that sees 'man' changed into 'mortals' will allow usto demonstrate the reintroduction to ethics of a certain form of being-with. Thenecessity of being-with to the very opening of the ethics of the thing discussedin Part II will bring us to the counter-essence of this ethics, which will amount to alater Heideggerian politics. Thus the reintroduction of being-with to the ethics ofthe thing will allow us to rethink the often maligned understanding of therelation between ethics and politics in Heidegger's later works.

For it seems, does it not, that with the separation of man and death we losewhat Levinas calls 'the ethical relation', which we like Levinas have deemed the'conscientious' relation of being-with in Part I of this work?21 Is the caricature oflater Heidegger at least minimally accurate insofar as here one finds a solitaryman engaged in a dwelling near to the singularity of things very far from thebustle of everyday life in thepolis? And yet does Heidegger not insist to the veryend, even to a misleading degree, that it is nevertheless man alone who dies? (Tb,p. 178/VA, p. 171; EL, p. 107/US, p. 215) And does Heidegger not insist uponthis feature as quite central to man in his reinscription of the fourfold as earthand sky, divinities and mortals?

The predominance of the actual over being in the form of the denial of beingundertaken by technology in response to Gestell is precisely the source of thefourth mood of Contributions to Philosophy, horror (Entsetzen). This mood partakesof the gesture, which is even now somewhat reminiscent of a fall from being tobeings, in which we are thrust away from the essence of being and towards thatwhich is. Heidegger is quite clear that this movement is not fully within ourpower — 'Being itself must set us out from beings and set us free' — and this is amatter for our horror: 'this setting-free (Ent-setzung) is appropriated only by beingitself, indeed this being is nothing other than that which horrifies and therebysets free and what calls for setting free (das Ent-setzende und Ent-setzliche)' (CTP,VIII, p. 339/GA 65, pp. 481—2). This horror does not turn us away from beingsin their stifling predominance: it 'does not cancel the Aus-einander-setzung withbeings but rather grounds and thus grants to it the possibilities of groundings inwhich man creates beyond himself (ibid.). This horror is thus 'an affirmation ofbeings as such' (CTP, VIII, p. 340/6A 65, p. 483) since it understands them topredominate over something which must elude them and call for thispredomination: being (as Gestell). Heidegger tells us that with this return tothose beings which shelter being, the horror that sets beings free from being-ness is 'now taken as the ground-attunement of "experiencing" being (Seyn)'(ibid.): 'In the first beginning, wonder was the ground-attunement ... The

Saying, Thing 125

other beginning, that of being-historical thinking, is attuned and pre-tuned (an-gestimmt und vor-bestimmt) by horror' (CTP, VIII, p. 340/GA 65, pp. 483^4).

Thus we can see that the original attunement of terror (Erschrecken) beforedeath reaches its consummation in returning us to beings in horror, not in aterrifying awareness of being's abandonment, but with a freeing horror that thisabandonment is ordained by being itself, as its own self-concealment for the sakeof its very preservation as otherwise than actual. This connection with terror ismade even more explicit by Heidegger when he tells us that horror, like terror,'opens Dasein for the distress of needlessness' (ibid.). Thus in horror we are senthurtling back from the essence of being in time-space to the concrete ofbeings.22 The full 'horror' of the situation will be realized by Heidegger onlyafter the Second World War had taken its toll. Heidegger, as ever, will see thedreadful total mobilization of the war effort as the maximization of actuality'syield of resources, made possible by machine-technology. Already in 1936 heconnects Entsetzen with a de-humanization of man (CTP, VIII, p. 359/GA 65, p.510), a de-humanization that is uniquely promising as regards the revelation ofbeing, but also uniquely dangerous. Just how dangerous and how horrific was tobecome clear to Heidegger and the whole world in the years immediatelyfollowing 1936—8, when Contributions to Philosophy was being composed.

Heidegger speaks less and less of moods as time goes by, but let usnevertheless suggest that the moods of his later thought are an often abruptlurching between horror and gentleness: horror at the brutalization of man bytechnology and the gentleness which must be shown in the face of this horror toall beings brutalized by the technological world, and even a gentleness towardstechnology itself, powerless as it is to do anything other than brutalize. The first,by way of a fateful decision, is Heidegger's response to the totalitarian politicsthat today governs our globe even more surely than it did in his own day, whilethe latter responds to the hope of an ethical dwelling amidst this horror. Horrifictotalitarian politics is the predominating counter-essence to the essence of beingwhich is related to in ethical dwelling or gentleness towards the thing in all itstemporary fragility. The lightning flash of Ereignis requires the storm-clouds ofGestell to have amassed to such a degree that all light is shut out from the world(T, pp. 43-5 /TK, pp. 42—4). There can be no lightning without storm clouds,but at the same time, there can be no storm clouds without the promise oflightning.

We have in Part II delineated the essence of being: if ethics is a response tothis essence then we have sketched out the origination of a place for ethicsamidst the thunder-clouds of nihilism. But what of ethics' counter-essence,essential to its very being? We are speaking of politics. And if Part III ends upspeaking of politics more than anything else then it is by no means a mereappendix to the central part of this work, nor to Heidegger's work as a whole. Itis, rather, absolutely necessary if anything we have said is to be at all 'grounded',if we are to be true not only to the essence of being but also to its counter-essence.The way to politics and the counter-essential Gestell to being's Ereignis will

126 Crossing

require us to specify one of the partnetships within the fourfold of which wehave spoken in this chapter, and that is man and god. Thus we shall demonstratethe way in which the thing is always knitted into the particular configuration ofbeings as a whole in which man finds himself and thus always embedded in acertain political scene.

We shall begin by examining first the corner in which man dwells, excludingall else, and we shall see that Heidegger specifies this 'man', albeit minimally, asa plurality of 'mortals' (Sterblichen). We shall examine the way in which thisplurality, too often overlooked, must be in place in order for Seyn to present itselfas the thing, and thus the way in which a certain form of being-with is a necessarycondition of ethics.

But we shall have considered thereby only the essence of man, not his counter-essence, the god; when this is taken into account and being-with therebyunderstood in its relation to the manifestation of the thing (in which man andgod meet) we shall have reached politics, and this for the reason that when weface god and thus institute the fourfold, we are speaking of beings as a whole;when one understands this in light of our current historical predicament, whichamounts to the experience of the utter predominance of actuality, then thismeans totality. Totality is the very mark of the political: if there is totality thenthere is politics, and if there is politics then there must be totality.

With an understanding of how ethics is always intertwined with politics weshall have reached the full structure of later Heideggerian ethics, which willinvolve being-with, the midpoint of the ethics of the thing, and the counter-essence of ethics, which is politics. Essence and counter-essence always turnaround an unchanging midpoint as the very origin of their differentiation, whichholds them apart in their difference from one another but also holds themtogether in their intimacy and mutual need. Thus, the following shall provide uswith a newly thought relation between ethics and politics as it may be gleanedfrom Heidegger's later thought.

We have described being-with in Part I, but this requires rethinking in lightof the rethinking of being that we have delineated in Part II. Only then shall webe in a position to rethink ethics' counter-essence, politics. The rethinking ofbeing-with is necessary in order to situate the ethics of the thing within thepolitical realm, and this rethinking and its political consequences shall be thetopic of Part III of this work, to which we now turn.

Part III

Being-with, Ethics, Politics

But 'on the earth' already means 'under the sky (Himmef)'. Both of these also mean'remaining before the divinities (Gottlichen)' and include a 'belonging in the with-one-another of men' (ein 'gekorenJ in das M.iteinander der Menschen1). (BDT, p. 149/VA, p. 143)

Today there are already a few of these futural ones coming (Zukiinftigen). Theirintimating and seeking is hardly recognizable even to themselves and to theirgenuine disquiet (echte Unruhe); but this disquiet is the quiet constancy of thecleaving (rubige Bestandnis der Zerkliiftung). It bears a certainty that is touched bythe most awesome and distant hint of the last god and is held toward the entry ofEreignh (auf den Bin-fall des Ereignisses). How this hint is preserved as hint inrestrained reticence (verhaltenen Verschwiegenheit), and how such preserving alwaysresides in taking one's departure and arriving, particularly in mourning and in joy(in der Trailer und in der Freude), in that attunement to ground of the restrained(Grundstimmung der Verhaltenen) to whom alone the cleavage of being (Seyn) opensand closes, fruit and providence (Zufall), onset (An/all) and hint. (CTP, VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 400)

World and earth in their strife will raise love and death into their utmost (Liebe undTod in ihr Hiichstes heben) and bring them together into fidelity to the god (Treue zumGott ... zuiammenschlieften). (CTP, VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 399)


Chapter Six

The Being-with of Mortals Before the Thing

This work finds its completion in a threefold structure: Part I concerns Sein aspure withdrawal, Part II concerns Ereignis as withdrawal that gives, and Part IIIcompletes the journey by considering the counter-essence of Ereignis, which isGestell. If Ereignis is the event of the oncological difference and thisdifferentiation is the happening of the place of ethics then Gestell is theinstallation of politics.

If Ereignis is the essence of being, then Gestell is the essence of beings as awhole, a whole that Heidegger identifies with the province of politics. Ifresponse to the singularity of an event is the essence of ethics, then the situationof this response within the historical configuration of beings as a whole will bethe essence of politics. But we can make our way towards this politics only byreintroducing the topic of Part I of this book, its motivating force throughout,and that is being-with. In other words, we can reach the political counter-essenceof ethics only by indicating the way in which a being-with is implicated in ethicsas its very condition.

How does this implication occur? We find our answer to this question byturning our attention to the human arm of the fourfold, which Heidegger bringsinto focus by specifying 'man' (Mensch) as & plurality and a plurality that resultsfrom man's very mortality. Focusing more minutely on this arm will indicate abeing-with to be implied in these mortals and by this mortality itself. It will bea face-to-face being-with that we shall demonstrate to be necessary to the veryappearance of the singularity of the thing. In this way, a being-with will beshown to be inherent to the development of an ethics of the thing. Homologousto the way in which in Part I being-with initiated the crossing of Heidegger'sthought and in Part II death was seen to stir this crossing, in Part III we shalldemonstrate the way in which being-with and death must be thought together tostir this crossing, as the very (political) formation of the place of ethics.

We shall consider first of all the mortals in their isolation, but the face to facewill not fail to turn us towards an encounter with the counter-essence of man,the god, and this will show that one cannot consider the being-with of menwithout considering at the same time its relation to the counter-essence of man,which Heidegger thinks as a more original facing than that of man and man, and

130 Being-witb, Ethics, Politics

this is the facing of man and god. It is precisely this other, the god, that ismissing from Heidegger's early thought, and for this reason he had no way inwhich properly to differentiate ethics and politics, for the facing of man and godshall prove to be political. It shall do this by opening the being-with of men tothat in which it is implicated: the thing, which, when understood along thelines of the fourfold, will implicate the whole of beings since the thing is nothingapart from the implication of a being within a world. And when totality isinvolved, particularly in the way that it predominates utterly in the form ofactuality, politics must be involved. And here we meet Gestell, or the call toactualization.

When actuality predominates so completely over withdrawal — beings overbeing — the gigantic process of actualization requires an intricate and all-encompassing system of governance in the sense of the channelling and ordering ofthe whole's potential in such a way as to serve up the maximum possible yield ofenergy. The actual is a matter of power, and the only other that this order willallow is that of potential actuality, an image of itself. And when it comes to thedistribution of power, to its administration and legislation, we are speaking ofthe task of politics. As Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy above all have insisted, thetotality of technology is equally the totality of politics: 'the political iscompleted to the point of excluding every other area of reference (and such is, itseems to us, the totalitarian phenomenon itself)' (Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy 1997,p. 111). And yet this work is not a treatise on Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy sinceit is designed precisely to show how far Heidegger himself travels in thisdirection, under his own steam. I hope to show that for Heidegger, technologyand politics in their complicit tyranny of actualization, as its means and itsgovernance, answer to the same call.

If all is actuality and nothing is withdrawn, if there is no void that actualitycould not fill, which is to say if there is nothing that might be the topic of ethicsin Heidegger's sense, then everything will be subjected to politics; indeed,everything requires politics. This is the case today when being has fullywithdrawn in favour of its other, presence, the plenum which stifles the void andwhich must be understood as actuality or effectivity, potential energy (energeia),and thus as power. This predominance of the actual, which leads to the necessityof setting upon beings for their reserves and ordering them to the ends of energyyield, is called for by Gestell. In Geschichte des Seyns (GA 69), Heideggerintriguingly begins to think the relation between politics and power,establishing at this point in his thought the division between ethics andpolitics that we shall come to question in the conclusion to this work, as I argueHeidegger himself did in the last years of his life.

A consideration of the totality which is no longer metontological but whichrecognizes that whole in its historical predominance as a necessary counter-essence to being at the behest ofSeyn may therefore be deemed a consideration ofthe counter-essence that being takes upon itself at this bleak and nihilistic pointin history. To put it simply, Part III of this book relates the insights of Parts I

The Being-with of Mortals Before the Thing 131

and II regarding being as void (Sein) and being as giving (Seyn), and places themexplicitly within a relation in which they were already implicated, and that is arelation to beings as a whole (Seiende im Ganzen). These beings are enjoined topredominate by the call of being in the guise of Gestell (which is being's ownself-concealing or erasure), and since beings as a whole is the territory Heideggeridentifies as that of politics, then politics must also answer this call. Whileethics is the response to being, politics is a response to beings as a whole. Thetotality of beings as a whole necessitates the totality of politics, in an unholyalliance with technology and science, each in its own way facilitating themaximization of actuality and power.

MORTALS FACE TO FACE

The consideration of a mortal being-with is necessary in order to lead us throughthe specification of the human arm of the fourfold to the political counter-essence of ethics. For the purposes of this chapter, then, this quarter of thefourfold will be considered by itself insofar as this is possible, which means thatit will be considered in its essence rather than in its counter-essence. This meansthat we shall focus entirely on the collectivity — or rather the withness — ofmortals, without as yet taking account of the way in which this withness relatesto the thing of the fourfold and thereby to the entire world of beings as a wholeby standing always already in a relation with the god.

What we shall demonstrate here is the way in which the re-determination ofman as mortal is precisely what reintroduces being-with to the fourfold andtherefore to the thing. Indeed, the first part of this book was intended todemonstrate the way in which death and birth supply us with a certainsingularity that is necessarily one with being-with as the production ofsingularity in response to negativity or finitude. Thus we shall be ignoring therest of the fourfold and the whole in which the mortals partake. These will be re-introduced in Chapter Seven. The nature of grounding and the fact thatHeidegger considers matters only insofar as they lead us towards the response tobeing prevent us from confining ourselves solely to this 'ethical' form of being-with. But before we make the leap into a counter-essential political realm weshall need to demonstrate the way in which the essential being-with of man is aprecondition of the opening of the »«»-human thing in its singularity.

It is because man's finitude is no longer understood to be foundational — as itwas in Being and Time — that the god must be introduced, in order to involve thisfinitude in a play with its counter-essence. Let us however risk the initialappearance of foundationalism by ignoring this counter-essence temporarily,since this chapter is in fact intended to mirror the function and place of Part / ofthis work, where the being-with of fundamental ontology was exposed in thecomplete absence of god. This chapter exposes the way in which this being-withmust be rewritten in the light of Heidegger's later rethinking of the essence of

132 Being-with, Ethics, Politics

being. But crucial to this rewriting is its relation to political being-with, whichwe must therefore turn to in the following chapter. The necessity of this chapteris precisely to demonstrate what was lacking in Being and Time where politicswas understood in a way identical to ethics. The invocation of the gods beyondthe mortals allows us strictly to differentiate between ethics and politics, ascission marked by the division between this chapter (ethics) and the following(politics). To call upon the gods in the proper way is one meaning of the'loyalty', 'fidelity' or 'trueness' to the gods described in the third of the epigraphsto Part III of this book, a loyalty which is necessary in order for Seyn to (concealand shelter itself in) presence, for '{Weing is the need (Not) of gods' (CTP, VIII,p. 331/GA 65, p. 471).

Let us first of all examine mortal being-with for itself, and in the next chapterin tandem with its counter-essence, the gods, in order to demonstrate that thisbeing-with is a precondition of the ethics of the thing and thus related topolitics in a way yet to be determined.

There is a certain artificiality in this separation of essence from counter-essence, but I believe it to be a necessary one if we are to understand theconnection between the ethics of the thing and politics, a relation only rarelyacknowledged by commentators and perhaps because too little attention hasbeen paid to the nature of being-with in Heidegger's later thought.

THE FACE

Being-with is a relation to singularity. Singularity is an element within a fieldwhich cannot be encompassed within one's own view of that field, but whichrather has a gaze of its own and thus stares back at the viewer. For this reason,Heidegger gave 'eyes' to death in Being and Time (BT, p. 434/SZ, p. 382). If onefaces a scene, encompassing a totality with one's look, then there will always be apoint within this totality that refuses to be encompassed, a blind-spot for theviewer from which the totality gazes back and thereby takes on a face of its own.In the moment of its singularity, the other takes on a face. The being-with thatHeidegger will come to articulate as the being-together of mortals is preciselysuch a 'face-to-face', the only relation which a singularity can assume towardsanother singularity, a bare facing, in which both of those who encounter oneanother are first allowed to take on a face.

Heidegger speaks of the face far more frequently than one might imagine.Gesicht (face) is his translation of Plato's eidos. Thus, in an essential relation tothings, things themselves take on a face. But would this not mean that 'essence'has amounted to the singularity of an entity from the very start? Certainly, theeidos which is the shining forth of an entity is precisely that entity'smanifestation to the outside of that which it is, but this eidos is neverthelessthought in philosophy as to koinon, or that which is common to all things (of thattype), and thus merely as something which becomes instantiated in actual beings


in a gesture of iconic mimesis that is clearly one of deterioration, in that the 'copy'is understood by Plato to be secondary to the 'original', an imperfect appearancethat adds some supplementary distortion to an essence which is perfect. In otherwords, even though essence is singularity, this singularity belongs in the realmof an essence strictly distinguished from the realm of appearances, whichappearances are in fact essentially repeatable and do not possess the samesingularity. In Heidegger's rethinking of being, singularity will belong rather tocertain privileged and contingent beings themselves, which manage to representwithin the totality the very void of being itself and thus instantiate theoncological difference. In other words, in Heidegger, singularity is not locatedwithin the realm of ideas but within the being itself in the way that it spans theontological difference as a product of its differentiation and a testimony to thisever-changing differentiation.

For this reason, Heidegger will say that the face originates not in Sein (eidos)but in Seyn as the spanning of the ontological difference and the very source ofsingularity itself. This he expresses as follows: 'being face-to-face with oneanother (Gegen-einander-iiber) has a more distant origin; it originates in thatdistance where earth and sky, god and man reach for one another' (EL, p. 104/US, p. 211). The centre of the fourfold is not being (Sein), but the point at whichbeing and beings differentiate themselves from one another in a singular andhistorical way, which will be expressed by the way in which a thing is enfoldedinto a totality that it thereby organizes: history throughout Heidegger's workamounts to a change in the way that the totality of the world is given, and thus -in the later work — to a change in the thing.

We can see already that if being-with is to be a face-to-face of singularitiesthen it cannot be extricated from its position within the fourfold and thus fromits relation to god and the totality. Indeed, in our discussion of the human face-to-face alone it will not be possible entirely to remove god from the discussion.Indeed, the Gegen-einander-iiber and indeed the Gegnen of the human facing willlead us onto and thus be seen to be inextricable from the Ent-gegnung, whichjoins man and god and which is, as the intensifying 'ent' indicates, the veryorigin of all facings, if facing is taken to mean the encounter betweensingularities.

Heidegger discusses the human face, distinct from the face of things, in hislectures on Parmenides from 1942 to 1943 (P, pp. 102-1 \QIGA 54, pp. 152-62).Here he describes the way in which being as eidos looks out not from all beingsto the same degree but most of all from the human face. In other words, in thisface singularity presents itself in a way most unique, and this as a result of man'sdeath, and therefore — when we take into account the non-foundational nature ofhis finitude — his relation to god and being.


THE LOOK IN PARMENIDES

That the human look is a matter of the singularity of Seyn is indicated by the factthat Heidegger introduces it in the context of a discussion of the meaning of theword daimonion, the presence of the extraordinary in the ordinary, which in laterHeideggerian terms means precisely the presence of a being within the everydaywhole of beings which refuses to submit to the unitary determination of thetotality: the thing. Daimon, like angelos, is usually translated explicatively as'intermediary' or 'intermediate spirit', whatever dwells between being andbeings, which for the Greeks meant whatever dwelt between god and man: hencethe Christian translation of the two words into 'demon' and 'angel' as messengersof the devil and god respectively. In Plato's Symposium, Eros is described as adaimon, raising man above himself as a being and bearing him upwards, strivingfor the realm of essence (eidos). We have already indicated that it is precisely thisintermediacy, this love, which the early Heidegger, still involved inmetaphysics, failed fully to live up to. In other words, the entire tradition upto and including fundamental ontology will have thought Sein rather than Seyn.Fundamental ontology will have thought it uniquely, as premised upon anegative ground, but not in its necessary relation with Seyn. Seyn alone, assingularity, is the object of love and that which can be faced, which means toboth take on a face and be faced at the same time.

As most in being, 'the god' (to theion) in Greek thought, as Heideggerunderstands it, is that which looks out from things the most when these thingsdisplay their singularity, eidos or being. To rethink this singularity on the levelnot of essence (Sein) but of the being will allow us to approach what Heideggermeans by 'god' in Contributions to Philosophy. God will no longer be identicalwith being as Sein, even as total withdrawal from presence, but will neverthelessbe a precondition of the singular look and thus what also looks out from thehuman face. But god shows itself only in the way of hinting (Winken), one stepfurther away from the beckoning (Erwinkeri) which is the gesture made bywithdrawing being, since god is not being but is in a relation of need-with being.This is because it is only if beings are allowed to escape the totality and beckonus towards a withdrawal that they will be able to display the hint of a god moredistant than being, which Heidegger indeed speaks of as nearness.

Since the Greek god is that which is most in being and since being isdetermined as eidos or facing outwards, Heidegger suggests a possible etymologyof to theion in thead, I look. Entities look out at us in certain ways while keepingcertain facets of themselves hidden away, and indeed there are certain faceswhich these entities simply do not possess. But the gods are nothing besides thesum total of each and every way that any entity has of looking out at us, and thisvery ubiquity is what renders them invisible, withdrawn even from thepossibility of being shown. Gods are not entities but lockings of being as itshows itself through beings in the guise of their earthen side. They arethemselves daimonic in the sense that they occupy the between of being and


beings and carry the look of being into beings.1 'Hoi theoi, the so-called gods, theones who look into the ordinary and who everywhere look into the ordinary, arehoi daimones, the ones that direct and that hint (Weisenden und Winkenden)' (P,p. 104/GA 54, p. 154). Gods are die Weisenden insofar as they direct being intobeings, and they are die Winkenden insofar as they subsequently emanate frombeings as hints of themselves in the guise of the withdrawnness of earth, andthey can do this only thanks to being and its beckoning withdrawal. Daimm andtheion are both participles, both lockings'. 'The one that presents itself inlooking is the god.' The looks that beings present when they have singularaspects, a rare feat today, belong to the god; thus, 'the one that presents itself inlooking is a god, because the ground of the uncanny, being itself, possesses theessence of self-disclosing appearance' (P, p. 104/GA 54, p. 154).

It is perhaps only by understanding god in this way, as the looking thatcarries being into beings and outwards in the form of their withdrawndimensions — hinting thereby becoming the beckoning made by the withdrawalof being — that we can understand why 'the extraordinary appears in the ordinaryand as the ordinary' (ibid.). The god needs the being, and the singular being atthat. This can indeed be the most ordinary of beings; the gods appear even in aplace so ordinary as Heraclitus's oven, as Heidegger recalls (LH, pp. 269—71/W,pp. 185-8).

But the place at which the difference between the ordinary and theextraordinary is most extreme, and which for that reason may be described as themost uncanny (to deinotaton, das Unheimlichste), is for both Sophocles andHeidegger the human being. Man's essence is the most earthen, the mostwithdrawn, and yet his withdrawal is most on show: it is his very existence (ek-sistence), which makes of him 'a sign pointing into the withdrawing' (WCT,pp. &-9/WHD, pp. 5-6).

Heidegger expresses the singularity of man as follows: 'That which within theordinary comes to presence by his own look is man' (P, p. 104/GA 54, pp. 154—5). This means that in the very look or outward appearance of man, man is fullyexposed, fully 'on show', and this for the reason that he is addressed by being,stretched beyond himself by the call made by its withdrawal. According toHeidegger, man's very being stretches into an outside, beyond all beings, andsince the whole of man's essence is displayed in his appearance, the god presentsitself here in a unique way: 'the sight of the god must gather itself within theordinary (Geheuren), in the ambit of the essence of this human look (imWesensbezirk dieses menschlichen Blickens), and must therein have its figure set up(seine Gestalt aufgestellt werden)' (ibid.).

Looking must here be understood as both the glance and the appearance thatis given out, the look in the sense of 'looking like' or the presented 'look', thetwo of which are said to be identical with one another in the case of man. Whathappens when two such piercing and exposed looks encounter one another?There occurs a most pure facing of singularities, since the presentation providedby the human look offers the deepest insight into 'the most concealed essence of

4


being'. Heidegger, in an exceptional passage, describes the way in which weencounter the look of the other, and suggests that the understanding of the lookmerely as a subjective representing of what it sees (WCT, p. 41/WHD, p. 16;AWP, pp. 127—8/HW, pp. 85—6), which objectifies the other man, is a result ofthe phenomenologist's turning his attention solely to his own look and awayfrom the look of the other: we could say that throughout his life, Heidegger'sintention will have been to turn phenomenology to the look of the other, theshining faces that other beings present to us in their singularity.

If instead man experiences the look, in unreflective letting-be-encountered(reflexionslosen Begegnenlassen, i.e. without theoretical obstructions), as thelooking at him of the human being who is en-countering him(entgegenkommenden Menschen), then the look of the countering human(begegnenden Menschen, i.e. the encounters) unveils itself as that in whichsomeone awaits the encountering other (dm anderen entgegenwartet), i.e. appearsto the other and is. The looking that awaits the encountering other (Dasentgegenwartende Blickeri) and the human look thus experienced de-conceal(entbergen) the countering man himself in the ground of his essence(Wesensgrund). (P, p. 103/CrA 54, p. 153 — my emphasis)

The last sentence of this passage appears to assert that it is only in theencountering of another singularity in the look that one's own singularity canmanifest itself. Is this a case of essence and counter-essence, the way in which -through mirror-play — one needs to encounter the reflection of one's counterpartin order to receive an insight and entry into one's own essence? This is a constanttrope throughout Heidegger's later work, that things - including men - cannotbe understood in isolation from their others.

The other's essence is 'collected in the look' (ibid.), but this essence willinclude a withdrawal from the look, since singularity is denned precisely by itsrefusal to be encompassed by an encountering look, and this is why essenceshows itself only in face-to-face being-with, because only here does singularityhave a look that it can resist, and thereby find a way to take on its own face: 'thiscollectedness and simple totality of his essence opens itself in the look (im Blicksith aufschliefit) . . . in order to allow at the same time the concealing (Verbergen)and the abyss of his essence to presence (anwesen) in the unconcealed' (P, p. 103—4IGA 54, p. 153). This duality of withdrawal and giving is preciselycharacteristic of the ontological difference, or Seyn itself.

The face-to-face that turns to the other and thereby allows him to have a faceis thus a being-with of singularities. We have already suggested that god, as theone who more originally encounters man, requires this singularity, for god canhinr only out of the earthen faces of the being, the faces which resist totalizinggrasp and thus 'withdraw', and this withdrawal is displayed only when it facesanother withdrawal: in other words, in the face-to-face of men. But this purest ofsingularities cannot be present without the thing, something which we


singularities have in common, for the look between man and man will involvethe more primordial looking of the god, a looking which requires the thing inorder to have a common earth from which to look out or 'hint'.

This, then, is the ethical being-with that mortals experience in their corner ofthe fourfold. It has been necessary to illuminate this in order to demonstrate theprecise way in which the god encounters man in being-with and therebyinvolves politics in the ethics of the thing that we delineated in Part II. Thisinvolvement we shall come to expose presently.

It was necessary to understand mortality before we could understand why itis that mortals and gods must counter one another in order for the thing tomanifest itself. As Heidegger himself tells us: 'Given that we as yet barelygrasp "death" in its utmost, how shall we ever be primed for the rare hint ofthe last god (seltenen Wink des letzten Gottes)?' (CTP, VII, p. 285/GA 6.5, p.405). Holderlin says something similar to this in his Remarks to Antigone to theeffect that 'the god is present in the figure of death' (1988, p. 113) and this inthe becoming-one and limitless separation of man and god, as man touches thedivine in hybris and rushes away from it in the same moment: the caesura. Inthis way one might understand the ambiguity of the 'Ent' in Heidegger'sdecription of the 'en-counter' between man and god in both its intensifyingand privative senses. In the age of Gestell and the homogenization of beingsthat it enjoins, the beings into which the gods might pass and then look outare few and far between, if not entirely non-existent, and for this reasonLacoue-Labarthe is correct when he identifies the Ereignis of today as adefinitive caesura or cut between ourselves and the godly (Lacoue-Labarthe1987, p. 46).

The move to the encountering will also allow us to understand why love anddeath when brought together may constitute fidelity to the god, as neither beingnor a being, and open up the possibility of the thing that is the only site withinbeings in which god can be allowed to hint. Love, we should recall, is always fora singular being (Seiende), while death opens us to the void of being (Sein).Bringing these two together means relating to Seyn in the form of a thing, whichalone can instantiate both of being and a being. The fidelity is said to be broughtabout precisely through the strife of world and earth, in other words by relatingthat being-with of singularities — which is a being-with of love and death — tothe thing and thus to the fourfold, which will bring man into a properrelationship with the god, equally necessary to Seyn1 (CTP, IV, p. 280/GA 65, p.399). Heidegger's words on love, death and fidelity will thus indicate thenecessity of mortal being-with to the manifestation of the thing and therefore tothe ethics of the thing. The relation of this to the whole by way of the thing,which is accomplished when we open this face-to-face to its inherent relation tothe god, will bring the ethics of the thing face-to-face with politics.

Let us then attempt to broach the question of god's relation to the thing, andwhy it necessitates the thing's presence in the 'previously' pure human encounter.We shall broach this question in order to move on to an understanding of the


way in which man and god relate to one another precisely across the midpoint ofthe thing, and the way in which the encounter with god therefore relates thebeing-with of mortals to the ethics of the thing, and opens it out, by the way inwhich the thing organizes the totality of the world, onto politics.

THE GOD AND THE BEING

Love involves making a perhaps perfectly ordinary being into a singularity. Abeing that is a singularity is one that instantiates the fourfold cross of being andtherefore points or 'hints' at god as one member of this four. To love or bestowsingularity upon a being is therefore what Heidegger means when he describesthe human being's task as rendering beings 'fit' for 'the passing through(Vorbeigang) of the last god' (CTP, I, p. 13/6A 65, p. 17): 'God's passingdemands a steadfastness (Bestandigung) from a being and thus from man in themidst of beings — a steadfastness in which a being above all withstands thepassing, and thus does not stop it but rather lets it reign (walteri) as passage(Gang), always in the simplicity of what is regained as the essence of a being(Einfachheit seines zurilckgewonnenen Wesens)' (CTP, VII, p. 290/GA 65, p. 413).The god requires the being in order to pass through it, to hint at itself throughthe withdrawn earthen dimension of the thing. In this way, being as withdrawnand yet giving may be considered as nothing more than a trace of the god'spassing: 'Only in Da-sein is that truth founded for being in which all beings areonly for the sake of being (alles Seiende nur umwillen des Seyns ist) — being thatlights up as the trace of the way of the last god (Wegspur des letzten Gottes)' (CTP,IV, p. 163/GA 65, p. 230). Only those beings which to an extent withdraw fromtotality are pliant enough to allow the passage of the god as the look that looksout from the earthen aspect of the thing. Therefore, to understand what this'passing' involves would be to understand the position god occupies with respectto beings and therefore to being. The god can distinguish itself from being onlyby relating to those special beings which are fit for this. A hint requires awithdrawal, and this withdrawal presents itself sufficiently only in the face ofman, but a hint also requires a giving, and this is why in addition man's face-to-face it needs the thing. Only here can god hint, for Heidegger tells us that thehint is constituted only when withdrawal and giving arise together: 'hint ishesitating self-refusal' (CTP, V, p. 268/GA 65, p. 383).

Given the rareness of the thing today, one should invoke the other wordHeidegger most frequently uses with respect to the gods' mode of 'operation',and this is the Holderlinian word, 'fleeing' (Entfliehen).8 Gods turn away and fleefrom beings in the technological era since these beings are almost entirely devoidof singularity, and if any singularity remains, which means if any trace of Seynmay still be discerned, then it is most certainly endangered. For this reason,Heidegger describes the long road which alone could lead from technologicalactuality to god as follows:


Only from the truth of being can the essence of the holy (Heiligen) bethought. Only from the essence of the holy is the essence of divinity (Gottheit)to be thought. Only in the light of the essence of divinity can it be thought orsaid what the word 'god' is to signify (was das Wort 'Got? nennen soil) ...perhaps what is distinctive about this world-epoch consists in the closure ofthe dimension of the hale (Verschlossenheit der Dimension des Heileri). Perhapsthis is the sole malignancy (einzige Unheil, the unique disaster of today). (LH,p. 267/W, pp. 181-2)

Perhaps it is the oscillation between passing and flight that is captured in thethird and tremulous word which Heidegger applies to god in Contributions toPhilosophy: Erzittern, which would therefore capture the historical essence of god,which is perhaps not always to have fled from beings: once, they may haveapproached them, but we cannot say for certain. Seyn is said to be 'that whichmakes tremble the godding of the god' (CTP, IV, p. 173/GA 63, p. 244). Andwhat could this mean except that it is the wavering de/cision of Seyn whichdecides on the predominance of beings over being, that dictates the position ofthe god with respect to the whole: today, as beings predominate absolutelywithout a trace of withdrawal, the gods find no place. They have flown.

All three of these words (passing, fleeing, trembling) describe ways in whichthe gods 'god' (gottern), which is to say the ways in which they essentially prevailupon (weseri) their counter-essence, man. They are the ways in which gods cantouch us, even if only by turning away, and always around a certain midpoint,the thing.

What is god? Broadly speaking, it is the name for those possibilities whichare beyond man, possibilities of looking at and into those opaque earthen sides ofbeings which man cannot see into and which thus draw away from him. Why dothese possibilities need a name? Because we are speaking of man's finitude andwere we to leave them nameless, finitude would end up being the foundation ofbeing just as it was in atheistic fundamental ontology, as we have seen. Thecounter-weight to man's finitude requires a name because of the way in whichground grounds, which is always in a relation of play with its opposite, a playthat turns around the midpoint of this turning (Wendungsmitte), which is in thiscase the thing or Seyn. Man's finitude is therefore not an ur-fact upon which thefundamental ontological edifice might be built, but requires a mutual upholdingwith the god. We need a noun here to be the hypostatization of the gesture ofthe counter-essence, which is what Heidegger calls 'godding'. Godding godscontrariwise to man's finitude. It alters the way in which beings open to him. Ifthis gesture were not in place we would be left with the simple problematic ofunintelligible givenness with which we were left in fundamental ontology, inwhich we would need to halt speechless before 'facticity'. To be atheistic is to behubristic, since man's relation to god is agnosticism. Strictly speaking, 'god' issimply the name for our agnosticism, our impotence in the face of the whole.


Man does not simply die. He does not die in an ahistorical way, but he diesinto the void of being whose depth and nature is altered according to the delcision of Seyn, which thereby engenders a certain relation between god and manthat differs across epochs. In other words, man's finitude is no longer a fact to betaken for granted but alters according to the way in which beings as a whole aregiven to us. In other words, death is to become historical. Man dies but he diesinto the void, which is the rushing away of the whole accessed in the anxiety of'What is Metaphysics?' (cf. WM, p. 88/W, p. 9 et seq.), just as moods werebeginning to be historicized. If we are speaking of the way in which the whole isgiven through a withdrawal of one element from this whole and thus thewithdrawal of the whole, then we are speaking of history and thus of ahistorically variant way in which man dies. Man dies insofar as he is attuned tothe singularity of beings: only insofar as he lives but once only can he have accessto the uniqueness of the being which is suffocated by the self-eternalizingtotality.

Speaking of the whole and its epochal historical givenness we are certainly inthe realm of politics. The mortality of mortals engenders a being-with ofsingularities. To exceed the foundational understanding of finitude thatcharacterized Being and Time by placing mortality in a relation of counter-essencing with 'godding', the trembling indecision between approach andfleeing, is to understand being-with in relation to the thing as the instantiationof the fourfold of world and earth, man and god. To open the plurality of mortals(love and death) to the god is to stretch man across the face of the fourfold andthus to bring him into relation with the thing; this opens up the possibility thatbeings might achieve a certain singularity. This stretching out towards the god,which we shall describe in the coming chapter in all its politicality, is thegesture of 'awaiting': 'Mortals dwell in that they await (erwarten) the divinities asdivinities. In hope they hold up to the divinities what is unhoped for. They waitfor hints of their coming and do not mistake the signs of their absence (Fehls)'(BDT, p. 150/VA, p. 145). Awaiting is the question that opens the whole to thepossibility of its other, singularity, which would be necessary if god were to turntowards us and begin his passage through the earthen side of beings. Thisawaiting stretching of man towards the god which removes him from hiseveryday busyness with the beings and people closest to him, opens his being-with and parochial ethics to a concern for the whole of beings and therefore topolitics, as we shall see. For this reason Heidegger's statement, 'only a god cansave us' (Wolin 1993, p. 107/D5, p. 209) is indeed a political one and not nearlyso risible as has been imagined. It is only by performing the above investigationthat we shall be in a position to see why not.


TRANSITION

We have attempted in this chapter to understand the essence of mortality whichpresents itself in a face-to-face encounter or being-with. But, as we have seenthroughout, to understand essence without counter-essence involves an artificialseparation, and this artificiality we shall now remedy. The movement fromChapter Six to Chapter Seven is homologous to that of Part II in its shiftingaway from the foundationalism exhibited by Part I, where man's finitude wasunderstood simply as man's belonging and thus to be appropriated by himindividually; this individual appropriation was then simply mapped onto thepolitical level of the nation and its self-appropriation. Thus it was the absence ofgod from Heidegger's thought that prevented him from understanding thepolitical in its differentiation from the ethical; what Heidegger later comes moresurely to think is this finitude as a quality belonging to beings as a whole. Beingsas a whole are finite.

It is by stretching man beyond himself towards god that this whole comesinto consideration, by way of the thing which quilts the whole in its relief, itspeaks and troughs that cast shade and allow light to play across the field of thephenomenal. If the whole is the concern of politics, then we shall show in thenext chapter that Heidegger himself exhibits the space between man and god tobe precisely the space of politics, and because god is the name of that which liesbeyond man's power, this may be said to be a politics of the 'otherwise thanpower' (de Beistegui, forthcoming).

As we have seen in Part II, there is a certain element of powerlessness in man'sability to determine which entity shall become the place-holder of the void, andhow long each thing will last. This is because the thing is contingent and notsomething human thinking could decide upon a priori. This is why the thing(the fourfold) is not founded upon man but is bordered and thus torn open byhim only insofar as he awaits and thereby stretches out in hope towards thefleeing gods, needing the response of their godding if the thing is to open itselfup. But the name of god is not merely a hypostatization of a verb. Heidegger isclear in any case that god is not a being. God is perhaps nothing besides thisgesture of godding, just as man is nothing besides the gesture of dying, ofmortality itself, at least so far as being is concerned. This is why he comes to berenamed quite unequivocally as 'the mortal'. Godding is the opposite of man'sawaiting of the godly, his stretching out in desire for the godly, refusing to giveup hope for the haleness of the whole and thereby reaching beyond himself,between the earth and the sky. Perhaps godding must now be the flight of gods,and the god which is to save us is not one that could actually arrive (god is not abeing, after all) but merely something which exceeds man and remains always inexcess of him, and it is only by hoping that we stretch out towards salvation. Itis precisely this excess which Heidegger feels the need to assert in his later work,in opposition to the thought that would bring god down to immanence and thusdestroy him, and also in opposition to his own early work, which understood


god to be irrelevant to the question of being. I would argue that what Heideggermeans by invoking 'god' is that ethics (mortal dwelling) involves a stretching ofman beyond that which is within his power and towards powerlessness, since itis only in this awaiting that the possibility of the thing will open. Only in thisawaiting might the thing arise that we could respond to in our dwelling.

Man's powerlessness relates to the historical call which dictates the way inwhich the whole is revealed, and today this is the call to power and energy, thecall of Gestell. God is today the name of man's impotence when it comes topower, his powerlessness to think in terms other than those of power, either ofits accumulation or of its resistance.

And yet is man so utterly submerged in his epoch that he can catch noglimpse of what is outside it, and thus of alternative ways in which the totalitymight be revealed? There is in fact a place at which he overcomes his mortalityin a certain way by partaking of an open site within beings which endures beyondhis finite and absolutely incalculable span. This can therefore be a site in whichthe epochs of being are 'recorded', in the sense that they can leave a mark thatendures, and the entire history become visible as a history and one whichembodies a certain (perhaps retroactively assigned) 'progression'. The Greekscalled this open site, beyond the range of which man must cease to be human,'the polis'. Through 'political' dwelling, man is opened to history and to thechanges this history embodies, and thus he becomes aware of his (perilous) placewithin such a history, which in turn opens him to the possibility of change thatwould come about by his responding to this place in history which he cannot butoccupy.

It is for this reason that the polis is described by Heidegger as the site ofhistory, and this will mean always the site, in a way yet to be specified, of beingsas a whole. Since the thing of ethics is a singularity which responds to thedetermination of the totality at the particular historical time and place in whichit stands, the ethics of the thing will be complete only if it is situated within apolitics of the totality, its counter-essence, to which we now turn.

Chapter Seven

Politics

Man in his mortality stands in need of a divine counter-essence, an absentinggod to whom he must nevertheless stretch out in order to transmit his finitudeto the whole and thus tear open an abyss atop which a thing might stand. Thisdemonstrates the being-with of mortals to be a condition of the ethics of thething, but only insofar as it is broadened to involve a political dimension. Being-with is not alone the ground of the thing, and so we must here begin to considerthe alteration that is effected by considering the god with respect to the mortalface to face. This conditioning of the revelation of the thing by the tearing apartof man and god is the meaning of Heidegger's generally quite unnoticedremarks to the effect that the relation between man and god is in some way priorto that of world and earth in terms of origination.

This priority is what allows us to say that the being-with of mortalsdelineated in Chapter Six may be understood to be a precondition for the ethicsof the thing, once it is understood to be a community that is united in beingstretched beyond itself in waiting for the god. This stretching means that thefinitude of man is understood as the finitude of the whole in contrast to thatwhich is infinite (god). Hence Heidegger's naming of this relation as 'the in-finite (un-endlich) relation' (EHP, pp. 188, 195/GA 4, pp. 163, 170-1). It is onlyby identifying something that would exceed beings as a whole and being itself asfinite that man's finitude could be understood as anything other than asubstantial and thus metaphysical ground. Now death is understood as theopening of a void in the whole, an abyss that will be grounding.

One need only examine the following remarks from Contributions to Philosophyand its sister, Geschichte des Seyns: in the former Heidegger speaks of 'the en-countering of gods and man as the ground of the strife of world and earth' (CTP,VIII, p. 337/CrA 65, p. 479 — my emphasis). Man and god's countering, as manstretches after the fleeting godding in hope, is what first allows the possibilitythat Seyn might open. Of course, to open to god is not sufficient to produce a'thing', which is why the other two partners of the fourfold are necessary, sincegod, were he to reflect man's hope by godding or looking back into beings,would require the earthen side of world from which to look out again. There isno thing without the earth, and the earthen thing would not gather a world were


it not enfolded into the whole along the leeway of the man—god encounter. Thisleeway is that of the whole, while the world—earth leeway is that of theindividual being, which would explain why Heidegger seems to describe thisleeway as that which is 'closer' to the actual being itself.

If the leeway between man and god is that of the whole, then it is, as we haveseen, the site of history. This is because it involves not merely man's situationwithin the whole but his being stretched beyond this whole and thereby allowedto see beyond it and thus to see its historical situation (within the Open of thepolis): 'Truth itself, that clearing of the self-concealing (Lichtung desSichverbergenden), in whose Open (Offenem) gods and man are appropriated intheir encountering (zu ihrer Ent-gegnung ereignet werden), opens being as history(eroffnet selbst das Seyn als Geschichte)' (CTP, VIII, p. 298/GA 65, pp. 422-3). Instretching out towards god, beyond one's own limited totality, 'there is amoment's history (ein Augenblick Geschichte)' (CTP, V, p. 244/GA 65, p. 349),because one is given a moment's insight into one's particular historical situation.

Therefore, '{e]n-countering is the origin of strife (Die Ent-gegnung ist derUrsprung des Streites)' (CTP, VIII, p. 331/GA 65, p. 470 - my emphasis), andsince Heidegger understands origin as 'that from and by which something iswhat it is and how it is' (OWA, p. \1IHW, p. 1), this origination may bespecified as follows: 'Strife must itself be grasped from out of the crossing-through of encounter' (Der Streit selbst mufi am der Durchkreuzung der Entgegnung... begriffen werden)' (GA 69, p. 19). In other words, one cannot fully explainwhat it means for there to be an earthen aspect to beings without firstunderstanding the way in which a being-with of mortals is stretched out in hopetowards the promising absence of god. This means that the being-with of men,in tandem with the politics of man and god, is necessary to the ethics of thething.

To show that the encounter of man and god is implicated in the opening ofthe thing in precisely this manner, let us demonstrate the way in whichHeidegger describes the encounter of man and god as pulling apart a clearingwithin the whole, the clearing that is being, in which the open site of the polis orthe site of history can situate itself: 'En-countering (Ent-gegnung) is rending open(Aufreifieri) the "between" into which the opposing (Gegeneinander) occurs as inneed of an open (als eines Offenen bediirftiges, geschiehf)' (CTP, VIII, p. 320/GA 65,p. 454). And into this open, a being can first arise, as Heidegger describes:

in advance and de/ciding everything, a deep rent (durchriB) explodes thatwhich then first announces itself into the open (ins Offene) as a 'being', that anerrancy clears and rends everything in itself to the possibility of preservingtruth (eine Irrnis lichtend alles in sich reifit zur Mb'glichkeit des Wahreri) - it isthis that thinking's projection of being (Seyn) has to accomplish. (CTP, VIII,p. 315/GA 65, p. 447)

Politics 145

This is to say that a thing, a mere being, is precisely what can preserve truth,as an event of withdrawal and giving, that can hold the place of being (Seiri) itselfwithin the totality. And it can do this only if man relates to god, since thistransfers finitude from man (where it was exclusively situated in fundamentalontology) onto the whole, as the hollowing out of a clearing within beings as awhole, through which beings as a whole may become 'open' to themselves andthus a being 'announce itself.

The intrusion of the god, towards which man stretches, shall invoke beings asa whole without which the thing cannot be. Heidegger understands politics tobe the governance of beings as a whole, and if today the whole is utterlypredominant to the exclusion of being and thus to the exclusion of all ethics, andsince a thing can arise only in response to the total configuration within which itfinds itself, we must investigate this political situation in order to determinewhether indeed the ethics of the thing we have delineated in Part II is in factpossible today and what form the 'thing' might take. Today, in the age of Gestell,politics is inevitably a totalitarian politics. We are in this chaptersupplementing Ereignis with Gestell, being with power, since it is only in thislatter form that being today is manifest, as its own occlusion. Thus we might saythat politics now excludes ethics. The question that we shall need to ask iswhether it is possible to exist within the polis ethically. In other words, whetherpolitics and ethics are mutually exclusive; and because today 'the polis' extendsacross the entirety of beings, this is a question from which it is impossible toescape.

This is the fateful distinction Heidegger makes: politics does not respond tobeing but merely to its absence in beings as a whole, while ethics is nothing butthe humble and crucial response to being. The question we shall ask inconclusion is whether there is a political system that could itself be ethical in theway of questioning itself and thus opening to its ethical counter-essence. AsHeidegger came more and more vividly to realize the predominance of Gestelland its technology after Contributions to Philosophy, it is noticeable that politicscame increasingly to concern him. This is because he saw that with theincreasing predominance of actuality and technology comes the increasing needfor polities' legislative governance. And come it did, forcing Heidegger tounderstand that any thinking and any ethics would have to take place inopposition to this political domination.

In conclusion we shall ask whether this placement of politics in the counter-essence of being, capable of nothing more than questioning, if that, wasHeidegger's last word on politics and all that his thought bequeaths us, orwhether another way of thinking politics may be viable and perhaps even followfrom Heidegger's own insights.


THE POL/5

It is primarily in the lecture courses on Holderlin that Heidegger presents hisrethinking of the Greek polis, at this point having fully settled into theperspective of the turn in his thought, away from the time of fundamentalontology when the true difference of politics and ethics eluded him. It ispresented in any case within the time span of these lectures from 1934 to 1942,thereby incorporating the lecture courses of Introduction to Metaphysics (1935) andParmenides (1942), both of which contain essential hints as to the way in whichpolitics must be reunderstood in light of the rethinking of being qua void andthing (Sein and Seyn).

How is the polis to be understood from the perspective of being, which is tosay in a dialogue between the first beginning (metaphysics) and the otherbeginning (metaphysics and its current exhaustion viewed from the perspectiveof what remains unthought within it: being as void)? Heidegger's remarks onthe polis may be grouped around two closely related topics, that of beings as awhole (Seiende im Ganzeri) and that of history (Geschichte).

How is the polis said to relate to beings as a whole? The polis is understood byHeidegger to be that site which gives to each being its sense. Thus all beings maybe said to revolve around the polis in the sense of being understood always inrelation to it. Even when a being opposes itself to the polis it will nonetheless bedefined by this opposition. Thus in Parmenides we hear the following:

Polis is the polos, the pole, the place (Or/) around which everything appearingto the Greeks as a being turns (sich ... dreht) in a peculiar way. The pole isthe place around which all beings turn (wendet) and precisely in such a waythat in the domain of this place beings indicate their turning and condition(Wendung und Bewandtnis).

The pole, as this place, lets beings appear in their being and show thetotality of their condition (im Ganzen seiner Bewandtnis). The pole does notproduce and does not create beings in their being, but as pole it is the site(Statte) of the unconcealedness of beings as a whole. (P, pp. 89—90/C7A 54, pp.132-3)

One finds the same definition in Hb'lderlin's Hymn 'The Ister', with the additionof a 'perhaps' (vielleicht) to indicate that the essence of the polis is alwaysquestionable in the sense that the place itself must be liable to underminingthrough historical change:

Perhaps the polis is that place (Ort) and realm (Bereich) around whicheverything question-worthy and uncanny turns (sich ... dreht) in anexceptional sense (Sinne). The polis is the polos, that is, the pole, the swirl(Wirbefy in which and around which everything turns (sich alles drebf). (HI, p.81/GA 53, p. 100)

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Heidegger is quite explicit in saying that '{t]he essentially "polar" characterof the polis concerns beings as a whole (Seiende im Ganzeri)' (ibid. — my emphasis).This is as much as to say that the polis and it alone is the Open, the space of thevoid which comes to fill the clearing made by being in its withdrawal. The polisis the pole of the vortex of beings as a whole, which forms as they turn towardsthe void to varying degrees: 'the polis lets the totality of beings come in this wayor that into the unconcealment of its condition (jeweilen das Game des Seienden sooder so in das Vnverborgene seiner Bewandtnis)' (P, p. 9Q/GA 54, p. 133). If being isthe clearing, then the polis is the Open, a particular configuration of beings thatresponds to the structural void in a historical way. It is precisely the clearing andthe Open that Heidegger did not keep apart in his early work, thus preventinghimself from understanding the relation and difference between ethics andpolitics. In the following passage, Heidegger comes close to explicitly namingthe polis as the Open: 'the truth belonging to the nation (Volk) is thecorresponding openness of beings as a whole' (GA 39, p. 144).

How does the polis act as the organizing pole of the Open? By way of thething, which opens only when man stretches out towards the god, in other wordswhen his finitude is understood to be a part of the whole and therefore to openup a clearing within the whole in which that whole becomes momentarily andpartially intelligible to itself. If the polis is the space formed as a consequence ofman's moving beyond a mere face-to-face to open up the thing within the whole,then will the polis not be precisely that place in which the thing can appear, inthe agora according to which every entity has always been said to be defined withthe kat'agoriai or categories?

The Open is the site of history since it is the place in which a historical worldcomes to fill the ahistorical void which no historical formation can ever eradicatefrom beings as a whole. If the polis is the pole of this Open then this explainswhy Heidegger describes the polis as the site of history: 'The polis is the essence ofthe place (Ort), or, as we say, it is the placed»m (Ort-schaft, settlement) of thehistorical dwelling of Greek humanity (geschichtlichen Aufenthalt des griechischenMenschentums)' (P, p. 90/GA 54, p. 133). The polis is 'the placedness of the placeof the history of Greekness (Ortschaft des Ortes der Geschichte des Griechentums)'(ibid.).

The polis is the very place-ness of the place, it is that which locates Dasein at aparticular point in history. For how could he know of this situation, see beyondhis own horizon, if he were not stretched beyond himself? It is precisely becausehe occupies the polis as a site which endures beyond his individual span andwhich stretches his viewpoint to those other viewpoints of the plurality whichdwells and has dwelt within the polis, that he can be open to his place in history.

This relation of the polis to history is earlier stressed in Introduction toMetaphysics (1935): 'polis is the name for the site (Statte), the Da, within whichand as which Da-sein is historically. The polis is the site of history, the Da, inwhich, out of which, and for which history happens' (IM, p. 162/EM, p. 117).


Heidegger makes the connection between this thought of history and that ofthe whole perhaps most explicitly in the analysis of Hb'lderlin's Hymn 'The Ister'.Here Heidegger tells us that 'the polls ... is properly "the stead" ("die Statt"):the site (die Statte) of the humanly historical abode of humans in the midst ofbeings (menschlich geschichtlichen Aufenthaltes des Menschen inmitten des Seienden)'(HI, p. 82/GA 53, p. 101), which means that:

what is essential in the historical being of human beings resides in the pole-like relatedness of everything to this site of abode, that is, this site of beinghomely (Heimischseins) in the midst of beings as a whole, (ibid. - my emphases)3

We can at least say that the formation of a polis is what occurs when manrealizes that the face-to-face of his parochial being-with cannot escape itssituation within the whole of beings, a whole which is overwhelming. Thewhole is a historically changing one and if one is not to be swept up in thischange one needs to be anchored in a place that persists throughout the changesin history. In other words, even if the whole of beings changes, the Open inwhich they appear (the polis) will nonetheless remain, marking the clearing (ofr)of being even though this becomes invisible with the all-pervasive presence ofpolitics. By remaining within an ahistorical being-with, without reference to thething and its whole, we would not be aware of our historical situation andtherefore we would not know precisely what things it is necessary for us to fosterin order to oppose the totality in which we find ourselves. In other words, wewould be a docile servant of the prevailing order.

The polis is an open site which can endure throughout epochal changes andthus give temporary man an access to being-history. The polis did not do this inBeing and Time because it was thought just as temporarily as the ethicalindividual: here it is understood as fundamentally different, as the site in whichDasein is homely amidst the whole and thus partly survives its historicalchanges.

Thus we might say that to dwell in a polis is simply to be cosmopolitan, inspeaking many languages, since the polis is the symbolic structure which retainsmany times and places and can therefore provide the individual with access tothe changes in being-history, which for most of us are accessible only acrosstime, in the archives compiled in or as the polis.

The polis names the ordering of the whole, its jointure, the way in which it ismapped out. As we have already seen, what metaphysics and metaphysicalpolitics are blind to is the fact that this ordering is premised upon an exclusion,the void of the clearing in which the Open of a historical world comes to stand.What is excluded from the polis and its ordering is whatever refuses to obey itsrules. And this is the 'stubborn' thing.5 The thing in its fragility points to thefragility and thus the historicality of the prevailing order. History amounts to achange in the revelation of beings as a whole as it comes to rearrange itselfaround the decay of a being that ceases to exert its organizing power and thus

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slips away, leaving behind a traumatic void which requires the Open torestructure itself, to find a new pole.

Heidegger understood from very early on that to understand history as achronological unfolding of events is to understand it in terms of the time ofbeings and not in terms of the temporality or the time-space of being. As early asThe Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (1928) Heidegger understood history to becomposed of those silent moments in which the leeway of the manifestation ofbeings as a whole is altered, a new event in history being constituted whenbeings present themselves in the world in a new way and this in response to thedecay of the organizing 'thing' - perhaps the 'state-founding deed' - and theneed to respond to the ensuing void, a need to 'remythify' the origin: 'Theentrance into world by beings is primal history (Urgeschichte) pure and simple'(MFL, p. 209/(jA 26, p. 270). In metaphysics, the being which gives each beingits sense is the god. Thus, if the polls is that which gives sense to the whole ofbeings then each historical polls must have a different (relation to) god, even ifthis god is absent or dead. It is the god of the polis that gives a new 'as such' tothe 'whole', altering what it means to be a being, what counts as a being andwhat does not. The kategoriai of a being as it appears to men are decided in theagora (cf. EC, p. 193/W, p. 322). In this way and one which is historicallyvariable the polis delimits our view of beings as a whole, but more importantlylocates this vision as a historically situated one. The polis is a particular historicalopenness of beings as a whole and in this way the absolute horizon of our vision.The polis suffers from an inherent tendency to occlude its own history and anyview on beings other than its own. It is our place within history but it denies itshistoricality. In this way, every polis is inherently ideological, in promoting whatis only a temporary revelation of the whole, contingent upon the singular thingwhich founds it, as an ahistorical necessity.

And yet the polis abides longer than us and is therefore at the same time theonly possibility that we have of seeing beyond our limited horizon, confinedwithin a certain revelation of the totality. By occluding the void and indeed itsown openness, the polis marks the place of being and thereby allows room for a'thing' within the totality and a place for the ethics which responds to thisthing. When Heidegger speaks of the pole-like nature of the polis and even of thepolis as the whirlpool around which beings swirl, what we must attend to is thefact that although the polis denies its dependence on history and geography, bybeing the site around which everything turns it must be situated somewhere inorder to be a pole in the first place. It must be the Open which opens onto thevoid that is being, for it is this void around which beings ultimately swirl, as thewhole is hollowed out by finitude in the relation between man and god.

The place from which we are compelled to speak denies that it speaks from aplace of enunciation. It is this oblivion of the totality with regard to theconditions of its very positing that characterizes metaphysics. This obliviontherefore demonstrates the polis and its politics to be metaphysical. They aresimply unable to question. But the question that we shall come to ask is whether


there is in fact a political system which can draw itself out of this oblivion andcome to question its own essence, the essence of power; or whether this is theprerogative solely of ethics?

What the polls has become is the Nation (Volk), the territorialization of theplanet according to a presumed indigenous right of a people to that place. Inother words, the whole has become political. The nation is precisely a wholewhich denies or occludes its dependence on other nations by assuming itself tobe self-founding as it depicts itself in the myth of its own origin. In this way, itenvisages itself as the self-grounding metaphysical subiectum. And the same maybe said for any international confederation, which is why Heidegger can say:'Every nationalism is metaphysically an anthropologism, and as suchsubjectivism. Nationalism is not overcome through mere internationalism; itis rather expanded and elevated thereby into a system' (LH, p. 260/W, p. 172).

Now that most accounts have been settled with regard to the HeideggerAffair, we can at last begin to look with unclouded eyes at the possibilities of therethinking of politics offered by Heidegger in the writings that appear after hispractical political engagement ended in 1934 and as early as 1935 withIntroduction to Metaphysics. The rethinking one finds is precisely a critique of thisideological self-understanding of the polls to which Heidegger was drawn in1933 and which rested on the anthropologism of mapping the necessity of theindividual man's self-appropriation onto the Nation and consequently under-standing politics in terms of such self-appropriation on the part of a 'nation' or'people'. This rethinking amounts to an understanding of the genesis oftotalitarian politics in the history of being, and therefore, in line with histhinking of the end of metaphysics, in his very last works a thinking of thepossibility of exceeding totalitarian politics.

POLITICS AND POWER

The political entity as a whole has today become a self-grounding and self-justifying process which manipulates and maintains the flow of power as itcirculates around the globe, whether this power takes the form of capital,information, or mere electrical energy. In the age in which the whole becomesdetermined exclusively as actuality, politics is required to govern over theprocess of this actuality's actualization. In other words, there is no area ofcontemporary life, understood as the maximization of potential or actualization,that is not politically determined.

Heidegger, as we have seen, determines the contemporary age - and theessence of ungrounded and ungrounding being — with the word 'Machenschaft'(GA 69, p. 69; CTP, passim), the power to do or to make, to drive every entitytowards the full actualization of its potential. Nothing exceeds techne. Thecurrent age is defined by technology (Technik) in the sense that every beingworthy of the name is technicizable or makeable. Heidegger would come to

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recognize the essence of technology (among all other phenomena ofcontemporary life) as precisely 'being' in the form of its most extreme recessionand the call to cover over this withdrawal ever more completely with beings.This is the call of Gestell, but because technology will maximize only in responseto this call, this call will itself never cease and therefore never entirely be absentso long as technology carries out its devastation. In this way, in its powerlessnessto be free of its own driving force, technology attests to being, and in a uniqueway since it attests to being in its utter withdrawal which is precisely being'svoid nature. But being has indeed become the masochistic call for its ownstifling, according to the more primordial decision of Seyn. Being demands thatit be covered over by technology in its response to the call to maximize power.

The drive for actualization is commanded by being itself in its latter-dayguise of Gestell. Gestell is the demand for the utter predominance of beings,which thus become the actual. The prevalence of man's power over being definesthe modern age, while today, in a post-modern age, it is power that has come togovern over man and indeed over itself. As we have seen, will to power of itselfbecomes will to will, the desire for power for its own sake. In order to ensurethat power is maximized in this way it must be carefully governed, situated inthose organs that will best enhance it, and this means both that politics iseverywhere and that man is as powerless with regard to this totalitarian reach ashe is with regard to the call of Gestell which necessitates this politicality. Thepolitical governance of the world reinforces the obliviousness of man to thatwhich he has no power to govern: being, which is the very other of power (GA69, p. 69). Through the inherent ideologizing of the polis, which we haveindicated above, the political governance and manner of manipulating powerensures that everything is thought in terms of power and thereby reinforcesman's oblivion to being. Only in this way could power be allowed to grow.Thus, power, the guise of beings as a whole, needs politics, in order to ensurethat the oblivion on which it is based will continue and even be deepened.

Politics is concerned with the empowerment of the impotent and thedisempowerment of the powerful, in other words with the regulation of power-relations through the distribution of power. In other words, it thinks only interms of power. And yet it is precisely its definition in terms of power that itdoes not consider, since with regard to this it is powerless: 'no reflection is givento the essence of power' (P, p. 91/GA 54-, p. 135). The same goes for those whoare subject to the power of the polis: we did not and indeed cannot choose to beso subjected. Politics is for Heidegger precisely defined by its blindness to theterms in which it is forced to think. And what is crucial, if we are not to beblinded by its ideology, is that we do not remain blind to our power/mness withregard to our being determined by power, our political determination: 'what is itto overcome "power"? Is it not to bring to light (Er-klarung) our being withoutpower (Ohn-macht, helpless) when it comes to the actuality of the actual (zurWirklichkeit des Wirklichen)? (GA 69, p. 20)

152 Being-tvith, Ethics, Politics

If man has complete power to dispose over beings as he sees fit, then what hedoes not possess is power over being. He cannot choose to be called to hismastery. He cannot choose how the whole is to appear. He is merely situatedwithin it at a certain historical time and geographical place at which technologyhas allowed this mastery. Man is powerless to prevent the utter predominance ofthe actual over the possible, beings over being, or the totality over thesingularity. The flipside (Gegenweseri) of being lord of the actual is serfdom whenit comes to actuality. Man is powerless with respect to power and thus to thetotal governance of the political. Indeed, power is itself powerless to reflect on itsown conditions and is always 'metaphysical' in this sense. As a result, it cannotdo otherwise than to overcome itself ever anew, to grow until it becomes quiteunconditioned, an unconditionality that is exhibited not only in fascisticregimes but in the total governance of the political as such, including democracy.It is manifest in the very territorialization of the earth and the ubiquity oflegislation and ordering.

While initially understanding man as the entity with the power to dominatethe entire planet, Heidegger later came to understand him as being decentred bythe very processes he had once thought to dominate. From being the primarysubject man was swept up in the ordering of resources that must stand ready toyield up their energy, as this resource or constant reserve (Bestand) came tooccupy the place of the subjectal, which requires no ground beyond itself butsustains its oblivion to this groundlessness by chasing its own tail, pursuing andexpanding itself in an attempt to occlude any thought of ground and its abyss.But however man is understood, he is quite powerless with respect to themandate to dominate and exploit actuality, the aletheia which underlies allunderstandings of physis, a revealing which allows nature to be used in thisfashion. This powerlessness is not overcome by an attitude which holds backfrom exploiting nature, since this behaviour, this dwelling of 'environmentalethics', still responds to the call to reveal nature in the way of power and energy.It does not necessarily question this call itself and the possibility orimpossibility of another call, nor does it adopt another comportment to thecall of being as such which would go along with the primal upsurge ofmanifestation in the historical way in which it takes place and thereby remainfree as regards the final product of this process (the phenomenon), by recognizingits historical determination and thus the blind powerlessness which the(self-)pursuit of power involves.

Will to power, as the expansion and thus self-overcoming inherent to power,finding no negativity or excess of actuality which might not be understood interms of potentia, merely carries on expanding until ultimately even theimmanent positing of values is consigned to oblivion and the only purpose ofpower becomes power itself and its constant expansion, simply because there isno logical reason for it to stop. In fact there is no reason at all. Thus, willbecomes will to will, 'total mobilization' to use the term Heidegger borrowsfrom Jiinger, who provided him with an insight into the experience of the nature

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of being today as it was revealed through the epiphanically extreme experience ofworld war. Light was also shed for Heidegger by the petrifying glare of the atombomb, in which the very microscopia of the world are thought in terms of theircapacity to yield either explosive or containable energy. Polities' task in this ageis ultimately the distribution of this energy, and since this energy is to be foundeverywhere, so is politics. When one considers the energy consumption andproduction that defines contemporary America one can perhaps forgiveHeidegger's designation of this age of the technological Gigantic as one oframpant 'Americanism'.

Seyn's decision has led actuality to predominate wholly over possibility, to theextent that possibility is understood merely as potentiality, potential actuality orin other words potential energy (energeia). And since the whole of what-is hasbecome a matter of power to be actualized, this Bestand or standing resourcewhich can be called upon when needed to yield up its energy, politics is requiredto govern over this whole in order to legislate the dividing-up of power, toensure that centres of power are properly distributed, or at least that there is somedistribution in order that power does not dissipate and become lost in the ether.

If 'the essence of power is foreign to the polls' (P, p. 9\IGA 54, p. 135 - myemphasis), then does this mean that the political as such is incapable of reflectionon itself, on its own conditions of possibility? In other words, is every politicalsystem incapable of questioning itself? This question shall be raised in theconclusion to this work. Man is powerless with regard to his being determinedin terms of power, just as technology has no control over its mandate todominate and exploit actuality. Man did not choose to be taken up into relationsof power and circuits of energy, production and consumption. But can politicsacknowledge this powerlessness? Can it do any more than facilitate such circuitsand decide (according to its democratic or totalitarian form) upon the principalloci of such power?

If Heidegger did initially believe, as de Beistegui asserts (forthcoming), in theaftermath of his Nazi disappointment, that politics was in fact utterly incapableof questioning itself and thus of relating to the void that underlies its ever-expanding openness, then there is some evidence that later he was beginning tochange his mind in this regard. And indeed it is his apparent decision thatpolitics be assigned to the counter-essence of Ereignis, Gestell, and ethics toEreignis, that will be questioned in relation to a contemporary political thinkerwhom we shall see to be uncannily close to Heidegger: Slavoj Zizek. In any case,the explicit possibility of a politics that responds to the Real (or being) whichZizek emphasizes in opposition to deconstruction (as he understands it) may befound within Heidegger's own works, even if (as Zizek thinks) it is lost in theHeideggerian legacy of post-structuralist deconstruction.

In any case, the totality, ungrounded by being's withdrawal or voidance, is amatter of power, and is considered by Heidegger to be governed over by politics.With the predomination of the totality of beings, the totalitarianism of(whatever form of) politics arises simultaneously, as Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy


have recognized, qualifying this with the caution that their analysis of thetotalitarianism of the political is merely based on Heidegger's analysis oftechnology rather than to be found within it (1997, p. 110). Metaphysicalpolitics does not question the origination of power, or why it is called to thinkin terms of power; it is blind to the call which demands the maximization ofyield, potentialization. The question that we shall be left with at the end of thischapter is whether to conclude that even a post-metaphysical politics is unableto question itself, and whether this job must be left rather to its ethical counter-essence, or whether there is a form of politics capable of relating to being.

CALLING THE POL/5 INTO QUESTION

The closure of the totality of power is the elision of singularity and thus theelision of the very condition of the possibility of this totality. This elision canbecome manifest at a certain level of technologization as it reaches its extreme orin an experience of explicitly totalitarian political regimes, such as Heidegger'sown experience in Germany in 1933^5.

If politics is the openness of the organized world that is founded upon thesingular manifestation of being, and if politics is always concerned with powerand the totality, then we must say that the essence of politics is 'pre-politicaT(HI, p. 82/GA 53, p. 102) and even 'not political'. 'Each politikon, everything"political", is always only an effect of thepolis, i.e. of the politeia. The essence ofthe polis, i.e. the politeia, is not itself determined or determinable "politically".The polis is just as little something "political" as space itself is somethingspatial' (P, p. 96/GA 54, p. 142).

Politics must be constituted in its essence by a counter-essence, which will notbe political, and since the political elides everything which is not political thenit must close itself to its own essence, cut itself off from questioning itsorigination or the source of its reign. At this stage in Heidegger's thought, theessence or counter-essence of politics must rather be ethical in the Heideggeriansense of dwelling in the light of being, which is power's radical other and thesingularity that both conditions and escapes the totality and self-consumingdomination of power. Ethics would be dwelling amidst the totality of what-is inwait for singularity, for things, that with regard to which man as otherwise thangod is powerless. This demonstrates the difference between metaphysical politicsand 'post-'metaphysical politics, if such a thing is possible: the first concerns thedistribution of power without considering the conditions of possibility for thispower, while the second would think precisely the essence of the political. Inthis way we can understand Heidegger's assertion that 'the essence of power(Macht) is foreign (fremd) to thepolis' (P, p. 91/Â 54, p. 135) simply because itis quite unable to ask after essence as such.

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Formerly the whole of being revolved around the polis; a future polls willrevolve around a single being and acknowledge this fact.

After metaphysics, the task for 'polities' is to keep this entity called by theGreeks the polis always in question, which means to say in doubt as to its reason,tightness, justice, and the very foundation of its power; to question its decisionsand so to open it to the possibility of singularities upon which its very identitydepends and of which its organization must therefore take account. It is crucialto open the totality of the polis and the political governance of the globe onto theabyss that gapes beneath it.

Given that these sites of singularity are not within man's power to bringabout, the only correct relation to them is one of awaiting. This is the core ofHeidegger's later ethics. Precisely what is required is that the polis be led beyondits apparent self-sufficiency, the plausibility of its ideology, the unconditionalityof its rule, towards the singular conditions of political domination itself.Heidegger describes this putting-in-question as the task of the 'leader'. Thisdoes not necessarily mean the political leader, it can also mean the poet. This isnot the composer of poesy but the Dichter, whose activity Heidegger understandsas Dichtung, which does not mean writing poetry — and for this reason I shallhere elide the emphasis on Holderlin, which I think has often misled readers ofHeidegger — but is a translation of 'poiesis'. This Heidegger understands asHervorbringen, a bringing-forth or repetition of the revelation which is takingplace today in the guise of technology, which encourages the sheer predominanceof the actual and thus amounts to the command that is known as Herausfordern,the demand that ever more actualities be produced to shore up and bolster theactual against any intrusion of negativity (QCT, pp. 10—15/TK, pp. 11—15).The poet poetizes the outer limits of Stimmung, the leeway within which thewhole may be given to us, the leeway of effectiveness, positivity: he will be acontemporary and a localized poet, utterly in tune with the singular devastation ofhis time and place, since this is the only way in which one could becomeawtimely and find the 'thing' that will be singular in a way dictated by thetotality in which it takes part and the way that it defines its totality. As soattuned to the Stimmung of the age, the poet will speak with the voice (Stimme) ofthe people, and will thus open the people to this voice and the range of itspossible response to being. This voice is a people's attunement to the givennessof the whole, an attunement therefore to Seyn itself as the decision between beingand beings regarding which is to prevail and in what way. It is this Seyn which isthe difference that calls and to which our 'response' or voicing must respond. Itis this response that the 'poet' opens for us.

LEADING THE POL/5 BEYOND ITSELF

The leading of a people beyond itself — and into its true voice or response — isperformed by whoever seeks that which is beyond man: the god (cf. CTP, VI, p.


279/GA 65, p. 398). This leader will therefore be something in the nature of adaimon or demi-god: this is Heidegger's description of the poet. Today, thedemi-god is the one who has an inkling of Seyn amidst the full positivity of theactual and thus, as opening us to the possibility of Seyn, opens a hale dimensionin which the god might ultimately be hinted at. 'The essence of a people isgrounded in those who belong to themselves out of belongingness to the god (derSichgehorenaen aus der Zugehorigkeit zu dem Gott)' (CTP, VI, p. 279/GA 65, p.399). The role of 'seeker' (Sucker) (CTP, VI, p. 279/GA 65, p. 398) can befulfilled by anyone capable of seeing beyond the self-assertion of theunconditionality of the political horizon within which we dwell. He mustlead us towards the condition of the totality which is itself a singularity. Thismotif is most prominent in the discussion of Contributions to Philosophy, where wealso find the greater part of our insight into the relation between man and god.Thus the seeker, always a part ofthepolis, leads us beyond the particular politicalhorizon which encompasses us and thereby brings us to a realization of ourhistorical place. It is crucial to remember that this is a possibility belonging to thepolis itself and which therefore constitutes the flipside of its ideology. The polis,while keeping us entrapped within our horizon, also retains the only possibilitythat we have of going beyond it.

Thus a political entity is not to be constituted along the lines of the self-grounding totality of the metaphysical polis, 'circling around itself (CTP, VI, p.279/GA 65, p. 398), but rather the leader is precisely to open such a. polis to thevery fact of its having conditions. 'Only then does a people avoid the danger ofcircling around itself and of idolizing (vergb'tzeri) as unconditioned (seinemUnbedingten) what are only conditions for its subsistence (seines Bestanaes)'(CTP, VI, p. 279/GA 65, p. 398). This is a perfect statement of the nature ofideology and of the need to take a critical distance towards it. And this isHeidegger's rethinking of politics in opposition to Nazism: to render thepolitical body an open whole rather than an unconditioned totality that is to beshaped by the statesman-artist of romantic or even Platonic descent, whichwould be the subject of a self-appropriation by way of the fantasy of a myth ofpure origins, of self-founding without foreign influence, which Lacoue-Labartheidentifies as metaphysics' understanding of politics, a politics, needless to say,based entirely on the ethical subject (Lacoue-Labarthe 1997, p. 153). Thedifference between Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy, and our own work, is that thesewriters understand Heidegger himself always to think of politics in this way, tothe very end, in the form of the self-identification of a 'people' (ibid).

By stretching man outwards towards the god, in hopeful awaiting, the leaderbrings the political entity to a realization of its historical conditionedness,demonstrating the singular conditions of its positing:

This god will erect the simplest but utmost opposition (Gegensatze) over itspeople as the paths (Bahneri) on which this people wanders beyond itself (fibersich hinauswanderi), in order to find once again its essence and to exhaust the

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moment of its history (Augenblick seiner Geschichte auszuschb'pferi). (CTP, VI, p.280/GA 65, p. 399)

To find out that one has singular conditions is to realize one's place(ment)within history. This opens up the possibility of assuming one's historicaluniqueness by responding to the historical situation in which one finds oneself:'A people is a people only when it receives its history as apportioned in thefinding of its god' (CTP, VI, p. 279/GA 6.5, p. 398). Historical uniqueness isdefined by the particular singular thing - 'deed', 'object', 'subject' - whichorganizes the whole. It is, as Heidegger tells us, always the thing (Ding) whichconditions us (bedingen) (Th, p. 181/VA, p. 173).

By opening the political dwelling of man to god as the powerlessness of man,man is opened to an aspect of himself that is not politically determined, politicsthinking as it does solely in terms of power. We have already seen thattechnology is powerless with regard to the thing which thereby markstechnology's powerlessness with regard to its origin, the call to set upon theworld to which it responds: the same goes for politics. It can do nothing aboutthe void which its Open nevertheless marks, the call that tells it to think interms of power.

THE GUEST-FRIEND

It is certainly not as if the nation is dragged literally beyond its own borders,since the condition to which a people is led by the demi-god is not outside thetotality but is that alien singularity which organizes the totality from within. Bybeing raised above the polis, the human being is given a glimpse of the historicalsituatedness of the polis, but this is a situatedness marked by the singular thingwhich haunts the totality and which it must forget in order to constitute itself.Heidegger describes this constitutive foreignness which must organize the polisas a 'guest-friend'.

As Holderlin realized, 'the other' is essential to the formation of a country. Bydefinition, a country cannot arise from itself; the Greeks did not derive fromGreeks. According to Holderlin, they came from the East, from the Egyptianswho were much older. The influences or influx in whose flow a country is formedare other than itself. Indeed, these others constitute its very self. But to appropriatethese influences, whose sum total one is, would be precisely to become other thanoneself. Therefore, the way in which a country is formed is through its singularresponse to the anonymity that inhabits it and forms it. And the way in whichone might truly accede to oneself is to acknowledge this irrevocable split inoneself between one's influences which will be 'other' and the singular way inwhich a nation forms itself in its uniqueness by responding to these influences,just as existence became singular in response to the anonymous fact of death.One can never become oneself by appropriating oneself, but only by


accommodating the otherness inside of oneself, the counter-essence crucial to theformation of essence. This would amount to a 'free use of the national', the like ofwhich Heidegger describes with his notion of 'hospitality' or 'guest-friendship'(Gastfreundschaft).

The relation between self and other is precisely that of essence to counter-essence. The politics of the calculation of majorities must neither become norexist without an inherent ethics of the exception or the minority. This absolutecounter-essential otherness and the way in which it distributes the two faces ofSeyn (Ereignis and Gestell, being and beings as a whole) between ethics andpolitics is what we shall interrogate in the conclusion to this work, to which weare now drawing near.

In Hb'lderlin's Hymn 'The Ister', Heidegger describes the polls as coming into itsown only by venturing into the foreign, which he attempts to describe by way ofthe chiasm of the 'locality of journeying' and the 'journeying of locality'. Thisforeignness is not external to the proper but inhabits it as a necessary counter-essence. The aliens are the singularities which the totality must respect since itcannot choose them or choose to eradicate them. They are those things which thetotality must leave alone if it is to maintain its identity. And since they cannotbe reduced to the unitary determination of the polis they may be related to onlyin the gesture which puts the totality of the polis into question.

These future singularities, from the deepest past, an influential formationwhich the polis itself could never have chosen, bring about the present and thealways unstable identity of the polis; they inhabit it as guest-friends or thesubjects of hospitality (Gastfreundschaft). The polis must be organized in such away as to leave room for such things, because without them the polis could not bewhat it is. Neither appropriation nor exclusion would amount to a properassertion of the Nation. The Nation cannot assert itself at all and remain what itis. It can exist only by putting itself into question. As Heidegger says, '{t}herelation to the foreign (Fremde) is never a mere taking over of the other (blofieUbernehmen des Anderen). The relation to the own (Eigene) is never a mere self-assured affirmation of the so-called "natural" or "organic"' (HI, p. 143/G-A .53, p.179). Rather, Heidegger describes the hospitality of the totality to its alienconditions as follows: 'A guest is that foreigner (Fremde, stranger) who for a timebecomes homely in a homely place foreign to them, and thus themselves bringwhat is homely for them into the homely of the foreign' (HI, pp. 140-1/GA .53,p. 175). The other must remain other within the Nation, and must be learnedfrom, without either becoming proper to the body it inhabits or alienating thisbody entirely.

This then is 'guest-friendship', in which:

there lies the readiness to acknowledge (Anerkennung) the foreigner and hisforeignness ... In guest-friendship, however, there also lies the resolve(Entschiedenheit) not to mix what is one's own, as one's own (das Eigene), with

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the foreign, but to let the foreigner be the one he is. Only thus is a learningpossible in guest-friendship. (HI, p. 141/GA j>3, pp. 175-6)

Heidegger tells us elsewhere that fremd does not mean simply 'strange' or'foreign' but being always already underway into the foreign (LP, pp. 162-3/t/S1,p. 41). This is the meaning of hospitality or the relation to the foreign thatallows the strangeness of the foreigner, and it is the imperative of a non-metaphysical politics that refuses to be blind to its own blindness as regards itsgenesis.

Extraordinarily, just once Heidegger describes this figure of the eternallyforeign, the essential counter-essence of the totality, with the locution 'Jew',along almost exactly the same lines as Jean-Francois Lyotard: 'It is sheernonsense to say that experimental research is Nordic-Germanic and that rational{research} on the other hand comes from foreigners (fremdartig). We would thenhave already to make up our minds to count Newton and Leibniz among the"Jews'" (CTP, II, p. 113/6-A 6.5, p. 163). Heidegger even includes Lyotard'sapostrophes (cf. Lyotard 1990).

The foreignness of the 'Jew' is something with regard to which we arepowerless. It is the other that was us before we were. Of course, the foreigner canalways be repatriated or killed, but this would be to destroy that upon which ouridentity depends and only confirm the fact that we are thinking in terms of thepower to appropriate, that politics can perhaps do no other, and that onedepends on that before which one is powerless.

CONCLUSION

We have seen in this concluding part that a face-to-face being-with of mortalsmust exist in order for being to show itself in the form of a thing, after death orthe mortality evinced in the face has opened the whole to the abyss over which ithovers. This death is not the belonging of man alone but rather haunts the wholeof beings itself, since man is always stretched beyond himself by relating to hiscounter-essence, the god, which relieves his finitude of the burden of foundingthe whole in its negativity. In this stretching a crack is opened in beings as awhole, which amounts to the clearing or immanent void within the whole:being. Then and then alone can being show itself in the form of the thing, sincethe thing is the very place-holder of this void. This thing was shown to be thecontingent and historically varying entity which, through its very singularity,organized an entire field of beings, and it is precisely this singularity, theblindspot of any metaphysical position of enunciation or the clearing in which itposes its position or takes its stance, that is elided by metaphysics, andstructurally so, since otherwise it could not posit.

In the present age, when the decision of Seyn has ordained that beings as awhole predominate absolutely over being and thus assume the form of actuality,


being takes the form only of its self-effacing call to promulgate ever-greateractualities, and politics is required to govern over the totality, since polities'arena is precisely that of beings as a whole. The polis is the Open of the clearing,which means that politics today amounts to administration, the distribution andordering of power and the dividing up of the global territory of the humanworld. This world today comprises the globe itself and the entire universe, all ofwhich has come to be understood either as energy reserve or in relation toenergy: a 'protected area' or 'area of outstanding natural beauty' is designatedthus exclusively in order to protect it from the ravages of technology, whichresponds to the call ofGestell to maximize the energy yield of everything that is.This is polities' decision as well. The entirety is political.

Politics, then, concerns the totality, but ethics as its essential counter-essencewill be a response to those things, those guest-friends or 'Jews' the maintenanceof whose otherness is essential to the formation of the polis as that influx uponwhich it depends, that 'other' who was there before T was.

The only question that remains for us is whether there is a politics that can besaid to be able politically to question itself, and to keep itself in question asregards its right and power and yet to remain a politics. This would be a politicsor a political system which was itself 'ethical' to some degree, at least to thesecond stage of ethics, which we identified in Part II as one of questioning. Orcan nothing at all be expected of politics, as Heidegger himself thought, at leastfor a time? Is the totality of politicality constitutively unable to question itself,and must this be left rather to its ethical counter-essence? This would amount toan acknowledgement that politics does not quite enjoy a total governance, that itdoes not have power over everything, whether this is an acknowledgement onthe part of politics or an anti-political insistence on the part of ethics. Thequestion, then, in the age of the totality of politics, is whether politics as suchcan ever question itself sufficiently to become open to its own powerlessness andcounter-essence, to an excess of the totality and its unitary trait; or whetherethics must always amount to a decisive force which asserts itself in opposition topolitics, in order to ensure that a crack is opened in its steely ideological edifice.Can the Open ever acknowledge the clearing which of necessity it must come tofill? This is Heidegger's unique manner of posing the question of ideology.

And this is the question to which we turn in closing: whether the oppositionbetween being and politics may be said to hold or whether such a thing as aquestioning or saying politics of being might rather be possible and evennecessary. We shall ask whether in fact Heidegger himself arrived at thisquestion towards the very end of his life, following a lengthy period of'disillusionment' after the Rectorate, during which time he renounced politicsand summarily stripped it of the dignity with which he had once endowed it,the possibility of responding to being.

Conclusion

In this work we have demonstrated the way in which being-with necessitates thecrossing of Heidegger's work, a crossing which amounts to a rethinking of hisearly work in the turn to the later and a thought of the origination of theontological difference as the formation of a place for ethics in contemporaryactuality. This ethics was an ethics of the thing which, when thought in light ofthe totality (which means when the being-with of mortals who occupy thefourfold is brought into relation with the god), can be shown always to beinvolved in a certain political situation. Ethics as such will always be a responseto the particular political totality in which it finds itself and will not at all besome apolitical form of rustic 'dwelling' far from the necessities of the city.

As I have attempted to indicate by means of the togetherness of this book'stitle and subtitle, one cannot undertake the passage of Heideggerian thoughtand understand the way in which this relates and differentiates ethics andpolitics without taking being-with into account, because this 'being-with' bestprovides us with an understanding of what changes within it, and the changeswhich 'being-with' undergoes allow us to demonstrate the rethinking of therelation between ethics and politics that occurs in Heidegger's later thought.This passage, which we have named a 'crossing', leads to a necessary balancing ofethics with its counter-weight, politics, in a way that does not allow the absolutepredominance of the one or the other, or their Platonic homology, butdemonstrates the necessity of each for the other and their origination from out ofa common point of differentiation, the always divided origin of Ereignis as thegift of beings as a whole and the withdrawal of being: politics was assigned tothe former and ethics to the latter.

Ereignis is the 'with' of being and beings and by adopting it as his 'guidingword' Heidegger came to devote the entire resources of his thought to thinkingthe nature of this 'with', as he was earlier unable to do. Our task has been merelyto demonstrate the originality of the 'with' to Heidegger's later work and theway in which this modifies its understanding of human being-with so as to alterthe place of ethics and its relation to politics.

We began with Heidegger's early work from the time of Being and Time,which proved to think being in a way that was inadequate to the 'with'. This wasmanifest in the way that the second form of being-with refused to fit the schemaof authenticity and inauthenticity and rather embodied the togetherness of theexistential vectors of authenticity and inauthenticity and their actualasymptotes, thus demonstrating the latter's exclusion from fundamentalontology and its failure to think the historical process of ontologicaldifferentiation which today takes the form of actualization. This togetherness


was thought by Heidegger but only inchoately in the invocation of conscience,which was identified with the second form of being-with. Since the ontologicaldifference as the source of the two-part schema of authenticity andinauthenticity effectively forbade this togetherness it stood in need ofcrossing-through, a crossing which rendered being and beings intimate at thepoint of their differentiation. Only thus could the way in which being andbeings are 'with' one another be thought.

Thus 'being-with' was the name of an attempt to think something whichexceeded the problematic of which it was a part and so necessitated a crossing-out of this very problematic. This crossing-out amounts to Heidegger's laterrealization that it is necessary to think the ontological difference in its verydifferentiation rather than to think being and beings in their alreadydifferentiated state and to discover the meaning which makes possible beingitself and the various significations into which this meaning is articulated acrosshistory by way of a discursivizing 'fall'. This search for a single ahistoricalmeaning for being demonstrated to Heidegger himself that at this stage of histhought he had failed properly to think the relation between being and beingsand had merely presupposed it with the representational title 'ontologicaldifference', asserting therewith the unconquerable difference that lay betweenbeing and beings. The problem with this assertion was that it preventedHeidegger from thinking the ultimate differencing which opened up thisdifference in the first place, the event of constant exchange between presence andits clearing which must occur for any world and thing to present themselves.This is the event of Ereignis, the essence of being and beings in their intimacy, atthe very point of their constant differentiation, a differentiation that was at onepoint thought by Heidegger to be a more original 'being', described by the oldGerman word, Seyn. By thinking this Seyn, Heidegger came fully to think thehistoricity of being itself, rather than the historical ways, secondary to beingitself, in which it fell, in the movement of a depreciatory mimesis, into beings asthey happened factually to enter Dasein's world. History was precisely Eretgnis asthe de/cisions of Seyn regarding the relation and predominance of beings as awhole and being. In other words, this shift allowed Heidegger to think theprocess of giving or the gift of givenness in a historical way and in the way that itoccurs in tandem with the 'withdrawal' of being from presence, which creates avoid that demands a symbolic world in order to render the traumatic loss ofbeing tolerable to man as he is drawn to its abyss through his equally traumaticdeath.

The differentiation of the ontological difference between withdrawal andgiving bars the presupposition of being alone in separation from beings,possessed of a single ahistorical meaning (temporality), and is precisely thecrossing proper to Heidegger's thought: it amounts to the marking out of aplace for ethics that is always determined by Heidegger as the ontologicaldifference itself. To trace the crossing of Heidegger's thought is therefore to

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trace out the origination of a place for ethics and therefore to provide adescription of this place.

It is in the early work most of all that Heidegger considers being-with to beinherent to the opening of the Da. Because Heidegger's way of thinking beinghere is inadequate to the co-originarity of being and the 'with', we have in thisbook demonstrated the way in which this inherence would have to be rethoughtin the context of the later work, for in the early work it was inherent only to theextent that it belonged to man as the ground of being. In this way, the 'with' waskept separate from being in the place of its foundation and thus not co-originalwith being itself. Effectively, the later course of the book was intended todemonstrate how this non-originarity is remedied by Heidegger's crossing-outof his own earlier thought in such a way that his later thought comes to thinkthe originarity of the 'with'.

And yet, in the course of this crossing, which renders the 'with' original tobeing, the human form of being-with seems to become submerged, and preciselybecause man's individual finitude is relieved of the burden of founding. Ethicsthen seems to focus on the new place-holder of the ontological difference, whichis no longer man but the 'thing'. To counter this impression, we havedemonstrated an event of death to be necessary for this thing to open itself in thetechnological age of predominating actuality and how this death reveals itself ina face-to-face being-with. This was an ethical being-with that had to be thoughtas political when considered in relation to its counter-essence, the god, since thisdemonstrated its intertwinement with beings as a whole, by way of the thing asan instance of the fourfold opening of being, which means the way in which thevoid manages to organize an entire field of presence.

The relation between Parts II and III was precisely that of essence andcounter-essence. Part II considered the rethought essence of being as Ereignis orthe withness of being and beings as a whole. This amounts to the crossing ofbeing as the differentiation of the ontological difference, the way in whichHeidegger understands the very nature of historical situatedness or theformation of a place of enunciation, which is then necessarily elided when onebegins to make statements with regard to the whole from that position in theway that metaphysics does, oblivious to its situation and the inherence ofperspectivality to the whole. It was necessary to add Part III to Part II becauseevery essence must have its counter-essence; in this case the counter-essence wasGestell, the essence of technology. By exposing this, we demonstrated the ethicsof the thing from Part II to stand in need of a consideration of the politics of thetotality. To lead to this politics it was necessary to invoke again what wasdiscovered in Part I, the being-with of mortal singularities, and to show thatwhen this was thought in relation to the thing - and thereby in relation to thewhole - it became part of a political dwelling, demonstrating the singularity of athing to be what it is only in relation to the specific way in which the whole ismanifest at any moment in time and site in space. The historical specificity ofthe totality could be revealed only in the polls since the span of human existence


alone is too finite to see beyond the horizon of its own time and place. In order tosurpass one's limited historical position and thus become aware of thehistoricality of one's position it was necessary for a collectivity of mortals tobe led beyond themselves, a leading that was possible only within the polis,which thus allows the mortals to achieve some measure of power within whatwould otherwise be the utterly overwhelming mass of beings as a whole. Thepolis allows one to escape one's utter dependence on and determination by thecurrent historical disclosure and to do this is to render visible those thingswithin the polis whose exception organizes the political totality.

The relation between Part II and Part III may thus be understood to embodyHeidegger's rethinking of the metontological relation between being and beingsas a whole as a relation between ethics and politics that does not understand therelation to be one of mimesis. Any such talk always falls victim to the Platonismof supposing that being can be without beings — only later to fall — and it wasonly in Heidegger's later thought that this possibility was fully excluded andbeing understood to be inseparable from the historical manifestation of thewhole, today in the form of Gestell or being's utmost concealing of itself withinthe whole as the very call for that whole to cover over the void of being evermore completely through its own expansion.

And yet, as long as actuality is maximized and expanded, the call of beingmust still be sounding, and in this way technology itself testifies and shallalways testify to an other of actuality, a void that actuality must come to fill up.In the age of the absolute predominance of the actual in the form of power andpotential energy, in which nothing, not even man, can escape the call to becomea resource (Bestand), standing constantly ready and thus achieving a constancywhich utterly covers over the mobile process of manifestation, actuality as powerneeds channelling lest anarchy should reign and energy dissipate. If everything isresource, then claims must be made on these resources and thus the surface of theglobe divided, territorialized, shared out — and this is the task of politics. Theage of the total predominance of the actual or the obliviation of being as void ornegativity is the age of total politics.

This, then, is Heidegger's fateful decision, at least at a certain point in histhought that politics is confined to the realm of beings as a whole. It cannotquestion the essence of power upon which it is premised nor think in termsother than those of power. It cannot question itself or its right to govern and itcannot ask how it could be the case that beings as a whole have come to bedefined as energy and politics to govern the entire globe. Even if it were todistribute power in a way deemed 'just' it could not think in terms other thanthose of power or ask why it had to think in such terms in the first place. Politicswas thus assigned not to being but to beings as a whole and thus understood as(a response to) the occlusion of ethics in the age of total questionlessness: the ageof ideology.

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And here we must begin our conclusion, by asking whether this fatefuldecision was the correct one, and whether indeed it was Heidegger's own lastword.

POLITICS OF QUESTIONING?

Man and the whole of beings are powerless with respect to their beingdetermined by power. It is the '-less' (Obn-) of this powerlessness (Ohnmachf) thatmust be dwelt upon, since it indicates the negativity that is presupposed as theflipside of the positivity that power and technology assert. The thing, as thatwhich technology is 'unable to make', is precisely the mark of this powerlessnesswithin beings: it marks the occluded place of the void (being) within beings as awhole. The thing represents the void by being an entity that retains a certainfragility and singularity, which would be destroyed were it to be taken up by thecircuitry of power and resource, to be reproduced by technology. It is theirreplaceable, the inconstant, which will not 'eternally return'. But this willhappen, the thing always will be destroyed and replaced, but technology therebyindicates its own powerlessness to retain the thing in its irreplaceability, simplybecause it cannot understand the 'logic' of singularity or the thing, andunderstands only the eternal return of reproducing copies. Technology ispowerless to produce singularity, since its very aim is constant presence;therefore, according to its essence as a response to Gestell, it is unable to produceanything that will one day fall out of presence and into desuetude, unless it is tobe reproduced or replaced, since an irrevocable death is the very source of anentity's 'this time once only', its uniqueness or singularity, what binds it to itsown being and renders this the only one it has and shall ever have. It has onlythis one span, and this span shall never come again. This is what is intolerable totechnology. For this reason, technology must systematically occlude death.

According to de Beistegui (forthcoming), by 1940, when the fallout of hisengagement with Nazism had settled and the bleak and hideous political realityof the war had become evident to him — along with the 'greatest stupidity' of hisprecipitate plunge into the thick of this politics — Heidegger had given up hopethat politics as such could ever respond to the powerlessness of technology whenit came to singularity (being), a technology whose essence politics itselfanswered to, the essence which sets upon beings for their electrical power, theirenergy or actuality (energeia). There could be no 'questioning polities' or apolitics that questioned itself in its totality and asked after the determination ofthe whole (power) which posited itself as ahistorical: 'The "political" is the wayin which history is completed. Because the political is thus the basictechnological and historiographical certainty underlying all doing, the"political" is characterized by an unconditional lack of questioning with respectto itself. The lack of questioning of the "political" and its totality belongtogether' (HI, p. 94/GA 33, pp. 117-18).


This, after all, was what Heidegger determined, in 1935, as the especialnature of Nazism, 'the inner truth and greatness of this movement (namely, theencounter between global technology and modern humanity)' (IM, p. 213/EM,p. 152), which is to say between man and his power/mness with regard to thetechnological whole of expansive power. Remarkably, Heidegger saw Nazism asprecisely a politics of powerlessness, a politics capable of questioning itself in thesense of questioning the very essence of power. In contrast to communism andcapitalism (the 'Americanism', Heidegger saw in Nazism an ability toacknowledge the singularity of Germany's geo-historical place and thepossibility of its standing fast amidst the ever-mounting storm, an attempt toroot it back into the earth which refused to enter the world of resource. In otherwords, he saw a party that still retained an attunement to the specificity of placeand time within a global process that was rendering the very notion of 'situation'(in space and time) quite irrelevant, since all of history was to be renderedpresent precisely here and now, immediately before us, wherever we were on theglobe, every people and place reduced to homogeneity.

Thus it is clear that Heidegger thought of Nazism, a particular politicalsystem, as at least potentially a politics of Ereignis (if only he had had this 'with'fully within his grasp at the time of his engagement), in contrast to 'American'bourgeois liberal democracy (and communism), which answered solely to the callof equalization inherent to the parcelling off of actuality called by Gestell,oblivious to the void or abyss of essence presupposed by such an attitude toactuality.

Following the failure of this one possibility — as Heidegger seemed to think —of an 'excluded middle' between the pincers of Russia and America (orAmericanized Europe),3 it seems clear that Heidegger came to consider everypolitical system, between the extremes of democracy and totalitarianism, to beequally incapable of questioning the essence of politics as such in itstotalitarianism and each extreme therefore to be just as totalitarian in itstendency as the other. Democracy, just as much as the more explicitly'totalitarian' political systems, could not for Heidegger do otherwise thanattempt to spread its influence across the globe and thus evince a totalizingtendency. This is why Heidegger speaks of 'the metaphysical essential samenessof these state-forms' (GA 69, p. 189) and expresses the hope that, '{o]ne day, thecommon sense of democracies and the rational method and planning of the"total authority" will be discovered and the two recognized in their identity'(GA 66, p. 234).

The only way in which such a totalitarian spreading was to be prevented,then, was through the (perhaps violent) assertion of polities' now-politicalessence, its counter-essence, ethics, in the shape of a response to being as the voidor clearing upon which politics depends; politics, like technology, was the veryconsummation of metaphysics as the obliviation of the trace of being'swithdrawal. In other words, politics in the age of the total predominance of theactual depends upon the occlusion or subordination of ethics. This ethics would be

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the necessary counterpart of politics and the countervailing of its power, thesubversion of ideology, not at all with the deluded hope of eradicating politicsand returning to some form of rustic apolitical life beyond the polis, beyond theimposed laws of the city, but as a constant and nagging reminder to politics ofwhat its pronouncements upon and assertions of totality necessarily forget.Ethics as the counter-essence of politics would then be that mode of dwellingwithin the polis that remains to an extent beyond the polis, in a position fromwhich it is able to question politics and reveal to it, ultimately, the foreclosedsingularity around which its totality revolves.

In this way Heidegger's thought would be coextensive with ethics andeffectively oppose politics, without wishing for its destruction since without itethics could not exist, singularity being denned only in opposition to the'totalizing' of a certain totality. Within a different totality, ethics would need tobe something else, as is clearly demonstrated by the changes that its nature hasundergone throughout history.

My concluding question is whether this identification of thought and ethics isin fact the most proper one and whether indeed Heidegger at one point allowedfor the possibility that thought might rather be political. For if all politicalsystems are relegated to the level of essential sameness, does this not precludeHeideggerian thought from having anything to say about the differences thatexist between political systems and thus prevent it from forbidding anendorsement of, say, a fascistic regime? Is Heidegger's thought politicallyimpotent? And did Heidegger himself not later arrive at this question? Is therenot a kind of politics that would respond to being more appropriately thanothers, a politics or political system that would be capable of questioning theright of its power, that would recognize the void constitutive of every totalityand thus amount in fact to apolitical response to being: an ethical politics ratherthan merely a politics possessed of an ethical counter-essence? As we shall see, thisappears to be what Heidegger later came to believe, despite appearances to thecontrary. In other words, here we must begin to question Heidegger'sdistribution of ethics and politics between Ereignis and Gestell.

I shall approach this question by demonstrating the way in which aremarkably similar logic to Heidegger's is applied to the political body byErnesto Laclau, and then by recounting very briefly the way in which Laclau'swork has been criticized by the Lacanian, Slavoj Zizek. What is curious aboutthis criticism, given the way that Heidegger is effectively located within theheritage of the deconstructivist and post-structuralist thought to which Zizekassigns Laclau, is that Zizek's criticisms bring him to a position which isdemonstrably 'Heideggerian, and if anyone is true to the possibly political natureof Heidegger's thought then it is Zizek and not Laclau. This fact will allow us todemonstrate that Heidegger surpasses many of his heirs in the direction ofZizek's position, which ultimately focuses upon the necessity of the Real, whichI have suggested throughout is what Heidegger's 'being' (Sein) comes to be. Atthe same time, we shall be able to demonstrate that Zizek's own blindspot is


precisely thinkers such as Derrida whom he too often subsumes under theobfuscating and dismissive label of 'post-structuralist'. The way in which Zizekis blind to Derrida's power is indicated by the homology between Zizek'scriticism of Laclau (Zizek 1999, p- 239 n. 3) and Laclau's own criticism ofDerrida to the effect that his deconstructive approach to totalities does notlicense the Levinassian ethics of respecting the fiitural other which, as it were,comes to be 'tacked on' to the end of deconstruction and presumably in responseto the frequent and banal accusations of 'nihilism' thrown at a deconstructionwhich undermines the notion of substantial grounding (Laclau 1996, p. 77-8).

Is Derrida's appeal to Levinas not precisely an acknowledgement on the partof deconstruction of something that Heidegger himself is quite insistent upon,and that is precisely the Real which Zizek accuses deconstruction of elidingbeneath the absolute predominance of the discursive? Is Levinas's 'other1 notprecisely Lacan's 'Real'? And is the relation between the ahistorical Real and thehistorical Symbolic not precisely the concern of Derrida and most of all ofHeidegger in his thinking of the word Seyn as Ereignis. Ereignis is the structuraland ahistorical necessity of a void within beings, and the thing is its discursivepresence which necessitates the formation of a symbolic structure around itself inorder to integrate the void's traumatic intrusion. The Real is being and theSymbolic is beings as a whole, and the relation between the two is nothing butthe problematic that is addressed by Heidegger's thought of crossing or the'with' that we have attempted to understand as original to being itself, as Nancyhas insisted that Heidegger does not (Nancy 1996, p. 26).

LACLAU AND ZIZEK

The provenance of Laclau's theory of the social is to be found in Saussure'sstructuralist linguistics. It understands the social body as a signifying systemand thus according to the laws under which signifiers interact. The mostimportant feature which the elements of a social body share with signifiers isthat no element within the system has any identity outside its relations to all ofthe others. It is only what other things are not, its identity defined by the absenceof the other terms which might have been used in its stead. It has no positivecontent of its own but is defined negatively by its particular differences from allthe other elements within the totality. Thus the definition of each particularelement always refers to the totality. The post-structuralist move is to deny theexistence of a signified which would not be differentially defined and thus beindependent of the way in which the signifiers of a particular system ofdifferences are divided up. Thus, even what is beyond language as such becomespart of a system of differences, including social bodies. For this reason, socialbodies are described by Laclau as 'discourses', 'discourse' being Laclau's word foranything that obeys the differential logic of the signifier; its application to theextra-linguistic is intended to indicate the fact that both the linguistic and the

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extra-linguistic can have 'meaning' in the sense of the 'differentiality' ofsignifiers. The generalization of significance results in the treatment of the worldby means of a generalized application of Saussure's linguistics in 'semiology' (tosema, Greek: sign).

In Part I of this work we stressed the way in which Heidegger's world andtherefore his early understanding of being is precisely composed of such adifferential network of significations. Thus, in early Heidegger, being itself isreduced to the level of discourse: it is purely significance, exhausted in whatLacan will call 'the Symbolic'.

The fact that any entity refers to its other in order to identify itself means thatin order to experience itself as a closed whole, the social body must foreclose itsrelation to the other and thus blind itself to its own conditions of genesis. Thisblindness is called 'ideology' and the way in which it is carried out is throughthe process known as 'hegemony'.

Hegemony refers to the way in which one part of a whole, one of the manystruggling elements within the social body, empties itself of its particularcontent and thus accedes to the position of 'master-signifier' which represents allof the other signifiers within the totality to all of the others, simply by detachingitself (at least partially) from the particular object or nature of its struggle andcoming to embody rather the 'struggle against the system' as such. It thusensures that every signifier organized so as to construct the imaginary identity ofthe social body perceives itself as having a certain unitary trait. Thus, throughthe always contingent hegemony of a certain signifier, the social body achievesits ideological unity, a unity that can be achieved only ideologically, a fact thatdemonstrates ideology to be necessary to the formation of a society's identity.

The birth of a society's identity occurs with the contingent decision as towhich signifier is to become the master or empty signifier; the covering over ofthe contingency of this signifier's ascendancy is necessary for the totality ofsociety to constitute itself, and this necessity is called 'ideology'. The emptysignifier is the navel which marks the forgotten genesis of the totality, themeaningless point within the totality which masks the elided conditions of itsconstitution, disavowed by the umbilical cut of the baby from the mother. Thenavel is the mark within the organic totality that makes visible the opening ofthis totality onto its other and at the same time the occlusion of this opening. Itmarks these by being at once within the totality and in excess of it since itrefuses to be meaningful in the same way as the other elements of the totalityand therefore refuses to participate in the signifying scheme.

This understanding of social totality allows Laclau, unlike Heidegger, todistinguish between radically democratic and totalitarian political systems, theformer being those that do not attempt to disguise the contingency of themaster-signifier and the latter being those that do. Democratic systems arestructured so as to allow for the possibility that a plurality of other strugglesmight come to occupy the position of master signifier and thus ideologicallybind the society together in a way that is acknowledged to be temporary. A


totalitarian regime denies this plurality, contingency and temporaeity. It deniesthe fact that its signifier's ascendancy is contingent and regards itself as theembodiment of and call to a pre-existing mythical national identity, as was thecase with the 'authentically German' party, the NSDAP. It misrepresents thecontingent, ideological and thus imaginary identity of a society, the politicalnature of this society — 'polities' being the set of contingent decisions regardingthe identity of the social in the 'election' of a master signifier — in the wow-political form of a People or Nation. This Nation lacks a contingent birth inotherness since it is blessed with an effectively immaculate conception and istherefore capable of existing independently of others and inclined towardsexcluding otherness as such. In this way, the party installs itself as the sole andunquestionable organ of power, which then presumes to speak for the entirety ofa fundamentally unified (rather than plural) social body.

For this reason, the very logic of totality, the political ontology of society,dictates that we should choose a democratic politics. This is precisely the choicewhich Heidegger did not see to be licensed, and if towards the end of his life hedid understand 'being' to necessitate a certain political choice, it did not fall infavour of democracy, as we shall see.

And yet is it not telling that being is a 'discourse', identifiable with theSignificant or the Symbolic, only in early Heidegger? Given the radicalalteration which Heidegger's early thought undergoes, Laclau's discourse theorycannot provide us with the ultimate nature of Heidegger's political thought.Rather, the true nature of Heidegger's politicality will be reached by criticizingLaclau's understanding of the social body as symbolic, a criticism carried out

V V

most importantly for our purposes by Slavoj Zizek. Zizek brings the thinking ofpolitics close not to the early Heidegger's thinking of being but rather to thelater in which 'being' precisely exceeds the human Symbolic and becomes the

v

Real. Therefore, a brief exposition of Zizek's thought as a criticism of Laclau'swill more accurately render the political possibilities of Heidegger's thought.This will lead us to the possibility of thinking the relation that might existbetween Heidegger and capitalism, to which the course of this book willtherefore have led us.

HEIDEGGER AND ZIZEKv

Zizek is a Lacanian psychoanalyst. In contrast to Laclau's discourse theory,psychoanalysis insists that every discourse is subject to a distortion. It describesthe very passage between pre-symbolic existence and existence in a symbolicallystructured reality as a traumatic one. Remnants of this trauma persist throughthe symbolizing process as traces left within the symbolic universe of what isotherwise than symbolic. Broadly speaking, in Zizek's eyes, what Laclau fails toconsider are these remainders left over by the symbolizing process, flaws in theSymbolic itself (the Real) and the ways in which these flaws are masked (the

Conclusion 171

Imaginary). In other words, of the Lacanian triad of Imaginary, Symbolic andReal, Laclau considers only the Symbolic, and understands ideology (the illusoryunity of society) to result exclusively from laws of signification.

The flaws that result from the formation of the Symbolic, the individual'sknitting in to the symbolic universe into which he is born — his 'interpellation' —are glitches in the symbolic totality, intrusions of the Real, traumas whichescape each of the symbolic interpretations that they stir. They must be dealtwith through the manufacturing of fantasies, without which it would beimpossible for society to be experienced as a unity. Fantasies and the way inwhich they grip us in our singularity therefore occupy the very heart of the waythat ideology functions and are perhaps the most telling elision on the part ofLaclauian theory.

Fantasies are the fantasmatic promise made by the Symbolic that abiding byits rules will provide us with the enjoyment (jouissance) supposedly lost uponentering the Symbolic in 'symbolic castration'. They speak of that objet petit awhich promises us access to the Real. And since this objet petit a is alwayspeculiar to each of us, or to each collectivity of which we are a part, the

v

interaction between the Imaginary and the Real allows Zizek to explain thefascination of ideology, the compulsion of an interpellation, in a way that Laclaucan not. What is it in an ideological illusion that really grips us? How does themaster signifier magnetize us other signifiers and pin us to our place in thesymbolic order? How does an anonymous interpellative call to assume a certainsymbolic identity speak to us in our singularity? This Laclau cannot explain: hedoes not have the objet petit a.

For Zizek, Laclau's analysis cannot encompass the ideological use of fantasyand enjoyment (the Real), the ways in which the Symbolic must promise that italone will allow us to fulfil our desires and achieve our uniqueness, while all thetime domesticating us, a domestication necessary to its very functioning, ifideology is at all to 'work'. Laclau does not acknowledge the gash left bysymbolic castration and the promise of enjoyment which must be made if thesubject is 'willingly' to submit to this renunciation.

The master signifier which provides symbolic unity is admitted by Laclau tobe akin to Lacan's point de capiton (1985, p. 112), the quilting point or tummybutton of the upholstery which pins two surfaces together at a single point,'quilting' or folding the surfaces in such a way that they achieve a unity insofaras each of their elements gains thereby a common point of reference: the button.The point de capiton is precisely the psychoanalytical symptom, a hitch in theworks of our symbolic universe upon which the entire universe depends, ameaningless blemish within meaningfulness. But in order to unify a social bodythe point de capiton requires the fantasy as a 'meaningful' mask for itsmeaninglessness, and the objet petit a which promises each one of us within theSymbolic an access to the Real. If these two (fantasy and objet petit a) are not inplace, the master signifier (point de capiton) simply will not work. Thus, the pointde capiton has, as it were, an imaginary and a real aspect, or rather two aspects


which exist between the Symbolic and the Imaginary and between the Symbolicand the Real, both of which Laclau ignores.

The objet petit a is that within the Symbolic which eludes symbolic capture,which cannot fully be accounted for in terms of any symbolically identifiablefeatures, but which nevertheless has a discursive presence and indeed promises us'the Real Thing', the object of our deepest desire. If the Real had existed beforethe Symbolic (which it did not) then the objet petit a would be that trace of theReal which nevertheless inhabits the Symbolic as a traumatic kernel refusing tobe dissipated or captured by any symbolic interpretation. It is rather theembodiment of that which any particular symbolization fails to capture and thusstimulates the desire for another symbolic universe, the New, which would fullyengulf it without leaving any remainder this time — an impossible dream, andfor this reason the Real is also called 'the Impossible': symbolically it isimpossible, for no symbolic scheme could ever encompass it, pin down what isreally desired. There is no ultimate symbolic universe that would iron out all ofthe flaws in the Symbolic (and fully adequate the Real).

It is this impossible Real that must be covered over if the symbolic order is toform a totality. This occurs by way of the ideological fantasy. This fantasy issimply an element within the Symbolic which is to mask the meaningless gap ofthe point de capiton and thus fill it in, rendering consistent the objet petit a's promiseof a symbolization that would be adequate to the Real and would thus - in spiteof symbolic castration - provide us with real enjoyment. It does this by makingof desire, which ultimately desires only to desire, desire for something. Fantasyprovides desire, which is stimulated in fact by the eternal âdequacy of anysymbolization to the Real, with an object. It disguises the meaningless navel ofthe point de capiton with a surplus of meaning. It thus provides desire with thepromise of satisfaction //and only if it remains within the Symbolic as such anddoes not seek a transgression. Fantasies, then, however wild they may seem, arein fact domestications.

Only thus, with the manufacturing of a fantasy, is the imaginary unity of asociety achieved and the individual subject tamed into holding his place withinthat society, binding society together. Thus the Symbolic forms a totality andcloses out the desire to transgress it, to escape one's symbolic world either foranother world or for something extra-symbolic. The fantasy allows the big Other(the Symbolic) to present itself as a consistent whole and therefore to make thepromise that if we agree to compromise on our transgressive desires and form acontract with this big Other then we shall be partaking of something that has awider function, a consistent desire, that is 'all you need'.

In fact, the Symbolic is nothing besides an always failed attempt to come toterms with the trauma of becoming symbolic in the first place, which becomingopens up and loses in one gesture the possibility of an access to the Real. Theultimate ideological fantasy conjures up the image of someone who pulls thestrings of the big Other and thus renders it a consistent whole: it does serve apurpose and does provide someone with enjoyment, rather than merely

Conclusion 173

functioning quite regularly but without reason. Thus the fantasy fantasizes another of the big Other and provides us with a concrete answer to the question'what is the purpose of it all?', 'what does the big Other want? (and what does itwant with me?)' If someone is gaining enjoyment from the functioning ofsociety, an enjoyment we are therefore allowed to believe has been 'stolen' awayfrom us by this other of the big Other, one not subject to its rules as we are, thenwe are able to believe that enjoyment may be achieved by remaining within thebig Other itself: if only we play by its rules, perhaps one day we shall reach theposition occupied by the other of the big Other, the ideological fantasy. In Naziideology, as Zizek so often emphasizes, this position is occupied by the figure ofthe Jew.

As in Laclau, the archetypal fantasies are myths of origin, the fantasy of theprimal scene in which we are present at our own conception (parentalcopulation). In this way the other of fantasy knows how the big Other worksbecause he was present at its birth. Thus the fantasy papers over the contingencyand otherness of our genesis, the impossibility of our presence at this birth sinceit was the very precondition of our constitution.

Thus, the process of the formation of a society, an ideological process ofinterpellation, occurs as follows: one is first captivated by the big Other throughthe objet petit a within it, the promise that real enjoyment might be had bygiving up enjoyment and entering the Symbolic (which is what jouissance is,essentially renunciative, the very pleasure gained from giving up). Thisstimulates our desire, which is given an object and thus a certain consistency bythe ideological fantasy that tells us that it is possible to gain enjoyment from theSymbolic itself. Fantasy is thus the way in which the subject sustains hisdesiring relation to the objet petit a or fuels this desire, which is why the Lacanianformula for fantasy is $ 0 a> the castrated subject facing the object of his desire.The objet petit a is a. fantasy, a delusion, but it keeps us going, sustaining ourdesire as symbolic agents. Thus we allow ourselves to be blinded by ideology,locked in an ultimately futile mechanism while labouring under the belief thatit has a purpose, sustained by this fantasmatic promise.

These fantasies, the meaningless sutures of symbolic inconsistency, are whatthe critic of ideology must discover within an ideological or imaginarily unifiedfield. He does this by first seeking out the hitches, slips or gaps in the symbolicorder, its 'symptoms', those meaningless points de capiton upon which oursymbolic universe and identity depend, but which hinder the smoothfunctioning of our symbolic lives. Once this crack in the symbolic edifice hasbeen found, one must traverse the fantasy that papers over it, see through thepretence that it has some symbolic explanation.

Thus there are initially two steps to the criticism of ideology and themaintenance of some distance from an ideological appearance: the discovery ofthe point de capiton which unifies the Symbolic, and then the wiping away of thefantasies that cover over the meaninglessness of this point and thus the


meaninglessness of the Symbolic itself, fantasizing some ultimate explanationfor the big Other.

And yet, this is not all. There is a third stage to 'analysis' (ideological andpsycho-). There is a third and indeed what one might call 'non-ideological' thingthat sustains our desire within the Symbolic, which as it were reconciles us toour fate within the Symbolic while allowing us not to be fooled by it, to toleratethe big Other without being obedient to it. This would be a relation to theSymbolic beyond the fantasy that sustains our desire, and a matter rather of puredrive. This third thing dwells beyond the symptom (symptome) or point de capitonand the fantasy. It is not the illusory promise of enjoyment within the Symbolicbut the real presence of enjoyment circling around a certain signifier within theSymbolic. This signifier is called 'the Thing' (named by Zizek with the Freudianterm 'das Ding'\ the attachment to which Lacan calls the sinthome, a form ofsymptom which it is neither possible nor desirable to interpret away; it is asignifier suffused with enjoyment. Therefore, the real substance of enjoymentand the symbolic order of differential identities are, according to the late Lacan,fused at certain points, and these points are called 'Things', and what forms atthese points is the sinthome.

The Thing embodies enjoyment within sense itself and is therefore named'jouis-sense . This is not the deceptive promise of fantasy but a truthful promise.Thus, the sinthome is the ultimate support of the subject's existence in theSymbolic, allowing us as it does to tolerate symbolic existence even after all ourfantasies have been traversed, our myths exploded; it thus allows a non-ideologicaldwelling. It provides something specific to us within the otherwise anonymousand indifferent big Other, something for our enjoyment, and thus it subverts thebig Other, demonstrating its inconsistency, its void of explanation, while at thesame time allowing us to cope with our imprisonment within it, so far as ispossible.

The only way in which to maintain this non-ideological dwelling is throughthe ultimate and most original form of desire, drive, circling around the Thing,which within the Symbolic itself embodies a hole in the Symbolic. This drivenexistence is the final stage of analysis and amounts to 'identifying with one'ssinthome' (Zizek 1989, p. 75), allowing oneself to identify with one's symbolicrole and yet to subvert the Symbolic itself.

And here, with the Thing, we have rejoined Heidegger once again.The thing in Heidegger is precisely that contingent and fragile material

element which allows a field to form a totality while at the same time exceedingthat totality, holding the place of an excessive void within the totality itself andmarking the de/cisive foreclosure of the genesis of that totality. What is lost inLaclau and a certain strand of deconstructionism from which I am tempted to

•v

exclude at least Derrida and Levinas, is, according to Zizek, precisely the factthat the moment of 'undecidability', the object stretched between the totalityand its excess which thereby undermines the unitary determination of theelements of the totality, is represented within the totality itself by some

Conclusion 175

v

'miserable little piece of the Real', as Zizek is fond of describing it. In otherwords, there is an ahistorical substance that eludes (and is yet part of) the play ofdifferences which constitutes a signifying or symbolic totality. And when weturned to the later Heidegger, what we saw was that this real kernel is present inHeidegger's own work in the form of what he himself names 'the thing' (dasDing). For the Real is that void (Seiri) whose place within beings as a whole isheld by the thing.

We may therefore conclude the above exposition with the following question:in the midst of the reduction of the world to the Symbolic, does Heidegger not clingon to the Real? Zizek, following Lacan, describes the Thing as lying between twodeaths, the natural death that marks the end of one's efficacy and the symbolicdeath that is achieved by the reordering of the symbolic universe in such a way asto accommodate the traumatic fact of brute natural death and thus finally towipe away the traces of the first death in some appropriate memorial ofmourning (or simply to eradicate all trace of the death). The Thing is preciselythat which has left one symbolic order through its natural death and yet remainsin the between-time in which a new symbolic order has not yet come to organizeitself around the gap that it has left, to provide a temporary integration of thistrauma. For this reason the Thing is a sign of 'the New' (Zizek 1991, p. 273),the symbolic order which is yet to come. It is precisely Heidegger's event, whichopens a space, void or clearing around which a totality of beings might come topresent itself in a new way, which demands a new Open and a new thing. It isnot for nothing that Zizek and Heidegger use exactly the same word here: dasDing.

One reason for Zizek's criticism of Laclau is mirrored in Laclau's owncriticism of Derrida to the effect that the undecidable moments of the socialtotality do not license a democratic politics any more than a totalitarian one: ifthe meaning or unitary determination of the totality is undecidable, then canone not just as effectively argue for a strong totalitarian assertion of such ameaning? (Laclau 1996, pp. 77—8) Effectively, Zizek makes the same retort toLaclau: if one remains within discourse theory rather than 'beyond' it,7 one willnot be able to make the distinction between democratic and totalitarian politicsor explain the functioning of ideology. Is this not exactly the impasse that earlyHeidegger himself reached as a result of his identifying being wholly with whatLaclau calls 'discourse'?

What alone can license a democratic politics is a political theory of the kindthat Zizek offers. And if we are justified in indicating the quite extraordinarysimilarity between Zizek and Heidegger on the topic of the thing, then does thisnot indicate a quite unexpected political consequence of Heidegger's thinking? Apolitics that would question in the sense of being sure to keep empty the place ofpower, as Lefort has shown to be characteristic of modern democracy (Lefort1986, p. 279). And does this similarity not open up new possibilities for aHeideggerian thinking of politics and a productive engagement between twotraditions that have developed in quite distinct ways, thus engendering the need


to understand how they could have reached such similar conclusions and yetfollowed such different trajectories? It allows us to relate Heidegger as bothcritic and criticized to a tradition with which dialogue has up to now been eithersilent or hostile. It opens the way to an encounter between Heidegger andMarxism, and potentially many others.

To summarize, is it not possible to read Heidegger's deconstruction ofmetaphysics as a critique of the ideology of a metaphysical position: locating theblindspots or 'unthoughts' of the position ('symptoms'), identifying the word forbeing which masks the incompleteness of the whole ('ideological fantasy'), andthen, in his later works, identifying that which fuses being and beings as a wholein some singular exception ('sintbome, 'Thing')?

Thus might a Heideggerian 'critique of ideology' be broached. But is therenot an obstacle to this understanding in that Heidegger did not obviously applyhis logic of being and totality to anything other than metaphysical positions, thetextual works of philosophical thinkers and the state of the politicized globe as awhole, rather than to the concrete social totalities which are the usual objects ofideological critique? And was he not always more troubled by the totality oftechnology and the totalitarianism of politics as such rather than by the moreparticular concerns of individual poleis and the way in which their totalities areformed?

In any case, did Heidegger remain with the thought that ethics alone relatesto being to the very end of his life?

Approaching his eightieth year, in the interview with Der Spiegel, an interviewdesigned precisely to criticize his earlier 'political thinking', Heidegger says thefollowing: 'a decisive question for me today is: how can a political systemaccommodate itself to the technological age, and which political system would thisbe?' (Wolin 1993, p. 104/DS, p. 206) It is, then, in 1966, decisive for Heidegger tofind not only an ethical dwelling but a political system that would respond to theambiguity of technology between the endangering and the salvation of being,denial and void. In other words, is not the formerly rigid separation between ethicsand politics as essence and counter-essence here beginning to tremble? And isHeidegger here drawing close, as he did perhaps only once before, that there mightbe 1933, to the belief that there might be a politics that could question (itself)?

Heidegger continues: 'I have no answer to this question. I am not convinced itis democracy' (ibid.). It is a matter of conviction, then? Does this not demonstrateHeidegger to be sympathetic to the possibility of distinguishing between politicalsystems, to the search for one that would be adequate to being? And is it notclear that the 'American' democracy by which Heidegger remained unconvincedis precisely the liberal individualism of which Zizek is also an excoriating critic,recognizing this form of democracy, almost exactly as Heidegger did, to be thenecessary supplement of global capitalism (Zizek 1999, p. 4). What Heideggerdid not perhaps live long enough to acknowledge, but which today we can, andwhich is what makes it respectable to be a 'Heideggerian' today, is that thequestioning politics which he sought late in life is possible.

Notes

PREFACE

The thesis that 'being' in Heidegger is the Lacanian 'Real' has been broached before, byWilliam J. Richardson - see his 'Heidegger among the Doctors' in Commemorations:Reading Heidegger, edited by John Sallis (Bloomington and Indianapolis: IndianaUniversity Press, 1993), pp. 57-63 - but I find Zizek the more persuasive of the twoHeideggerians-turned-Lacanians, for reasons I shall explain in the conclusion to thiswork.Karin de Boer, Thinking in the Light of Time: Heidegger's Encounter with Hegel (Albany:State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. ix-x.

INTRODUCTION

For more on this derivation see the excellent article by Charles Scott, 'Heidegger and theQuestion of Ethics' in Research in Phenomenology, vol. 18 (1985), pp. 23—40.Here I would situate the ethics that respond to the multifarious ethical dilemmas putbefore us by the burgeoning of science and technology, the ethics of genetic modificationbeing perhaps the most general form of such ethics. They include any form of 'ethics'that is designed to moderate the effects of the speed of technological change and thestresses of urban life, even - if not especially - in the form of alternative therapy, self-help books and every form of 'lifestyle' idea.See the excellent account of this criticism given by Robert Bernasconi in 'The Fate of theDistinction between praxis and poiesis' in Heidegger in Question: The An of Existing(Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1993) pp. 2-24.A thesis promulgated by Jacques Taminiaux. See his Heidegger and the Project ofFundamental Ontology, translated and edited by Michael Gendre (New York: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1991), p. 124 et al.

CHAPTER 1

Heidegger will later distinguish between openness and clearing, the latter being the Daand the former the intelligible signification which finds its place in this clearing. It isprecisely this conflation of openness and clearing that characterizes Heidegger's earlywork and relegates his understanding of being at this time to the anthropomorphic levelof human intelligibility.A latter-day version of this is supplied by Frederick A. Olafson in Heidegger and theGround of Ethics: A Study of Mitsein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), seep. 1 and n. 1.The hero is in fact mentioned only once in Being and Time: The proper repetition of apossibility of existence that has been - the possibility that Dasein may choose its hero -is grounded existentially in anticipatory resoluteness; for it is in resoluteness that onefirst chooses the choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in thefootsteps of that which can be repeated' (BT, p. 437/SZ, p. 385).

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Notes

Remarkably, Heidegger forgives this mistaken understanding in advance by putting itdown to the 'indifferent' manner in which being-with normally takes place, in which theother is passed by carelessly: 'These indifferent modes of being-with-one-another mayeasily mislead ontological interpretation into interpreting this kind of being, in the firstinstance, as the mere being-present-at-hand of several subjects' (BT, p. 158/5Z, p. 121).Variations of this reading may be found in the vast majority of Heidegger's early readers,including Sartre (1943, pp. 246 et seq., 414), de Beauvoir (1949, pp. 16-19) and Levinas(cf. 1947b, pp. 40—1, 85 et passim); recent examples include Taminiaux (1992, pp. 40-41and, most of all, 1991, p. 131) and monographs by Glendinning (1998) and Olafson(1998) devoted first and foremost to dismissing Heidegger as a thinker of being-with.The difference between 'care' and 'Dasein' is that 'Dasein' is the name for this structure ofreflexivity insofar as it is considered as a part of beings as a whole and therefore asrelevant to the question of being. Dasein is the way in which, we might say, being reflectson itself and thereby begins to become manifest, open or clear to itself. To becomemanifest is to become possible, it is to become existential, and this self-reflection ofbeings as a whole is restricted to the loop of the selfhood of one particular being whichpartakes of this whole: man, whose selfhood is care. Thus, Dasein is always instantiatedas care, a structure guaranteed in its unity and articulation by temporaeity or man'sfinitude.

Care (Sorge) always modifies itself into Besorgen and Fursorge, depending on which of itsaspects is in question, ourselves, things, or others (being revealed or entering thereflexive circle of our awareness, which is always an open circle, spiralling and entwiningthe world and others). Fursorge is as it were the way in which the world relates to or 'caresfor' itself insofar as being takes the guise of being-with. Fursorge is the modification ofSorge as the structure of selfhood which corresponds to the modification of being which isbeing-with. Sorge is only in its modifications of Besorgen and Fursorge. These alone are theways in which care can be manifest. Being-with manifests itself only in the modificationof the structure of reflexivity (care) that involves others. In other words, Dasein cannotexist without others. Being does not present itself except in the form of being-witf>. It isprecisely this equality of being and being-with that we are attempting to demonstrate isboth demanded by and yet absent from Heidegger's early work, thus necessitating thecrossing to the later work.This Kantian reading may be found in Vogel (1994) and Schalow (1986), as well as inmost recent attempts to salvage some dignity for the Heideggerian Mitsein in the face ofcritiques such as those of the first reading (cf. Walter Brogan, 'The Community of ThoseWho are Going to Die' in Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, edited by Francois Raffouland David Pettigrew (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), pp. 237-48.If any proof were needed that das Man is precisely Lacan's 'big Other', the symbolicorder, constituted by the differential relations of signifiers, one need look no further thanthe parentheses in the following description: 'Dasein's lostness in das Man, that facticalcapability-of-being which is closest to it (the tasks, rules, and standards, the urgency andextent, of concernful and solicitous being-in-the-world) has already been decided upon'(BT, p. 312/SZ, p. 268), and one could continue with this quotation for some time.The status of this Beziehungsweise is ambiguous, distributing both terms equally andallowing the second to constitute a more appropriate designation than the first in thesense of 'or rather'. It allows Heidegger to be ambiguous. Elsewhere, Heidegger is clearthat das Man is the everyday subject: 'das Man ... prescribes the kind of being ofeverydayness' (BT, p. 164/SZ, p. 127), and on my reading the 'everyday' is to beidentified with indifference.'Discourse (Rede) is the articulation (Artikulatiori) of intelligibility (Verstandlichkeit) ...That which can be articulated in interpretation, and thus even more primordially indiscourse, is what we have called "meaning" (Sinn). That which gets articulated as such

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Notes 179

in discursive articulation, we call the "totality-of-significations" (Bedeutungsganze)' (BT,pp. 203-4/SZ, p. 161).

11 Strictly speaking, 'state of mind' (Befindlichkeit) (BT, p. 203/SZ, p. 160).12 'Gerede' is translated by Macquarrie and Robinson as 'idle talk', but this cannot help us to

understand it and merely pre-empts interpretation.13 '[T}he real dictatorship of das Man (BT, p. 164/SZ, p. 126).14 In fact, differentially identified signifiers: this seals our identification of indifferent das

Man, absorbed wholly in the world, the object of thrown projection, with the symbolicorder in Lacan. Heidegger uses the word Verweisung (assignment or reference) to describethe routes composing the network of differential signification (cf. BT, p. 97ISZ, p. 68 etal.), 'the state which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand as use-object is one ofassignment or reference' (BT, p. 114/5Z, p. 83). Heidegger also uses the word'involvement' or 'turning towards' (Bewenden) (BT, p. 115/5 , p. 84): 'there "is" no suchthing as a use-object (Zeug). To the being of any use-object there always belongs atotality of use-objects' (BT, p. 97'ISZ, p. 68), and this totality is not constituted by theindividual items in their positive identity but by the various ways of the 'in-order-to'(Um-zu). 'The relational character which these relationships of assigning possess, we takeas one of signifying (be-deuten) ... The relational totality of this signifying we call"significance" (Bedeutsamkeit) . . . This is what makes up the structure of the world' (BT,p. 120/SZ, p. 87).

15 'The care about this distance between them is disturbing to being-with-one-another,though this disturbance is one that is hidden from it. If we may express thisexistentially, such being-with-one-another has the character of distantiality (BT, p. 164/SZ, p. 126).

16 '[TJhat inconspicuous domination by others (unauffallige ... Herrschaft der Anderen)which has already been taken over unawares (unversehens) from Dasein as being-with' (BT,p. 164ASZ, p. 126). Heidegger also describes the 'inauthentic' form ofFiirsorge as follows:'In such solicitude the other can become one who is dominated and dependent(Abhangigen und Beherrschten), even if this domination is a tacit one (stillschweigende)' (BT,p. 158/SZ, p. 122).

17 'In the understanding (Versteben) of the "for-the-sake-of-which" (Worumwilleri), thesignificance (Bedeutsamkeit) which is grounded therein is disclosed along with it. Thedisclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of understanding, as the disclosedness of the "for-the-sake-of-which" and of significance equiprimordially (gleichurspriinglicti), pertains to the entirety of being-in-the-world. Significance is that on the basis of which the world is disclosed as such. Tosay that the "for-the-sake-of-which" and [Heidegger's emphasis} significance are bothdisclosed in Dasein, means that Dasein is that entity which, as being-in-the-world, is anissue for itself (urn es selbst geht) [which is to say that it has the being of care (Sorge)]' (BT,p. 182/SZ, p. 143 - my emphasis). This is why we can say that Dasein is 'for the sake ofitself (BT, p. 183/SZ, p. 143), and yet, because subject-positions are anonymous, we cansay equally that 'Dasein "is" essentially for the sake of others' (BT, p. 160/SZ, p. 123)and 'Dasein is for the sake of das Man (BT, p. 167/SZ, p. 129).

18 This much has already been recognized by Heidegger scholars, including Sallis ('asownmost, death is also othermost' (Sallis 1990, p. 133)) - Scott (1993, pp. 67-79) andde Beistegui — the becoming-Other of Dasein would take place in the movement ofappropriation of itself. Thus the friend would be nothing but the other self that onealways carries with oneself (1998, p. 152).

19 '[T}he mood brings Dasein before the that of its there (das Dass seines Da), which, assuch, stares it in the face with the inexorability of an enigma (unerbittlicherRatselbaftigkeit entgegenstarrt)' (BT, p. 175/SZ, p. 136). See Critchley (2002) with regardto the other uses of 'enigma' in Being and Time.

180 Notes

20 Richard Polt translates 'Vorlaufen' precisely as 'facing up', capturing the impossiblefactuality of that towards which being-towards-death runs: death itself has a face and sostands with respect to us in a relation of 'face-to-face' (Polt 1999, pp. 87-8).

21 Understanding is characterized by projection: 'the understanding has in itself theexistential structure which we call projection (Entwurf)' (BT, pp. 184-5/S'Z, p. 145).'{Projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it beas such' (BT, p. 185A5Z, p. 145). 'Understanding is the being of such capability-of-being' (BT, p. 183/SZ, p. 144).

22 Heidegger continues, in this passage, to clarify the meaning of authenticity andinauthenticity: 'The "in-" of "inauthentic" does not mean that Dasein cuts itself off fromits self and understands "only" the world. The world belongs to its being-a-self(Selbstsein) as being-in-the-world. On the other hand, authentic understanding, no lessthan that which is inauthentic, can be either genuine (echf) or not genuine ... When oneis diverted into one of these basic possibilities of understanding, the other is not laidaside'. In other words, there is no authenticity without inauthenticity, and vice versa: theyare equally crucial parts of the self s understanding and without either, 'being-a-selfcould not form.

23 'The fundamental existentialia which constitute the being of the Da, the disclosedness ofbeing-in-the-world, are states of mind and understanding' (BT, p. 203/SZ, p. 160).

24 Cf. FCM, p. 273/GA 29/30, p. 396.25 It is precisely this relation to the 'thing' that will in later Heidegger define the difference

between ethical and political being-with. Heidegger's 'Platonism' and underdevelop-ment of the notion of being-with consequent upon his understanding of being at thetime prevented his early thought from properly thinking this thing and consequentlythe essence and relation of ethics and politics.

26 As an explicit testimony that Heidegger already realized this at the time of Being andTime one might recall his description of Aristotle's Rhetoric in its investigation of thepathe as a 'hermeneutic of the everydayness of being-with-one-another' (BT, p. 178/SZ,p. 138).

CHAPTER 2

Although Heidegger already gestures in this direction in Being and Time itself: 'The moodhas already disclosed, in every case, being-in-the-world as a whole (BT, p. 176/SZ, p. 137).Heidegger also invokes this mood in company with other gregarious moods which turnaway from the fact of nihilating death and absorb themselves in the delights of beings:these number, 'hope, joy, enthusiasm, gaiety (Hoffnung, Freude, Begeisterung, Heiterkeit)'(BT, p. 395/SZ, p. 345). Cf. 'the anxiety of those who are daring cannot be opposed tojoy ... but stands - outside all such opposition - in secret alliance with the cheerfulnessand gentleness of creative longing (Die Angst des Verwegenen duldet kein Gegenstellung zurFreude ... Sie steht — diesseits solcher Gegensatze — im geheimen Bunde mil der Heiterkeit undMilde der schaffenden Sehnsucht)' (WM., p. 93/W, p. 15). Heidegger explicitly connects thisjoy with Dasein's possible immersion in beings as a whole in 'What is Metaphysics?':'Another possibility of such manifestation [of beings as a whole, like boredom} issheltered (birgt) in our joy (Freude) in the presence of the Dasein - and not simply of theperson - of a human being whom we love' (WM, p. 87/W, p. 8). Cf. Haar (1987, pp. 44-6) and de Beistegui (2002, p. 118). This 'love' is described in Being and Time ^[34 as'friendship' (BT, p. 206/SZ, p. 163). In it, we are related to the span of the other betweenthe two facts of their birth and their death: their sharing a world with us gives us ourjoy, and their impending death and scission from us our anxiety. Love or friendship isprecisely that form of being-with that comports to the Dasein of the other, which meanstheir being the balanced between of inauthenticity (towards birth) and authenticity

1

2

Notes 181

(towards death). This kind of love could characterize only a being-with that related tothe other's actual birth and actual death in equal measures. Plato's dialogue onfriendship, Lysis, ends with the aporia of whether friends are 'like' (homoios) or 'unlike'(anomoios), while it is the three ethical treatises of Aristotle that introduce the problem ofthe friend as alias autos, alter ego, or other self, a debate which simply cannot be resolvedfrom a Platonic perspective in which the problematic of the 'proper' must always befundamental and of which the early Heidegger still partakes.

3 'Death is Dasein's ownmost possibility (Der Tod ist eigenste Moglichkeif)' (BT, p. 5Q1ISZ,p. 263).

4 Although it may not be obvious at first glance, these four in fact constitute an inchoateform of the fourfold (Geviert) that appears in Heidegger's later thought.

5 'The everyday way in which things have been interpreted is one into which Dasein hasgrown in the first instance, with never a possibility of extrication (entzieheri)' (BT, p. 213/SZ, p. 169). Cf. 'Being-in-the-world is always fallen' (BT, p. 225/SZ, p. 181 - myemphasis).

6 'The being-with-one-another of those who are hired for the same affair often thrives onlyon mistrust. On the other hand, when they devote themselves to the same affair incommon (das gemeinsame Sicbeinsetzen fiir dieselbe Sacbe), their doing so is determined bythe manner in which their Dasein, each in its own way, has been taken hold of (BT, p.159/5Z, p. 122). Cf. 'Sofern nun aber die Zeit des sich einsetzenden Daseins in derVerschwiegenheit der Durchfuhrung ... eine andere ist'. Devotedness here goes astray in theEnglish translation: 'But when Dasein goes in for something [rather, 'when Daseindevotes itself} in the reticence of carrying it through .. . its time is a different time' (BT,p. 218/SZ, p. 174 - my emphasis).

7 '[T]his holding-for-true, as a resolutely open holding-oneself-free for taking back, isauthentic resolute openness which resolves to keep repeating itself (eigentliche Entschlossenheitzur Wiederholung ihrer selbst)' (BT, p. 355/5Z, p. 308). 'The resolute openness whichcomes back to itself and hands itself down (Die aufsicb zuriickkommende, sich uberlieferndeEntschlossenheit), then becomes the repetition of a possibility of existence that has comedown to us (einer uberkommenen Existenzmoglichkeif). Repeating is handing down explicitly (DieWiederholung ist die ausdriickliche Uberlieferung)' (BT, p. 437ASZ, p. 385). See Figure2, p. 29.

8 It also means that there is not some ahistorical point (the subiectum) which would ensurethat despite superficial changes nothing really happens. Heidegger's is a very radical'historicism' in this sense. History is not the changing of accidents around a fixedsubstance that would endure throughout these changes, but flows much more deeplythan that. We do not fully reach the stage at which the subject is merely an effect of awider process of substance in early Heidegger due to his treating the subject's finitude asfoundational of history, even if this foundation is a process of becoming on the basis ofnegativity rather than a more 'substantial' foundation.

9 On historicity see Lowith (1986, p. 57), and on Heidegger's political failure andreligious conversion see Ott (1988, p. 6).

10 'Historizing' is Macquarrie and Robinson's translation of Geschehen, although it isslightly misleading, since Dasein's repetition is temporality rather than historicity, whichoccurs only when one takes into account beings beyond the individual Dasein and inparticular other Daseins that take part in a political community. Thus the relationbetween temporality and historicity is as problematic as that of ethics and politics andcan be explained only by the crossing of Heidegger's thought, which we aredemonstrating being-with to instigate. At stake here is the way in which man'sfinitude or temporaeity is understood as the ground of the process of being'smanifestation, or the relation between actuality and possibility, which Heidegger hadsystematically to misunderstand while his thinking of being remained 'ontologicaT.

3

182 Notes

11 Heidegger continues: 'Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our being withone another in the same world and in our resoluteness for definite possibilities. Only incommunicating and in struggling does the power of destiny become free' (BT, p. 436/SZ, p. 384). One should note the way in which the two tendencies of inauthenticity andauthenticity, commonality in significance and individuation, are described by thecomplementary presence of the two tendencies of 'communication' and 'struggle'.

12 Tactically, however, any acting (Handelri) is necessarily "conscienceless", not onlybecause it may fail to avoid some factical moral indebtedness, but because, on the nullbasis of its null projection (auf dem nichtigen Grunde seines nichtigen Entwerfens), it has, inbeing-with others, already become guilty towards them (an ihnen schuldig geworden ist).Thus one's desire-for-conscience becomes the taking over of that essential conscience-lessness within which alone the existentiell possibility of being "good" subsists* (BT, p.334/5Z, p. 288). Slightly earlier, Heidegger foreshadows his remark on the good and evilof the indifferent das Man with the following lines: 'This essential being-guilty isequally originally the existential condition for the possibility of "moral" good and evil'(BT, p. 332/SZ, p. 286). Heidegger's purpose here is not to dismiss public conscience -'what else is it than the voice of das Man?' (BT, p. 323/SZ, p. 278) - and everydaymorality, but rather to indicate that the guilt which this involves, understood to beaccrued on the basis of one's commission and omission, where sins are accumulated andexpiated, is derivative of a guilt that we can neither increase nor diminish and whichfollows from the very factuality of our existence. We are not guilty of anything exceptfailing to want this guilt. This also indicates that no amount of moral conscience willopen us to anxiety, being concerned rather to achieve the state of 'good conscience', freedfrom distress. Heidegger will have fought this urge for a lack of distress (Notlosigkeit)from the very beginning of his work until the end. True conscience urges us precisely toopen ourselves ever more to anxiety, which 'induces the slipping away of beings as awhole' (WM, p. 88/W, p. 9). The significance of the world becomes insignificant, oursymbolic identities worthless and we are thus turned towards the question of themeaning (Sinn) of it all.

13 The introduction of this 'earth' is foreshadowed by a shift in Heidegger's attitude tonature immediately after Being and Time, when he attempts to develop a way of speakingabout nature that would allow it the possibility of a way of being that lies outsideDasein's world; in Being and Time his only comment on nature is the following: 'Only insome definite mode of its own being-in-the-world can Dasein discover entities as Nature'(BT, p. 94/SZ, p. 65) and in his discussion of this world: 'Here, however, "Nature" is notto be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. Thewood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, thewind is wind "in the sails'" (BT, p. lOO/SZ, p. 71). Although Heidegger goes on to tellus that even if we consider nature apart from its ready-to-hand properties in a 'scientific'manner as presence-at-hand, we shall not reach nature itself: 'If its kind of being asready-to-hand is disregarded ... the Nature which "stirs and strives", which assails usand enthrals us as landscape, remains hidden' (ibid.). While in The Basic Problems ofPhenomenology, just one year later, Heidegger will attempt to approach this 'nature initself: 'Intraworldliness does not belong to nature's being ... Intraworldliness belongsto the being of the present-at-hand, nature, not as a determination of its being, but as apossible determination, and one that is necessary for the possibility of the uncoverabilityof nature' (BPP, p. 169/GA 24, p. 240). See Taminiaux (1989, pp. 98-102) with regardto the changing status of perception as Heidegger moves towards the 'turn', sinceperception is taken in Being and Time to be Dasein's access to the present-at-hand, whichHeidegger endeavours to avoid identifying with 'nature'.

14 One might venture the Lacanian formulation that conscience is the objet petit a to death'sReal. It is the call to singularity that never lets us absorb ourselves fully in our alienating

Notes 183

symbolic identity and remains the source of our desirability, despite everything. Moreprecisely, the objet petit a may be found in our existential response to conscience. In thisresponse, the impossible becomes possible. The Real becomes integrated into theSymbolic and in fact exists for Dasein only in the form of the Symbolic.'[T}he call is precisely something which we ourselves have neither planned nor preparedfor nor voluntarily performed, nor have we ever done so. "It" calls, against ourexpectations and even against our will' (BT, p. 320/SZ, p. 275).'The other is proximally there in terms of what One has heard about him, what One saysin talk about him (iiber ihn redet), and what 'One' knows about him' (man von ihm gehort)(BT, p. 219/SZ, p. 174). '[A]n intent, ambiguous watching of one another, a secret andreciprocal listening-in (Sich-gegenseitig-abhoren)' (BT, p. 219/SZ, p. 175). When we arespeaking of Rede and its Horen we are speaking of possibilities, and here the possibilities ofdas Man which govern indifferent being-with.Heidegger himself invokes the term 'Ohnmacht', as we have seen in Chapter Two: 'IfDasein, by anticipation, lets death become powerful in itself, then, as free for death,Dasein understands itself in its own superior power (Ubermacht), the power of its finitefreedom, so that in this freedom, which "is" only in its having chosen to make such achoice, it can take over the powerlessness (Ohnmacht) of abandonment to its having doneso, and can thus come to have a clear vision for the accidents of the situation that hasbeen disclosed' (BT, p. 436/SZ, p. 384). And following this, he seems to suggest thatbeing-with somehow dents or at least sets back this overpowering of powerlessness, since'[o}nly in communication and struggle does the power of destiny (Macht des Geschickes)become free' (ibid. — my emphasis). In other words, the fact of being-with insists upon athrown element to our being, in the form of the equality of thrownness (communication)and projection (struggling free of the scheme of significance), which limits our powerover fate. In other words, our fate is never free from communal destiny, which amountsto the fact that our projected possibilities cannot escape from the traditional scheme ofsignificance which constitutes our very 'world'.Cf. 'originary anxiety can awaken in Dasein at any moment. It needs no unusual event torouse it. Its sway is as thoroughgoing as its possible occasionings are trivial' (WM, p. 93/W, p. 15).Heidegger describes the relationship as one of mutual 'modification' (BT, p. 168ASZ,p. 130), (BT, p. 224ASZ, p. 179), (BT, p. 312/SZ, p. 267), (BT, p. 3BASZ, p. 268), (BT,p. 365/SZ, p. 317), (BPP, p. 171/GA 24, p. 243); cf. BT, pp. 345-7/SZ, pp. 298-300 onthe 'situation'; and: 'In the instant (Augenblick) ... existence can even gain mastery overthe "everyday"; but it can never extinguish it' (BT, p. 422/5Z, p. 371). 'The irresoluteopenness of das Man remains dominant notwithstanding, but it cannot impugn(anzufechten) resolute existence ... Even resolutions remain dependent (angewiesen) upondas Man and its world' (BT, pp. 345-6/5Z, p. 299). The word 'angewiesen' is used todescribe Dasein's 'submission' or allotment to a world (BT, p. 121/SZ, p. 87). It refers tothe way in which Dasein must always be in a world, and this is the sense that it has here.Heidegger explicitly defends himself against this interpretation: '"resoluteness" canhardly be confused with an empty "habitus" or an indefinite "velleity"' (BT, p. 347/SZ,p. 300). Crucially, Heidegger goes on to say that Dasein cannot decide on its status asDasein, as resolute openness. As I have argued, Dasein's openness is concomitant withthe formation of the self, and Dasein can no more decide to be a self, to be called bydeath, than it can lift itself up by its own bootlaces. Heidegger expresses this as follows:'As resolute, Dasein is already enacting (Handeln)' (ibid.). 'Enacting' is Heidegger's termfor the repetitive formation of the 'self. In other words, Dasein does not choose opennessbut can merely resolve on this openness in the repetition of what it already was and whatwill happen to it anyway.

15

6

17

18

19

20

184 Notes

21 Contra Levinas, at least in early Heidegger, we are not singular in our passivity, in theway that we bear the full weight of the other and the whole world, but in our empoweringof this passivity. It is perhaps this fact that has led to the Arendtian criticism thatHeidegger ignores birth. In fact, in speaking of indifference and das Man he will havedone little else in Being and Time. For some thoughts on Arendt's criticism of and debt toHeidegger on the subject of birth and how this rebounds on Arendt herself, see PegBirmingham's 'Heidegger and Arendt: the birth of political action and speech" inHeidegger and Practical Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002),pp. 191-202.

22 Since the emphasis on death and authenticity is, apart from the overtly 'political'speeches, confined to Being and Time, one might wonder whether it resulted from acertain pathology in Heidegger's understanding which his critical faculty wouldnormally have averted without the urgent pressure to complete the book that wasexerted upon him.

23 'Listening to ... (Horen auf . . .) is Dasein's existential being-open to others, as being-with (existenziale Offensein des Daseins ah Mitseinfur den Anderen). Indeed, hearing (Horen)constitutes the primary and authentic openness (Offenheii) of Dasein for its ownmostcapability-of-being, as in the hearing of the voice of the friend whom every Daseincarries with it (als Horen der Stimme des Freundes, den jedes Dasein bei sich tragt). Daseinhears, because it understands' (BT, p. 206/5Z, p. 163). The connection betweenpossibilities - the projections of the understanding - and hearing is also made as follows:'The presenting of these possibilities, however, is made possible existentially through thefact that Dasein, as a being-with which understands, can listen to others' (BT, p. 315/5'Z,pp. 270—1). Although this is spoken in the context of Dasein's failing to hear its own selfamidst the common symbolic possibilities articulated by das Man, it may be read tosupport the understanding suggested by ^[34. Love is understood by Heideggerthroughout his work as a relation to the essence of the other, to their singularity. It is thusin early Heidegger a relation to the singular way in which they exist in response to thefacts of their birth and death. It is then precisely a being-with of the second kind, whichis a relation of conscience or one which is guilty towards the other. Therefore, the secondkind of being-with is a relation of love. See Fynsk (1986), Derrida (1989), Courtine(1989), and de Beistegui (1998) for comments on the friend in a way broadly similar tomy own.

24 This is why de Beistegui's description of resoluteness is so astute: 'to resolve oneself foroneself, where the self in question designates precisely the essence or the openingwhereby "there is", the advent or the event of being in the opening cleared by time ...to open to the fact that something is opened within us' (de Beistegui 2003b, p. 74).

25 Heidegger speaks of the 'factical ideal' (BT, p. 358/5Z, p. 310) and of the 'onticfoundation' (BT, p. 487/S'Z, p. 437) of fundamental ontology.

26 And yet Heidegger does concede that '[c}ases of death (Todesfalle) may be the facticaloccasion (Veranlassung) for Dasein's first paying attention (aufinerksam) to death at all'(BT, p. 301/SZ, p. 257) and that 'Dasein can thus gain an experience of death, all themore so because Dasein is essentially being-with with others' (BT, p. 281/SZ, p. 237).

27 I am invoking the denotation of 'tearing' found in the English 'tearaway' and 'tearingaway' or careering uncontrollably in the way that we run as children. Parenthetically,Heidegger also invokes this 'tearing' in the form of the tearing away from indifferencewhich arises from our having appropriated ('grasped') the finitude of existence: 'Thefinitude of existence, when grasped, tears one away (reiftt) from the endless multiplicityof possibilities which offer themselves as closest to one' (BT, p. 435/SZ, p. 384).

28 This matter is sufficiently important for Heidegger to warrant one of his extremely rareself-criticisms: 'The attempt in Being and Time, ^[70, to derive human spatiality fromtemporality is untenable' (TB, p. 23/Z5JD, p. 24).

Notes 185

29 'The primal fact (Urfaktum), in the metaphysical sense, is that there is anything liketemporality at all' (MFL, p. 209/GA 26, p. 270).

30 See MFL, pp. 207—8/GA 26, pp. 268-70, where temporality is depicted in its self-generation and self-modification as akin to an organism, expanding and contracting, in away that will later be understood as time-space.

31 Metaphysics in Being and Time is understood as an ahistorical tendency, a constant ofman's ahistorical being, to understand what-is in terms of presence. This fall to thepresent-at-hand is understood by Heidegger to be simply a fact. What will later changeis that this tendency of understanding will be understood as progressive or historicallyaccumulative and the very movement of nihilism.

32 It is interesting to compare footnote iii from Division Two, Chapter One of Being andTime (BT, p. 494/SZ, p. 244), where Heidegger broaches the topic of mereology, thestudy of wholes and parts. He points out the alignment between the following pairs: dasGame and die Summe, holon and pan, totum and compositum. Thus we have two choices inour translation of das Seiende im Ganzen: 'beings as a whole' and 'beings in their totality',depending on whether we wish to transcribe the Greek or the Latin equivalent of Ganze,although in English 'total' has somewhat misleadingly gained the connotation of 'sum-total' which would be nearer to the sense of pan than holon. Nevertheless, the translationof holon with Ganze is illuminating since it indicates that we are not speaking of the sum-total of everything that is. Rather, when we are speaking of this sum-total we can neverspeak only of this sum-total. My understanding of the relation between being and beingsas a whole points towards mereology as a fruitful area in which to investigate themeaning of Heidegger's 'being', as we shall come to see in the sequel. Heidegger himselfindicates that he was greatly influenced by Husserl's studies in this area, and refers to hisLogical Investigations, Volume II, Investigation III.

33 In order to justify the translations involving the word 'position', Heidegger himselfspeaks of 'antecedent transposition' (vorgangigen Transposition) (BPP, p. \6\IGA 24, p.229) and Gestimmtheit is later translated into French with his permission as 'dis-position(WP, p. 16/WP, p. 77). Later, Heidegger will think mood as the way in which Dasein istransposed into the manner of being of entities other than itself (sich versetzen), and themood will be modified according to how far we are able to 'go along with' (mitgehen) theirway of being, which will correlate with their level of otherness, from animal to stone(PCM, pp. 201-2/GA 29/30, pp. 295-6).

34 This is the Real that being will become, as the withdrawing condition of the whole,thought definitively non-anthropologically: did philosophy not begin with the need tointerpret symbolically an unintelligible Real, the very fact of there being anything at all,a fact encountered in wonderment (thaumadzein) which, when brought into contact withits possible symbolization in understanding (logos), became perplexity or bafflement(aporia) which inevitably stirs a plurality of symbolic interpretations, none of which areever fully adequate to the Real?

35 Heidegger is quite explicit about this, stating to Max Kommerell in a letter dated 4August 1942, that Being and Time elided the problematic of Darstellung and attemptedan immediate access to a meaning of being passed over by and yet governing themetaphysical tradition which would be articulable from some point outside ofmetaphysics. Against the insistence of Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe and Sallis in particular,I do not believe that Heidegger from this point onwards ever sought such a place, eitherbefore metaphysics (the pre-Socratics, Anaximander, Parmenides and Heraclitus) or afterit ('the other thinking'). 'You are right, the piece is a "disaster" (Ungliick). Being and Timewas indeed a failure (Verungliickung). And any immediate presentation (unmittelbareDarstellung) of my thought would today be the greatest disaster' (Kommerell 1967,p. 405).

186 Notes

36 For comments on the metontology see the excellent work by Bernasconi (1985), McNeill(1992), and de Beistegui, 'Boredom: between existence and history' (2003b).

37 With regard to the uses of 'Da-seiri in Contributions to Philosophy: Heidegger here replacesthe schema of authenticity and inauthenticity with the opposition between Da-sein andWeg-sein (CTP, V, pp. 212-14/GA 65, pp. 301 ), cf. CTP, V, pp. 227-8/GA 65, pp.323—5, CTP, I, p. \9IGA 65, p. 26. Crucially, this renaming allows the two sides of theopposition to exist in a relation of mutual dependence rather than exclusivity. Da-sein isdetermined as 'a possible future humanity', possibilities being what constitute presentDasein, and Weg-sein as 'usual humanness' (CTP, V, p. 209/GA 65, p. 297). D^-sein is an'openness of self-concealing', while Weg-sein is the 'pursuit of the closedness of themystery of being (Seyn)' (CTP, V, p. 212/GA 65, p. 301) or 'the denial of exposure to thetruth of being' (CTP, V, p. 214/GA 65, p. 304), closure being crucial to being as theexchange of shielding and unshielding; Weg-sein is then explicitly described as 'theoriginary name for inauthenticity', as D^-sein is that of authenticity (CTP, V, pp. 213,227/GA 65, pp. 302, 324). Now that being, in the form of Seyn, is no longer purepossibility there is no question of Dasein's having to become purely authentic in order toaccess it. The relation between man and being could be said to be that of essence andcounter-essence rather than a uni-directional founding. See de Beistegui (2003a) on thedistinction between adverbial Dz-sein and its non-Heideggerian possibilities, and thenominal 'human' D^-sein which is always considered by Heidegger to be inseparablefrom its 'pre-individuaT adverbial dimension. Man is drawn by the shock (Erschreckeri) ofdeath into the de/cision, just as anxiety in Being and Time drew man out ofindifferentiation towards the de/cision of authenticity and inauthenticity. Only now thepossibility that man might do without 'inauthenticity' is truly abandoned. In tracing thetransition out of fundamental ontology it should be noted that these terms (Dasein andWegsein) are found already in the transitional text of Heidegger's oeuvre before the turn,The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics from 1929-30 (FCM, pp. 60-4/GA 29/30, pp.95-6).

CHAPTER 3

I write 'de/cision' with a slash to make more graphic the word's original reference to'cutting' or 'scission'. See [49 of Contributions to Philosophy for a discussion of this de/cision as ultimately the relation of time-space (CTP, I, p. 71/G-A 65, p. 103).Strictly speaking, Heidegger should have written Sein since here it is the 'being' of theontological difference that is involved.One should also add the following seminal passage: 'The differentiation (Unterscheidung)of a being and being is pushed aside into the harmlessness of a difference that is merelyrepresented ... metaphysical thinking dwells only within the difference but in such away that in a certain manner being itself is some kind of a being. Only the crossing intothe other beginning, the first overcoming of metaphysics ... raises this difference toknowing (Wissen) and thus for the first time puts it in question ... questioning what ismost question-worthy (Frag-wiirdigsten). Regardless of how extrinsically and howcompletely in the sense of representational thinking the difference (Unterschied) isinitially introduced as "ontological difference" ("ontologische Differenz")' (CTP, VIII, pp.298-9/C7A 65, pp. 423^).'Being as Er-eignis is history (Das Seyn als Er-eignis ist die Geschichte)' (CTP, VIII, p. 348/GA 65, p. 494).When the editors, amanuensis, and writer of Contributions to Philosophy take sufficientcare. This process of forgetting is described quite explicitly in Time and Being as'progressive' or 'mounting' (steigernden) (TB, p. 52/ZSD, p. 56). On the use of the word'Seyn' Heidegger tells us: 'Being-historical enquiring (Das seynsgeschichtliche Erfragen) ...

1

2

3

4

5

Notes 187

moves entirely outside of that differentiation of beings and being; and it therefore nowalso writes being (Sein) as being (Seyn). This should indicate that being here is no longerthought metaphysically' (CTP, VIII, p. 307/GA 65, p. 436). This is a 'being' older thanthe 'being' of the ontological difference, its very origination, 'the very oldest of the old'(PUT, p. 10/GA 13, p. 82).

6 That the clearing is the void, closed out in the lighted whole, is surely evidenced inContributions to Philosophy by Heidegger's description of the clearing, the essence of truth,as 'the clearing for self-concealing' (Lichtung fur Sichverbergung). The clearing is void inthe sense that it does not show itself but is sheltered (bergeri) precisely by its refusal to doso.

7 This is what Heidegger means when he says, initially enigmatically, that '[t}he mostterrifying jubilation (furchtbarstejubel) has to be the dying of a god' (CTP, IV, p. 163/GA65, p. 230). It is terrifying because it opens a transcendent void and the possibility of thepositivism of science and technology, but jubilant because it opens the possibility of aturn to the immanent void.

8 And it is no better if one understands energy entropically, since even to understand theworld as a process rendered irreversible by the necessary depletion of energy is still tothink the world in terms of energy and its actuality.

9 See 'What is Metaphysics?' in William McNeill (ed.) Pathmarks (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998).

10 'Echo' is Emad and Maly's translation, which I shall usually avoid. Nevertheless, theword is carefully chosen since anklingen formerly encompassed connotations of'recollection', as in the English 'to ring a bell'.

11 Cf. 'As the preliminary appearance (Vorerscheinung) of Ereignis [the essence of being}, Ge-stell {the essence of technology} is in addition that which makes this attempt [to thinkbeing without beings} necessary' (TB, p. 32/ZSD, p. 35).

12 Cf. Sallis 1990, pp. 122 et seq.13 The Preface to the seventh German edition of Sein und Zeit and later editions: 'Yet the

road (Weg) it has taken remains even today a necessary one, if our Dasein is to be stirred(bewegen) by the question of being'.

14 One finds similar remarks at CTP, IV, pp. 170, 178/GA 65, pp. 240, 252).15 Cf. 'The essential (self-)defence of/against distress should not defend (against) distress in

order to eliminate it but must build up its defences in order to preserve it (Die ivesentlicheNotivehr soil der Not nicht wehren, urn sie zu beseitigen, sondern mufi, ihr sich erwehrend, siegerade bewahren)' (CTP, IV, p. 170/GA 65, p. 240).

16 One is reminded here of the 'joy of creative longing' in 'What is Metaphysics?' (WM, p.93/W, p. 15), creativity being the privilege of those who reach into the void and bring itto a stand in some form within beings.

17 In 'Das Gestell', a lecture given in Bremen in 1949, Heidegger says the following:'farming is now a motorized food industry, in essence the same (das Selbe) as thefabrication of corpses in gas chambers and extermination camps, the same as theblockade and starving of the peasants (Landerri), the same as the fabrication of thehydrogen bomb' (GA 79, p. 27).

18 One recalls a similar response to death on the part of das Man (BT, p. 298/SZ, p. 254).19 Heidegger is indebted here to Holderlin's understanding of mourning (EHP, pp. 37-8/

GA 4, p. 19) in which mourners mourn only because their shared joy is no longer. Withthe memory of mourning, '{i}t is not a question of not forgetting ... but rather that he[the dead other} remains constantly present as the one who co-determines my Dasein,even when he is no longer living' (Z, pp. 219—20/Z, p. 275).

20 One recalls Heidegger's approval of Aristotle's assertion that philosophy takes place inmelancholy (melancholia, Schwermut) (FCM, pp. 182-3/GA 29/30, pp. 270-1).

188 Notes

21 Die Trauerfeier, the funeral, is literally a celebration of mourning as such (objectivegenitive). In a similar way one finds in Being and Time die Totenfeier, 'funeral rites' or,literally, a celebration of the dead (BT, p. 282/SZ, p. 238).

22 It is to this attunement that the book itself intends to lead us, hence its'unintelligibility'. It refuses a quick and painless answer with which we mightsummarize its 'results' in a synopsis, and ensures that the only access to it is through therestrained patience that will be won in the struggle that drags us through its thicketsand tangles. There is to be no answer to the question 'what is being?' That would bemetaphysics. In this sense, as in the case of the three other attunements, Verhaltenheit is'not to be described so much as to be effected (erwirken)' (CTP, VI, p. 217/GA 65, p.395). This is precisely an example of Heidegger's taking account of the problem ofDarstellung, upon which Lacoue-Labarthe has insisted. See Heidegger's letter toKommerell, which we have already cited (Kommerell 1967, p. 405).

23 Erschrecken is later renamed, without the prefix 'Er-', as Schrecken (CTP, VI, p. 211IGA65, p. 396 et al.), where it is said explicitly to be an attunement to abandonment (CTP,I, p. 11IGA 65, p. 15). Cf. 'We must rather uphold and hold out in this terror(Schrecken)' (FCM, p. 21/GA 29/30, p. 31).

24 Although Heidegger later expresses a reservation, suggesting that this move from abeing to being need not be metaphysical, thus pointing towards his later emphasis(which is not so apparent in Contributions to Philosophy) on the thing as the clearing ofbeing that organizes a whole by exempting itself from its totalizing determination (CTP,VIII, p. 302/GA 65, p. 428).

25 It should be recalled that the essence of Ereignis is described by Heidegger as 'hesitantrefusal' (zogernde Versagung). 'Hesitance' is Heidegger's description of the way in whichthe withdrawal of being pauses and with a Parthian shot gives the whole of beings in itsstead. This hesitance is accessed only in the second of Contributions to Philosophy's moods,Verhaltenheit. At this stage, terror opens us solely to the abyss and its terrible emptiness.

26 Heidegger already understood death in this way in 1927: 'The possibility unveils itselfto be such that it knows no measure (kein Map) at all, no more or less, but signifies thepossibility of the measureless impossibility of existence (Moglichkeit der mafilosenUnmoglichkeit der Existenz)' (BT, p. 307/S'Z, p. 262).

27 Heidegger defines 'sending' (Schicken) as a giving in which the giver holds back, orwithdraws from his gift and giving (TB, p. 8/ZSD, p. 8).

28 One should also note that hinting (Winken) is said to be the essence of the gods (CTP,VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 400) and beckoning (Erwinken) the essence of Ereignis (CTP, V, pp.265, 268/GA 65, pp. 380, 383-5). Heidegger translates the semainein of the delphicoracle (Heraclitus, Fragment 93) as winken (GA 39, p. 127), and this should beunderstood in relation to the being as the site passed through by the god in Contributionsto Philosophy. This is why the restraint that preserves the hint, thus allowing thepossibility of an 'X' in beings, amounts to 'the celebration (Feier) of the last god' (CTP,VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 399). To complete these suggestions from Contributions toPhilosophy one should note that such restraint preserves hints most of all 'in mourning andin joy' (CTP, VI, p. 280/GA 65, p. 400). I shall return to this more insistently in PartHI.

29 Contributions to Philosophy bespeaks being's own resistance to intelligibility and this iswhy '[m]aking itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy' (CTP, VIII, p. 307/(rA 65, p.435). The book's very epigraph tells us: 'Hier wird das in langer Zogerung Verhalteneandeutendfestgehalten ... (Here is held fast, made solid, what was indicatively reserved inlong hesitation ...)'. We are here speaking of being's withdrawal, and to this matterHeidegger can only point the way, by picking up on its hints, presenting them, andthereby allowing them to beckon each one of us into the void.

Notes 189

CHAPTER 4

1 This attitude to beings is one of Er-fragen, or en-quiry, 'putting into question' as Levinashas it (cf. Levinas 1962, p. 12 et al.).

2 See McNeill (1992) on the way in which the nature of the question changes in the turnof Heidegger's thought to become an 'ontological' feature in the sense that the questionis no longer Dasein's property but is the gesture whereby the whole undermines itself. Iwould add that, in the move beyond fundamental ontology, what changes about thequestion is that it comes merely to ask itself of every totality which is the object ofinterrogation (Befragte), but it has nothing definite in mind to be found out (Erfragte) (cf.BT, pp. 24-6/SZ, pp. 5-6). Here, the questioning is, as it were, pure questioning.

3 If questioning is to rip open ambiguity in the form of the ontological difference, then itis a matter of distinguishing (in Greek, krinein) and in this case we might describe thisstage in the development of ethics as 'criticality', despite Heidegger's caution withregard to this word (CTP, II, p. 11IGA 65, p. 110 et al.).

4 Von Herrmann (1995) exposes Gelassenheit as Meister Eckhart's interpretation of therelation between man to god, which is then shared between man and his world, incharitable or agapic love. To open up the possibility of essence to a being is to love thatbeing or to allow it the possibility of its singularity. In Being and Time, Heideggerdetermines Dasein's attitude towards ready-to-hand beings as 'concern' (Besorgen) and inthe Zollikon Seminars he tells us that 'care (Sorge) is never distinguishable or separablefrom "love"' (Z, p. 190/Z, p. 237). Love is certainly one way of describing the ethicalstance at this second stage of Heidegger's crossing of the place of ethics and it is arecurrent though perhaps subterranean theme of his work, which is perhaps what leadshim to make the following testy remark: 'love, a topic that Heidegger has supposedlyneglected' (Z, p. 115/Z, p. 151). (For Heidegger's 'neglect' of love, see GA 39, p. 81;EHP, p. 164/GA 4, p. 143; N I-IVpassim, et al.).

5 In his commentary on Heidegger's Nietzsche, Krell suggests 'Durchkreuzen as moreappropriate (N TV, Analysis, p. 289). Heidegger himself uses the word in Geschichte desSeym (GA 69, p. 19) to describe the relation between strife and encounter in the fourfold,to which we shall turn in Part HI. 'Crossing' and its cognates are in English capable ofgathering the German Durchstreichung and Ubergang, erasure and transition, and it isperhaps because German does not contain a single equivalent of 'crossing' thatHeidegger moots this very potent 'image' only twice in its graphical form ofDurchstreichung: first in the context of the lizard and the rock (FCM, pp. 197-8/GA 29130, p. 291), and second in the letter to Ernst Jiinger published as 'On the Question ofBeing' (QB, p. 310/W, p. 239), although it occurs many times in Heidegger's latermarginal notes, particularly on the latter piece, and in Heidegger's other annotations ofhis own copy of Wegmarken made after its publication in 1967.

6 'We look into the danger and see the growth of the saving (Rettenden) ... through thiswe are not yet saved. But we are thereupon summoned to hope (verhoffen) in the growinglight of the saving. How can this happen? Here and now and in little things (imGeringen), that we may foster (hegen) the saving in its increase. This includes holdingalways before our eyes the extreme danger'.

7 The crucial essay in Heidegger's oeuvre where technology and the destruction of essenceare discussed is 'The Turning' (Die Kehre) (1949), which should here be read in itsentirety.

8 This entails the de-anthropization of beings: 'Only when the human essence, in the eventof the insight (Ereignis des Einblickes) by which it itself is beheld (Erblickte), renounceshuman self-will (menschlichen Eigensinn) and projects (ent-wirft) itself towards that insight,away from itself, does it correspond in its essence to the claim of that insight' (T, p. 47/TK, p. 45). This would constitute 'the most originary de-humanization of man as an

190 Notes

extant living being and "subject" and the heretofore — and thereby the grounding of Da-sein and of the possibility of the de-humanization (Entmenschung) of beings' (CTP, VIII,p. 359/GA 65, p. 510).

9 Thus, Heidegger tells us that questioning, as going along with technology's destructivegesture, is 'the complete disengagement (vollige Ablosung) from beingness' (CTP, IV, p.196/GA 65, p. 279).

10 To translate 'ethos' with 'dwelling' is to provide a directive to the way in which ethicsmight be rethought in the other beginning, in which the ungroundedness of the clearingis thought. The more original meaning — which points back to the pasture and dwellingof 'ethos' with an initial epsilon - is more original in the sense that it stands closer to andthus retains traces of the primal upsurge of presence. It stands, in other words, in therush of the event, in a way that already begins to be lost with the lengthening of theinitial 'e and the ossification of the noun. Ethos refers to the way in which entities retainprimordially forgotten traces of the fact that they stand within this upsurge, and it is theexplicit attention to this fact that Heidegger names 'dwelling' in his later works. Thus, ifto dwell is to think and to build (BDT, p. 145/VA, p. 139 et seq.) and if fundamentalontology was itself 'originary ethics' or an ethics of the origin (Ur-sprung) as the primalleap of beings into presence (LH, p. 271/W, p. 187), then Heidegger's work as a wholecould plausibly be understood as a re-beginning of ethos, thought from out of theungroundedness of beings as a whole, as an attempt to determine whether or not it is anylonger possible to return to the source of technology, whether this wellspring uponwhich everything depends can be brought to mind. That man dwells oblivious near tothe wellsprings of presence as such is the condition of the possibility of this dwelling'sbeing posited in various ways throughout the history of ethics as directives regardinghow we 'ought' to 'live'. These are the manifold guises that this original dwellingassumes within the field of presence, as 'ethics' accrues symbolic representations whicherase its original meaning. This occurs from the post-Socratic Greeks and thecompartmentalization of man's being into theoretical, practical, and aesthetic faculties,to the Roman moralitas and the Christianization of charitable agape and duty, up to theGerman Sitten of convention and the homogenizing 'norms' of the contemporary 'ethics'of technology. In this way, 'ethics' has become a rather watery word to the vulgar ear,and rightly so if it is understood univocally to designate the manners in which we mightdwell with and thus ultimately reconcile ourselves to the escalation of technology. Ethicsfor Heidegger is a revolutionary anti-ideological dwelling which demonstrates that uponwhich technology depends and which it must elide in order to constitute itself. The veryopposite of watery: earth.

11 See Derrida (1990, p. 14), where he ponders why Heidegger does not invoke Socrates'phrase. This is simply because death is a task for man only insofar as it serves being, anddwelling near this origin is man's prime task. Death is only ever considered insofar as itserves this task.

12 One might note that, in terms of a certain influential strand of Heidegger-interpretation,the transition from questioning to saying occurs in the footnote from Derrida's Of Spiritthat responds to Dastur's criticism of Derrida's assertion that Heidegger givesunquestioned privilege to the question (Derrida 1987, p. 9 n. 1). Further to this,Wood contests whether the question was ever asked without a prior pledging ofsomething pre-interrogative. For instance, in Being and Time, a pre-ontologicalunderstanding of being was required in order for Dasein ever to raise the question ofbeing and thence develop fundamental ontology (Wood 1990, p. 75); cf. McNeill inWood 1990, pp. 107-8.

13 'Reflection' translates 'Besinnung', which is the thought that complies with and thusresponds to the sense or list (Sinn) of being: 'the sail of thinking keeps trimmed hard to

Notes 191

the wind of the matter (Das Denken bleibt hart am Wind der Sache)' (PUT, p. 6/GA 13, p.78).

14 On the 'pliancy' (Fiigsamkeit) of the thing, see Th, p. 180/VA, p. 182 et seq.

CHAPTER 5

1 For thoughts on the nature of dike in Heidegger's work, see Robert Bernasconi, 'Justiceand the Twilight Zone of Morality' in Reading Heidegger: Commemorations (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 80-94, and Heidegger's own 'The AnaximanderFragment' (EOT, pp. 13-58///VT, pp. 321-74).

2 'It is the temple-work that first fits together (fiigf) and at the same time gathers arounditself the unity of those paths and relations in which birth and death, disaster andblessing, victory and disgrace, endurance and decline acquire the shape of destiny forhuman being. The all-governing expanse of this open relational context is the world ofthis historical people . . . The temple-work, standing there, opens up a world and at thesame time sets this world back again on earth, which itself only thus emerges as nativeground (heimatliche Grund)' (OWA, p. 42/HW, pp. 31-2).

3 Cf. CTP, VIII, pp. 342-3/CrA 65, p. 486, where being is understood as the fire thatburns out its own hearth.

4 Although it is certainly the case that singularity is in Heidegger's view more likely to befound away from the city, where technicized human concrete (con-crescere) has not entirelyeradicated the boundless variety of 'natural' growth and the manufacturing of thecraftsman. Whether the 'countryside' would still be a prime place in which to hunt for athing today is another question, but one which we should not precipitately answer.

5 See OWA, p. 62IHW, p. 50; CTP passim; PWM, p. 236/TP, p. 105 at al.6 In 'Language', an essay on the singular poem by Georg Trakl, 'Bin Winterabend',

Heidegger asks, '[b}ut what is pain? Pain rends (reifii). It is the rift (Rtfi) ... Pain is thedif-ference (Unter-schied) itself (L, p. 2Q4/US, p. 27).

7 One should perhaps also add the following: 'This thinking-saying [Contributions toPhilosophy} is a directive (Weisung). It indicates the free sheltering of the truth of being(Seyn) into beings as a necessity (Notwendigkeit), without being a command (Befehf)'(CTP, I, p. 6/GA 65, p. 7): this presumably because a command would assume that thissheltering was within the subject's power of will. Also in Contributions to Philosophy, in arare invocation of the verb sollen, Heidegger asks, 'what should technology be?' (CTP, IV,p. 194/(jA 65, p. 275 — my emphasis), while in Nietzsche we have witnessed his askingthe question of what man is to do given that the need (Not) of the age is not his own (NTV, pp. 245-6/N II, p. 392).

8 Translated by Heidegger as 'Fuge, die ihr Erscheinen versagt, ist hb'heren Waltens ah eine, diezum Vorschein kommt': 'the joining which refuses to shine forth is of a higher reigningthan one which comes to the fore'.

9 Heidegger adds, some two hundred pages later: 'The way that begins here and the waythat begins with a being have to come together' (CTP, V, p. 271/GA 65, p. 388). Cf.CTP, V, p. 273/CrA 65, p. 391 on 'Begluckung', the 'blessing' or 'favouring' of beingitself; we should cherish the favoured ones, those beings that retain an impermanenceand thus might come to represent within the whole the occluded void of being itself.

10 Which is the putting to work/placing in the work of truth (Sich-ins-Werk-setzen) (as theclearing for self-concealing, or the manifestness of the void of being), which institutes acertain configuration of world and earth (OWA, p. 39/HW, p. 24), but always, as we shallsee, in a way that responds to how the whole is organized, an organization that is politicaland dictated by the leeway of the fourfold that stretches between man and god, which we- and Heidegger in 1934 - have not yet addressed.

192 Notes

11 Cf. 'If that temporalizing and that spatializing [are] the originary essence of time and ofspace, then their source (Herkunft) - abyssally grounding the ab-yss (Ab-grund) - is madevisible from out of the essence of being' (CTP, V, p. 269/GA 65, p. 385).

12 Dare we think this unintelligible ground (Seyn) as the unintelligibility of matter in itsopposing tendencies, identified since Empedocles — in the guise of neikos and philia — aswhat Heidegger names Entriickung, expansion, and Beriickung, contraction, and does thisnot open up the possibility that certain figures within the history of philosophy whomHeidegger only rarely mentions might be able to communicate with him in a hithertounsuspected way? And might this rattle Heidegger's unifying reading of this history as ahistory of 'metaphysics'?

13 Time and space are said to interact in the way of 'play'. Stambaugh uses the word'interplay' to translate the Zuspiel of the temporal dimensions (TB, pp. 15-16/ZSD, pp.15-16). Heidegger frequently separates time and space with the word Spiel inContributions to Philosophy, to form a compound expression which cannot be dwelt onenough: Zeit-Spiel-Raum.

14 See Lacoue-Labarthe (1987, p. 12), and Sallis (1990, pp. 34, 40) where he asserts thatHeidegger gives up the post-metaphysical dream only as late as 1974. For the suggestionthat Heidegger does not avoid the opposite danger, that of a 'conservatism' ofmetaphysics, see Derrida (1972, p. 135). I cannot agree that either danger threatensHeidegger after Contributions to Philosophy in 1936.

15 This renaming is also useful because it frees up the term 'world' and allows it to beapplied to beings as a whole insofar as they constitute an organized totality. This allowsthe fourfolding thing to be understood as the gatherer of 'world' now that this 'world' isno longer a part of the fourfold itself.

16 It is important to write Augenblicksstatte as 'moment-site' rather than, for instance, 'siteof the moment' in order not to lose the syntactical homology of the constructions 'time-space' and 'moment-site', 'time' taking on concrete form in a 'moment' and 'space'taking on concrete form in a 'site'.

17 Derrida and Krell in particular have long insisted that the tri-partition of being infundamental ontology cannot encompass the animal. See Krell's aptly entitled DaimonLife: Heidegger and Life Philosophy (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UniversityPress, 1992) and Derrida's 'Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand' in Deconstruction andPhilosophy: the texts of Jacques Derrida, edited by John Sallis (Chicago and London:University of Chicago Press, 1985/7). Other important considerations of Heidegger andanimality include William McNeill, Heidegger: Visions — of Animals, Others, and the Divine(University of Warwick: Research Publication Series, Centre for Research in Philosophyand Literature, 1993a) and Miguel de Beistegui, 'Boredom: between existence andhistory' in Thinking with Heidegger: Displacements (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 2003b).

18 Thus, by positing a 'beyond being', Levinas falls into the trap of the early Heidegger, inanthropocentrically restricting the denotation of the word 'being' to the horizon ofhuman intelligibility.

19 'It is preferable to put up with the cheap accusation of atheism, which if it is intendedontically, is in fact completely correct. But might not the presumably ontic faith in godbe at bottom godlessness? And might the genuine metaphysician be more religious thanthe usual faithful, than the members of a "church" or even than the "theologians" ofevery confession?' (MFL, p. 165/GA 26, p. 211)

20 The other being Besinnung (1938-9), published in 1997 as Gesamtausgabe Band 66.21 '[Qonscience welcomes the other (la conscience morale accueille autrui)' (Levinas 1969, p.

84/1961, p. 83).22 Entsetzen is raised in a broadly similar way at the following points in Contributions to

Philosophy: CTP, IV, p. 188/GA 65, p. 267; CTP, VIII, pp. 331-2/GA 65, pp. 470-2.

Notes 193

CHAPTER 6

1 Thus, being may be said to 'en-hint' (er-winken), which means to start up the operation ofthe gods, which is to hint. Being allows the hinting of the gods by being directed intobeings, thus providing them with a channel in which to hint. In later Heidegger, beingspredominate to the exclusion of being and may therefore be deemed 'unfit* to withstandthe 'passage' of the god, which means the passing of the look through the being and outagain in man's direction in the form of the being's shining.

2 This I think is what Heidegger means to express in the following enigma fromContributions to Philosophy: 'gods call earth and in that call (Ruf) a world reverberates(widerhallt)' (CTP, VIII, pp. 358-9/GA 65, p. 510), if we understand 'call' to mean thesame as 'look' in this case.

3 For this reason, according to Heidegger, Sophocles can tell us more about ethics than anymetaphysical treatise (LH, p. 269IW, p. 184). Cf. McNeill (2000).

4 This is the 'proto-Levinassianism' referred to by Foti (1992, p. 76).5 If awaiting is the relation to the other, one can hear with new ears the second invocation

(third if one includes the dedication to Husserl in 'friendship') of the 'friend' of being-with in Being and Time, in the impending event of 'the arrival of a friend' (BT, p. 294/SZ, p. 250).

6 This is what Heidegger means by the statement that in his theology, which he was 'oftentempted' to write, 'the word "being" would not be allowed to appear' (GA 15, p. 437).

7 Perhaps Heidegger's hesitation at the time of Contributions to Philosophy with regard tothe precise relation of need between being and god is expressed in the following probingremarks, although more likely the questions that seem to oscillate between being as the'cause' of god and god as the 'cause' of being demonstrate that causality is precisely notwhat is at issue here and that the relation amounts to another form of (differential)grounding altogether: 'But being (Seyn) is the needfulness (Not-schafi) of god, in whichgod first finds itself. But why god? Whence the needfulness? Because the abyss isconcealed? Because there is a surpassing (Uber-treffung), therefore those who are surpassed[are], nonetheless, higher? Whence the surpassing, ab-yss (Ab-grund), ground, being? Inwhat does the godhood of gods consist? Why being (Seyn)? Because of gods? Why gods?Because of being (Seyn)?' (CTP, VIII, p. 358/GA 65, p. 508)

8 Heidegger's explicit use of Holderlinian language when speaking of the god is in a sensemisleading. One thinks of his use of the term 'fleeing' (cf. Holderlin 1968, p. 59) and ofhis understanding of our time as that of the between of the gods that have passed andthose that are to come (cf. WPF, pp. 9\—llHW, pp. 248—74 etpassim). At one point I hadthought to expose the central point of the fourfold in terms of the caesura of man andgod, thinking 'caesura' along the same ambiguous lines as Entrissen. But, as Foti says,Heidegger 'distorts' Holderlin's god and to understand the relation between Heideggerand Holderlin's god is 'an arcane task' (Foti 1991, p. 66). It is indeed, and perhapsirrelevant to our task; Heidegger certainly 'distorts' Holderlin in the sense of providinghis own singular 'twist'. However, if we understand the introduction of the notion of'god', which was always a problematic one for Heidegger even to the end (but at thesame time one he could never finally relinquish), along the lines of the correspondencewith earth and hence in line with our understanding of god as the name for man'spowerlessness and finitude, then I think this particular topic of the Gesprach betweenthinker and poet can be avoided. Heidegger in no way unquestioningly adopts anythingfrom Holderlin, who by no means had all the answers: witness the following: 'But howshould thinking succeed in achieving what earlier remained withheld from the poet(Holderlin)?' (CTP, I, p. 9/GA 65, p. 12 - my emphasis).

9 Here we find a way to counter the 'historicizing' critiques of the ahistoricality of the'lone' death experience in Being and Time by Derrida among others (Derrida 1993, pp.

194 Notes

43—56). Why do so many of Heidegger's readers, even those of the calibre of Derrida inAporias, remain buried in his early work in their criticisms of his understanding of death,or sway without sufficient differentiation between the early and the late? One need notappeal to empirical historiography in order to achieve this historici2ation of death, asHeidegger shows. One need merely attend to the history of that being (Sein) to whichdeath bends us.

CHAPTER 7

1 As we perhaps tendentiously interpret the following: 'continuously, being essentiallyprevails as "a being" only mediately, through the strife of world and earth (west das Seynstets nur mittelbar durch den Streit von Welt und Erde zum "Seienden")' (CTP, VIII, p. 332/GA 65, p. 471).

2 Perhaps one should also examine the diagram of the fourfold in Contributions to Philosophy(CTP, V, p. 218/GA 65, p. 310). Here the brackets indicating the reign of man and godseem to encompass the leeway of world and earth. Immediately following this diagramone finds the following: 'Cleaving (Erkluftung) is the Er-eignung, above all and foremost(zumal undzuvor) the cleaving from out of which [occur} historical man and the essencingof being (die Wesung des Seins), nearing and distancing of gods' (CTP, V, p. 218/CrA 65,p. 311 - original emphasized). This cleaving is precisely that of the de/cision of Seyn,stretching open a rift between withdrawal (Sein) and giving (beings).

3 See also: "This essential site gathers originally the unity of everything which, as theunconcealed, prevails upon man essentially (zu west) and is dispensed to him (zu weist) asthat to which he is assigned (angewiesen) in his being' (P, p. 90/GA 54, p. 133).

4 This is partly to agree with Diittmann in his description of the polis as the only place ofauthentic disclosure around the time of fundamental ontology (Diittmann 2002, p. 168).See p. 159 onwards and the excellent surrounding analysis of the nature of politics inrelation to poetry and thinking in Heidegger's early Holderlin lectures (1934-5) which Ishall not engage with here, following Taminiaux's understanding that they remainwithin (on the cusp of) the problematic of the 'early Heidegger' which, according to myown reading, lasts until 1936 (Taminiaux 1989, pp. 193—4). I must therefore disagreewith Diittmann that the polis is thought in such a promising way so early in Heidegger'sjourney.

5 Heidegger describes the thing as 'stubborn* in 'The Origin of the Work of Art' (OWA, p.3I/HIP, p. 21).

6 As Heidegger recognized as early as 1926: 'Being-in and its state-of-mind (Befindlichkeit)are made known in discourse and indicated in language by intonation, modulation, thetempo of talk, "the way of speaking". In "poetical" discourse, the communication of theexistential possibilities of one's state-of-mind can become an aim in itself, and thisamounts to a disclosing of existence' (BT, p. 205/5Z, p. 162).

7 Cf. 'the calculable maelstrom of {life's] empty circling around itself (berechenbaren Wirbeldes leeren Kreisens urn sich selbst)' as gigantic technicized entities bedazzle the technicizedanimal, mirroring man's glory back to him in the shallow metallic gleam of his ownmachinations (CTP, VIII, p. 349/GA 65, p. 495).

8 'The river [Ister] is the locality of journeying because it determines the "over there" andthe "there" at which our becoming homely arrives, yet from which, as a coming to be athome, it also takes its departure ... Yet the river is equally essentially the journeying oflocality. The essence of the locale, in which becoming homely finds its point of departureand its point of entry, is such that it journeys' (HI, p. 33/CrA 53, pp. 39-40 et seq.).

Notes 195

CONCLUSION

1 I take this phrase from the title of a highly important paper by Miguel de Beistegui(forthcoming) to which I am heavily indebted in this section, in particular for many ofthe references to Heidegger's work where these questions are addressed.

2 '{T}he word of Lenin: Bolshevism is Soviet power + electrification. That meansBolshevism is the "organic", i.e., organized, calculating (and as +) conclusion of theunconditional power of the party along with complete technologization' (P, p. 86/GA54, p. 127).

3 'Europe lies in the pincers between Russia and America, which are metaphysically thesame' (IM, pp. 41-8/EM, p. 34).

4 In other words, Heidegger came to understand Nazism to be not just ensnared by thelogic of power but to represent the very consummation of this logic: 'nihilism . . .manifests itself with increased clarity under the political form of fascism' (Wolin 1993,p. 65 - emphasis removed). This is demonstrated by Heidegger's description of hiscourses on Nietzsche between 1936 and 1945 as 'a declaration of spiritual resistance' toNazism in his letter to the Rector of Freiburg University, 4 November 1945 (ibid.).These courses trace precisely the manner in which, in accordance with the history ofbeing, being becomes determined as the eternal return of the will to power, whichdescribes the inherent self-overcoming of power and ultimately its growth exclusively forits own sake in the form of will to will. It is in this historical position that Heideggercame to situate Nazism, as a mere mouthpiece and instrument of power's imperialistaccumulation, as a facilitation within a certain defined political and economic situationwhich best allowed power to increase itself.

5 It is here that I would argue against Zizek's grouping of Derrida with the semiologicalpost-structuralists as partaking of this totalitarianism of the Symbolic by suggesting thatwhat Laclau describes as Derrida's unjustified tacking-on of a Levinassian ethics ofotherness is precisely an example of Derrida's retrieving the Real in his own work, in hislater works at least, perhaps following a certain excessive enthusiasm for the pureSymbolic in his early texts. For what is the Levinassian other (Autre) if not the LacanianReal? This cannot be explored here, but I hope to explore it, along with all of the mattersbroached by this concluding chapter, in the sequel to this volume.

6 At one point at least, Zizek - who began his life a Heideggerian - acknowledges thisremarkable coincidence (1991, p- 137 n. 2).

7 The title of a crucial article in which Zizek distinguishes himself from Laclau and whichLaclau had the courage to place at the end of one of his own books (see Laclau 1990, pp.249-60).

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Texts by Martin Heidegger

'Comments on Karl Jasper's Psychology of Worldviews' {1919/21], trans. John van Buren inWilliam McNeill (ed.), Pathmarks (Gesamtausgabe Band 9) [1967/1976] (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Wegmarken (GA 9) (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967)The Concept of Tim [1924], trans. William McNeill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992)Der Begriff der Zeit: Vortrag vor der Marburger Theologenschaft Juli 1924 (Tubingen: Max

Niemeyer Verlag, 1989)Plato's Sophist [Winter Semester (WS) 1924-5] (GA 19), trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andre

Schuwer (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997)Platan: Sophistes [WS 1924-5] (GA 19) (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992)History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena [Summer Semester (SS) 1925] (GA 20), trans.

Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1985)Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs [SS 1925] (GA 20) (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio

Klostermann, 1979)Being and Time [1926/7] (GA 2), trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford:

Blackwell, 1962)Sein undZeit (GA 2) (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1927/1979)'Phenomenology and Theology' [1927 and 1964], trans. James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo,

in PathmarksThe Basic Problems of Phenomenology [SS 1927] (GA 24), trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington

and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1982)Die Grundprobleme der Phanomenologie [SS 1927] (GA 24) (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio

Klostermann, 1975)The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic [SS 1928] (GA 26), trans. Michael Heim (Bloomington

and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1984)Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz [SS 1928] (GA 26) (Frankfurt-

am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978)The Essence of Ground' [1928/9], trans. William McNeill, in Pathmarks'What is Metaphysics?' [1929], trans. David Farrell Krell, in PathmarksKant and the Problem of Metaphysics [1929, 1973] (GA 3), trans. Richard Taft (Bloomington

and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990)Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik [1929] (GA 3) (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio

Klostermann, 1991)Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World-Finitude-Solitude [WS 1929-30] (GA 29/30), trans.

William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington and Indianapolis: IndianaUniversity Press, 1995)

Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt-Endlichkeit-Einsamkeit [WS 1929-30] (GA 29/30)(Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983)

'On the Essence of Truth' [1930], trans. John Sallis, in Pathmarks

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Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit [WS 1930—1] (GA 32), trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988)

Hegels Phanomenologie des Geistes [WS 1930-1} (GA 32) (Frankfurt-am-Main: VittorioKlostermann, 1980)

'The Self-Assertion of the German University' [1933}, trans. William S. Lewis, in RichardWolin (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MITPress, 1993)

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Hb'lderlins Hymne 'Germanien' und 'Der Rhein' [WS 1934-5] (GA 39) (Frankfurt-am-Main:Vittorio Klostermann, 1980)

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Acknowledgements

Some of the material used in Chapter Seven has appeared in essay form as 'Godand Politics in Later Heidegger' in Philosophy Today, vol. 48, issue 4 (2004) andis reproduced here with the kind permission of its editor, David Pellauer.

I must also thank the following people for their role in the formation of thisbook:

Mum, Dad, Grandma, Grandad, Nana, Grandpa, David, Alison, Auntie Angela,Uncle Alan, Uncle Ellis, Auntie Marion, Tempest, Benjy, Mog, James Hyde-Dryden, Matthew Sismey, Max Westerman, Richard Miskin, Mayar Jethwa,John Walters, Sam Bailey, Carly Greenbank, Emma Lively, Hayley Small, SuzySmith, Mr Bolstridge, Mr Jagger.

Alex Hartland, Sian Smith, Penny Markell, Kate Shobbrook, Kelly Beard,Hilary Chapman, Simon Hill, Martin Burley, Nina Power, Jenny Bunker,Stephen Houlgate, Cherisse McAllister, Miguel de Beistegui, Naomi Eilan,David Miller, Ian Lyne, Claudine, Sarah Crossan, Katie Hall, Ann Hopkins,Steve Mahoney, Satty Fujiwara, Max Lemanski, Sam King, Sarah Dillon, Sara,Tone, Mostyn, Jo, Natalia, John, Paul, Hywel, Ellie.

Charmaine Coyle, Havi Carel, Chris Ellis, Andy McGee, Sally Sheldon,Raymond Petredis, Alexandra Le Bolloch, Vicki Sardeli, Edgar Ramirez, EviMascha, Eleni Syrimou, Jonathan Aicken, Anastasia Ladopoulou, Nick Joll,Fotini Vaki, Lucy Huskinson, Sharon Krishek, Old Richard, Young Richard,Naovi Olympiou, Christie Allen, Nathan Cannon, Piper Severance, WilliamBehun, Angelos, Kit Barton, Tristan Moyle, Beatrice Han, Simon Critchley,Espen Hammer, Yanike Larsen, Fiona Hughes, David Smith, Barbara Crawshaw,Pauline, Karen Shields, Nick Walker.

Bill Allen, Anna Johnson, Tom Greaves, David Gilbert-Harris, Barry Phipps,Sam Gillespie, Sam Lewis, Brian McStay, Jim Graham, his housemates, Lizzieand Pete in particular, later Siobhan, Adamantios Diamantidis, Nick Butler,Ricky Neault, Bronia Evers, Juliet Rayment, Val and Paul, Marina Tsoulou,Nilesh, Elke Henning, Damian Veal, Ceci, Ben Smith, Laura Mazzoli, HectorKollias, Ray Brassier, Alberto Toscano, Tom Barker, Lorenzo Chiesa, GregHunt, Wahida Khandker, Keith Ansell-Pearson, Peter Poellner, the AHRB, theWarwick Access fund, later the Hardship Fund, particularly Helen Viney andVivienne Sykes, Peter Larkin, Frank Beetham, Helmut Schmidt, Governor andMrs Smith, Nick Markell, Captain and Mrs Markell, Daniel Jones, Kate Bayes.

Sarah Fairris, Christa Percival, Jenny Royle, Sara Stafford, Camilla Stanger,Katherine Tyler, Jono Layton, Daniel Whistler, Sarah Lambert, Izzy Kaminski,

Acknowledgements 207

Rowena Jones, Amy Bell, Stephen Cunnah, Nick Carman, Rhona Digger, KeithHale, Philippa Banks, Ashley, Alison Parker, Nathan Obokah, Louise Wise, EdWildish, Kat Strother, Kathy Walker, Michelle O'Connor.

Sandra Ovcina, Barnaby Hutchins, Helen Culley, Laura Mitchell, DaveTaylor, Hywel Williams, Ben Cambers, Mark Sobieraj, Christian Amadeo,Adam Fearless, Ceri Taylor, Paul Whitfield-Jones, Kate Harrigan, AlexandraHughes, Hannah Rowark, Siobhan Evans, Claire Davies, Ashley, Cath Eades,Catherine Scott, Arran Veltom, Tom, Chris Peake, Phil Broadhead, DanielLawrence, Naomi Tanner, and my Logic students of 2004.

Jenny Booth, the Warwick Graduates Association, Valerie Simpson from theUniversity of Warwick library, Paul Davies, Alex Garcia Diittmann, ChristineBattersby, Hywel Evans, Anya Wilson, and Sarah Douglas at Continuum.

Index

abandonment (Verlassenheii) 80, 81, 88, 93,94, 96, 97, 125, 183n. 17, 188n. 23

abyss (Abgrund) 3, 35, 43, 46, 47, 53, 58,59, 60, 62, 70, 75, 78, 82, 85, 86, 88,90, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 106,107, 108, 109, 111, 115, 118, 143,152, 155, 188n. 25, 191n. 11, 193see void

actuality (Wirklichkeit, energeia) 4, 19, 22,44, 49, 53, 56, 57, 60, 70, 75, 78, 80,83, 87, 88, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106,125, 126, 130, 138, 145, 150, 151,152, 153, 159-60, 164, 181n. 10,187n. 8

actual death 14, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 38,39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 53, 54, 55,57, 58, 60, 61, 78, 181n. 2

actual birth 14, 25, 29, 33, 34, 35, 38,39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 49, 53, 181n. 2

agora 8, 147, 149anthropocentrism 121, 150, 177n. 1 (Ch.l),

185n. 34, 192n. 18aporia 181n. 2, 185n. 34appeal (Anklang) 86, 88, 89, 93^4, 97Aristotle 8, 9, 80, 180n. 26, 181n. 26,

181n. 2, 187n. 20Arendt, Hannah 3, 8, 184n. 21attunement (Stimmung) 31, 52, 91-8, 104,

109, 110, 124-5, 127, 140, 155,166see disposition, mood, Stimmung

authenticity 2, 14, 15, 16-9, 21, 22, 30-3,35-9, 41, 48-9, 51-3, 56-7, 63, 79,106, 161, 162, 180n. 22, 180n. 2,182n 11, 184n. 22, 186n. 37, 194n.see inauthenticity

awe (Scheu) 92, 95-7, 101, 109-10, 127 seeterror, restraint, horror

Bataille, Georges 93beginning (Anfang) 79, 87

first beginning 70, 93, 103, 124, 146other beginning 70, 89, 93, 94, 103, 12

146, 186n. 3, 190n. 10beings as a whole (das Seiende im Ganzeri) 5-

6,14, 34, 39-41, 54, 62,63, 65, 67-8,76-87, 92, 96-7, 104, 107, 111, 119,

122, 124, 126, 129, 131, 142146-50, 160, 164, 168, 176,178n. 6, 180n. 2, 182n. 12, 185n. 192n. 15

beings as such (das Seiende als solche) 6, 63,65, 83, 124, 149

Beistegui, Miguel de 141, 153, 165, 17918, 180n. 2, 184n. 23, 184n. 24, 1836, 186n. 37, 192n. 17, 195n. 1

Bernasconi, Robert 177n. 3, 186n. 38,191n. 1

birth 13-7, 19, 25, 27, 28-9, 32, 35-9, 42-53, 56, 60, 112, 131, 180n. 2, 184n.21, 184n. 23, 191n. 2

being-towards-birth 14, 15, 19, 25, 36,39,43

being-towards-the-beginning 38

clearing (Lichtung) 6, 13-4, 21, 29, 32, 46,56, 58, 69, 77, 79, 81-2, 99,107,108,144,145,147,148,159-60,162,166,175, 177n. 1 (Ch. 1), 187n. 6, 18824, 190n. 10, 191n. 10

cleavage (Zerklifftung, Erkliiftung) 3, 91, 127,194n. 2 see Entrissen, rift

conscience 11, 17, 32-4, 36-8, 41-56, 59-61, 67, 124, 162, 182n. 12, 182n. 1184n. 23, 192n. 21

consciencelessness 42, 55, 182n. 12 seefriend, guilt

counter-essence (Gegemveseri) 4—5, 64, 77, 86,92, 104, 116, 120-6, 129, 131, 136,139, 142-3, 145, 153-4, 158-9, 160,163, 166, 167, 176, 186n. 37

Dasein 13-22, 30, 33, 37-40, 49, 52, 55,59-60, 63-4, 65, 68, 122

Da-sein 69, 93, 119, 138, 147, 186n. 37,190n. 8 see Weg-sein

Darstellung 67, 185n. 35, 188n. 22death 3, 13, 14-16, 24, 27-9, 31, 35-40,

41,43, 53, 59, 64, 70-1, 78-9, 85-95,96-8, 102-3, 107,108, 122, 124,127,132, 137, 140, 159, 162-3, 165, 175179n. 18, 180n. 20, 180n. 2, 181n.182n. 14, 183n. 17, 184n. 26,

Index 209

186n. 37, 187n. 18, 188n. 26, 190n.II, 191n. 2, 193n. 9

being-towards-death 14, 15, 27-8, 36,39, 43-4, 49, 54, 58, 89, 180n. 20

of God 87, 89, 101of the other 54-8, 60-1

deconstruction xii, 6, 61, 65, 80, 153, 168,174, 176

demi-god 156-7 see poetdemocracy 83, 152, 166, 170, 175, 176Derrida, Jacques 58, 168, 174, 175, 184n.

23, 185n. 35, 190n. 11, 190n. 12,192n. 14, 192n. 17, 193n. 9, 195n. 5

destiny (Geschick) 40-1, 182n. 11, 183n. 17,191n. 2

differencedifferentiation 3, 4, 21, 41, 42, 58, 61,

69, 75-6, 78, 94, 107, 110-12, 118,126, 129, 161-3, 186n. 3, 187n. 5see ontological difference, origin of

discourse (Rede) xiv, 22-4, 33, 44-5, 53,168-70, 175, 178n. 10, 194n. 6

disposition (Stimmung) 66, 93, 185n. 33 seeattunement, mood, Stimmung

divinities (Gottlichen) 77, 120, 124, 127,139, 140

earth 43, 61, 64, 77, 81, 117, 119, 120-3127, 133, 134, 135-41, 143 4, 16182n. 13, 190n. 10, 191n. 2, 19n. 10,193n. 2, 193n. 8, 194n. 1, 194n. 2

empty signifier 169 see master signifierEntrtssen (tearing) 38, 56-8, 193n. 8 set

cleavage, riftEreignis 3, 4, 9, 61, 76-7, 78, 96-7, 107,

III , 115, 118-9, 123, 127, 137,161-3, 166, 168, 187n. 11, 188n. 25, 188n.28, 189n. 8

essence 4, 5, 63-4, 76, 80, 84, 86, 87, 101,103-6, 118-9, 121, 124-5, 132-4,189n. 4, 189n. 7

essentially prevail (wesen) 8, 92, 93, 139,194n. 1, 194n. 3 see counter-essence

eternal return 84, 165, 195n. 4as essence of technology 84

ethicsplace and nature of 6 see ethos, ethos

ethos 6, 106, 190n. 10 see ethos, ethicsethos 6, 106, 190n. 10 see ethos, ethicsexistence 13, 28, 29, 34, 36, 39, 40, 42, 44,

49, 59-60, 77as desire 45

existentiales 2, 13, 17, 18, 30, 44existential response 16, 28, 33, 36, 37,

41,43, 45-7,49, 50, 53, 56, 59, 61,183n. 14

face 8, 28, 35, 47, 52, 61, 129, 131-8, 148,179n. 19, 180n. 20

eyes of death 28facticity (Faktizitai) 9, 23, 34, 39, 49, 53,

55, 63, 66, 68, 139, 178n. 8, 184n. 25factuality (Tatsachlichkeit) 15, 24, 31, 35-

7, 50, 56, 58, 61, 62-4, 66, 96-9,180n. 20, 182n. 12

falling (Verfalien) 40, 41, 68fall 24, 38, 124, 162, 164, 185n. 31fallenness (Verfallenheii) 18-9, 40, 18In. 5

fantasy 156, 171-3, 174, 176traversal of 173, 174

fate (Schicksal) 31, 41, 44, 182n. 11, 183n.17

finitude 13-6, 33 i, 40, 43, 46, 51-3, 58-70, 78-9, 81, 99, 100, 107, 121-2,133, 139-41, 143

forgottenness (Vergessenheit) 71, 80, 91, 93,97

foster (hegen) 85, 114-5, 148, 189n. 6foundationalism 62, 131, 141

uni-directional foundation 61-2, 75, 121,122

fourfold (Gevieri) 3, 4, 36, 61, 69, 70, 76-8,85, 108, 110, 112, 117, 119-20, 122-4, 126, 129, 130, 131, 133, 138, 140,143, 161, 163, 189n. 5, 191n. 10,18In. 4, 192n. 15, 194n. 2 see world,earth, divinities, god, mortals, man

friend 58, 71, 179n. 18, 181n. 2, 193n. 5friendship 17, 52, 180n. 2, 181n. 2,

193n. 5voice of 184n. 23 see guest-friend,

hospitalityFiirsorge (solicitude) 11, 26, 27, 32, 178n. 6,

179n. 16

gather 4, 23, 110, 112, 143, 191n. 2, 192n.15, 194n. 3

Gestell 4, 8, 77, 92, 102, 123-4, 129-30,142, 145, 151, 153, 158, 160, 164-7see technology

god 61, 81-2, 91, 96, 101-2, 119-23, 127,130-2, 133, 134-5, 137^*0, 141-5,149, 156—7 see death of god, demi-god,divinities, Holderlin, poet


ground (Grund) 4, 6-7, 15, 37, 39, 40, 46,53, 59, 62, 64, 71, 78, 80, 82, 86-8,95-9, 99, 100-3, 108-11, 117, 118-23,131,139, 150,152,156,163,168,18In. 10, 192n. 12 see abyss (Abgrund)

guest-friend 157-60guilt (Schuld) 42, 55-6, 182n. 12, 184n. 23

to the other 55-6, 182n. 12 see conscience

hearing (Horen) 44-5, 52, 184n. 23listening (Horen) 24, 183n. 16, 184n. 23

Hegel, G.W.F. 35, 82, 177n. 2 (Preface)hesitation (Zogern) 86, 96, 97, 99, 107, 110,

111, 116, 118, 138, 188n. 25, 188n.29

history (Geschichte) 2, 4, 6-7, 40-1, 58, 61-2, 69, 76-8, 79-81, 133, 140, 142,144,146-50, 162, 166, 181n. 8, 186n.4

being-history, history of being(Seynsgescbichte, Geschichte des Seyns)69, 79-85, 150, 194n. 9, 195n. 4

historicality 15, 40, 59, 67, 85, 148, 149,164, 193n. 9

Holderlin, Friedrich xii, 82, 120, 137-8,146,148,155,157,187n. 19,193n. 8,194n. 4

horror (Entsetzeri) 92, 97, 124-5 see terror,restraint, awe

hospitality (Gastfreundschaftkeit) 158-9guest-friendship 158—9 see friend

humanism 60

ideology xii, 151, 155-6, 160, 164, 167,169, 171-6

Imaginary, the 169, 170-2immanence 49, 82-3, 89, 101, 141

immanent void 83, 93, 102-3, 110, 159,187n. 7

imperative 3, 6, 8, 9, 50, 101-2, 104, 106-8, 115, 159

inauthenticity 2, 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, 30-3,36-7, 38-9, 48, 53 see authenticity,Weg-sein

indifference (Indifferenz) 17, 21-2, 25-7, 30,37-40, 42, 48-51, 53, 54, 56-7, 63,178n. 4, 178n. 9 see most-own

infinity 8, 66, 100-2, 143 see finitudeintelligibility Werstandlichkeit) xiv, 6,14,15,

22-4,28, 31, 34, 35,43,46, 53-4,60,62-4, 65, 70, 75-6, 79, 121,178n. 1(Ch. 1), 178n. 10,188n. 29, 192n. 18

interstice (Unter-schied) 110, 115 seedifference

KIeinodll4see thing

Lacan, Jacques xii-xiii, 82, 167-9, 170-5,177n. 1 (Preface), 178n. 8, 179n. 14,182n. 14, 195n. 5

Laclau, Ernesto 167-9, 170-2, 173-5,195n. 5, 195n. 7

Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe 67, 130, 137,13, 156, 185n. 35, 188n. 23, 192n.14

language 110, 112, 168Levinas, Emmanuel 3, 7-8, 27-8, 31, 36,

55, 60, 100, 124, 168, 174, 178n. 5,184n. 21, 189n. 1, 192n. 18, 192n. 193n. 4, 195n. 5

linguistics 168-9look, the 134-8love 52, 114, 127, 134, 137-8, 140, 180n.

2, 184n. 23, 189n. 4 see friendshipLyotard, Jean-Francois 123, 159

'Jew' 159, 160, 173

machination (Machenschaft) 84, 123, 194n. 7see Gestell, technology

man 13-4, 16, 22, 39-40, 42-3, 60-2, 69-70, 75, 77, 79, 102, 105, 120-3, 124,139-40, 186n. 37, 189n. 8

Marxism xi, 176master signifier 63, 169, 170, 171 see empty

signifiermaterialism xiimeaning (Sinn) 13, 15, 22-4, 37-8, 44, 46,

50, 53, 59-64, 67, 75, 111, 121, 162,169, 178n. 10

melancholy 91, 95, 98, 109, 187n. 20 seemourning

metaphysics 2, 5, 6-7, 9, 18, 43, 61, 63,65-7, 80-4, 111, 120, 143, 146, 148-9, 155-6, 159, 163, 166, 176, 185n.31, 188n. 22, 186n. 3

conservatism of 192n. 14outside of 185n. 35'post' 120, 154, 192n. 14transgression of 120, 122

metontology 5, 54, 68, 164, 186n. 36 seebeings as a whole

midpoint (Mitte) 5, 61, 64, 71, 96, 126,138, 139

Index 211

mimesis 17, 40-1, 68, 80, 105, 133, 162,164

mood (Stimmung) 22-4, 28, 30-1, 33-7, 43,47, 50-3, 58, 64-8, 91-8, 109,123-5,179n. 19, 180n. 1, 180n. 2, 185n. 33,188n. 25 see attunement, disposition,Stimmung

mortals (Sterblichen) 3, 4, 70, 77, 89, 107,113, 120, 122, 124, 126, 129, 131,132, 137, 140-2, 143-4 see divinities,man

most-own (Eigenste) 17, 37, 32, 50, 52, 53,57

ownmost 11, 17, 27, 32, 49, 179n. 18,181n. 3, 184n. 23 see indifference

mourning (Trauer) 28, 57, 91, 98, 127, 175,187n. 19, 188n. 21, 188n. 28 seemelancholy

Nancy, Jean-Luc 2, 130, 139, 153, 156, 168nation (Volk) 41, 141, 147, 150, 157-8, 170nature 121, 152, 182n. 13Nazism xii, 1, 41, 153, 156, 165, 173,

195n. 4NSDAP 170

Nietzsche, Friedrich 82-3, 97, 101, 121,189n. 5, 191n. 7, 195n. 4

nihilism 4, 7, 62, 69, 70, 76, 78-9, 83, 85,87, 96, 112, 125, 130, 168, 185n. 31,195n. 4

nothing 9, 42, 78, 87-9, 94-8, 102-3, 109-10

nullity 42, 45-6, 52-5, 182n. 12

ontological difference 1-4, 5-7, 13, 16-8,21, 27, 32-4, 37, 41-2, 18, 50, 54-5,56-7, 59-62, 62-4, 66-71,75, 79, 94,100, 109, 111, 114, 133,162-3, 186n.3

origin of 73, 75-8, 88, 129, 161, 187n. 5differentiation of 91, 93, HO, 118, 133,

163 see differenceOpen, the (das Offene) 43, 69, 81, 94, 117,

144, 147-9, 160ought 83

pain 90, 110, 115-6, 180n. 22, 191n. 6people (Volk) 40, 150, 155-7, 166, 170,

191n. 2 see nationphenomenology xii, 62, 117, 120, 123,

136Plato 132-4, 18In. 2

Platonism xii, 8, 17, 40, 68, 80, 83, 93,107,156, 161,164, 180n. 25, 181n.2

poet xii, 155-6, 193n .8poetry 82, 114, 120, 194n. 4, 194n. 6 see

demi-god, poiesispoiesis 8, 84, 106-7, 155, 177n. 3point de caption 171-4 see master signifierpolitics

Palis 41, 79, 110, 124, 142, 144-51,153,154-9,160,163^, 167,194n.4

the political 40, 126, 130, 140, 152-4,165 see democracy, nazism,totalitarianism

power (Macht) xii, 31, 33, 36, 40, 43, 46,63, 82, 115, 142, 150-4, 159, 160,164, 170,182n. 11, 183n. 17, 195n. 2,195n. 4

powerlessness (Ohnmachi) 42, 46, 125,151-3, 157, 165

praxis 8-9, 106-7, 177n. 3 see poiesispre-socratics 89, 185n. 35projection 18-19, 20, 25-9, 36, 39, 44, 49,

51, 59, 122, 179n. 14, 180n. 21, 182n.12, 183n. 17, 184n. 23

Real, the 5, 28, 36, 44, 51, 58, 60-70, 79,102, 109, 110, 114, 119, 121, 153,167-76, 177n. 1 (Preface), 183n. 14,185n. 34, 195n. 5

refusal (Versagung, Verweigerung) 79, 81, 86,94_5, 96-7, 107, 109, 114, 116, 118,138

repetition 29, 187n. 6, 188n. 25restraint (Verhaltenheii) 92, 95-8, 99-100,

188n. 28 see terror, awe, horrorreticence (Verschwiegenheit) 45, 91, 93, 112,

127, 181n. 6discretion xiii, xiv

rift (RijS) 3, 69, 90, 118, 191n. 6,194n. 2 seecleavage, Entrissen

sacrifice 90, 114-5Sallis, John 179n. 18, 185n. 35, 187n. 12,

192n. 14Saussure, Ferdinand de 168—9semiology 169, 195n. 5sign 47, 104, 107, 135, 175significance 19-20, 22-7, 29, 30-1, 39, 44,

46-8, 60-4, 69, 122, 169, 179n. 14,179n. 17, 182n. 11


signification (Bedeutung) 20, 22-5, 31, 38,40, 43, 53, 61, 63, 67, 106, 121, 162,169, 171, 177n. 1 (Ch. 1), 179n. 10,179n. 14 see meaning

silence (Schweigen) 7, 10, 44-5, 93, 109silencing 45 see hearing, reticence

Stimmung 65, 66, 155 see attunement,disposition, mood

Stretching (Erstreckung) 3, 6, 13, 15-7, 29,31-3, 36, 38-9, 56-7, 61, 77, 135,140-3

Symbolic, the xiii, 19-20, 22-5, 27-8, 30-3, 42, 44, 46-7, 51 , 60-1, 67-70,75, 102, 119, 121, 168-75, 178n. 8,179n. 14, 183n. 14, 195n. 5

Taminiaux, Jacques 8, 177n. 4, 178n. 5,182n. 13, 194n. 4

tearing (Entrissen) 14-7, 38-9, 56-8, 143,184n. 27 see cleavage, Entrissen, pain,rift

technology 47-9, 77, 81, 83-90, 93, 95,99-109, 111, 113-4, 117,123-5,130,145,150-3,155,164-6,176,177n. 2,189n. 7, 190n. 9, 190n. 10, 191n. 7,195n. 2

technicized 91, 90, 100, 102-3, 150,191n. 4, 194n. 7 see Gestell,machination

temporality (Zeitlichkeif) 15, 40, 59, 62, 78,116, 118, 121, 149, 162, 181n. 10,184n. 28, 185n. 29, 185n. 30

terror (Erschrecken) 92-100, 109, 125, 188n.23, 188n. 25

see restraint, awe, horrorthaumadzein 93, 185n. 34theoria 8, 9, 17, 36, 106, 107, 190n. 10 see

praxisthing 3-5, 8-9, 70-1, 78, 85-6, 97, 100,

108-10, 111-26, 129-31, 132-5,137-8, 144-5, 147-9, 157-8, 161,

165, 174-5, 180n. 25, 188n. 24, 198, 191n. 14, 192n. 15, 194n. 5

thrownness (Geworfenheif) 6, 18-20, 28-9,34, 36, 39, 45, 49, 57

time-space (Zeit-raum) 78, 111, 117-20,125, 149, 185n. 30, 186n. 1, 192n. 16

time-play-space, time's play space (Zeit-spiel-raum) 62

totalitarianism 40, 125, 130, 145, 150, 1153 , 166, 169, 175-6, 195n. 5

transcendence 76, 82-3, 87, 89, 93-4, 101,102-4, 116

transcendent void 83, 187n. 7turn, the (Kehre) 22, 64-5, 67, 146, 161,

186n. 37, 189n. 2, 189n. 7

understanding (Versteben) 22-8, 30-1, 33-6,44, 46, 52-3

the appeal of conscience 45-6understanding of being (Seinsverstandnis)

14, 33, 43, 57, 59-60, 76, 121

void 47, 60, 77-9, 81-5, 87-9, 94, 99-110,113-5, 131, 137 see abyss, immanentvoid, transcendent void

Weg-sein 186n. 37will to power 151-2, 195n. 4will to will 101, 106, 123, 151-2, 195n. 4withdrawal 1, 7, 43, 47-54, 60, 67-70, 76,

78, 79-87, 89-90, 93, 95world xiii, 4, 15, 19-30, 35, 40, 43, 61, 64,

69, 97, 110, 112-4, 116-8, 120-3,130, 147-9, 160, 162, 169-72, 175,179n. 14, 180n. 22, 182n. 12, 182n.13, 183n. 17, 183n. 19, 191n. 2, 191n.10, 192n. 15, 193n. 2, 194n. 1 seeanthropocentrism, humanism,intelligibility

Zizek, Slavoj xii, 5, 153, 167-8, 170-6

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Heidegger and the Place of Ethics