Footnotes
Footnotes from the original text are included here for a deeper understanding of the text.
[1]:
“Essence” is the traditional translation of the German noun Wesen. One of Heidegger’s principal aims in this essay is to seek the true meaning of essence through or by way of the “correct” meaning. He will later show that Wesen does not simply mean what something is, but that it means, farther, the way in which something pursues its course, the way in which it remains through time as what it is. Heidegger writes elsewhere that the noun Wesen does not mean quidditas originally, but rather “enduring as presence” (das Währen als Gegemoart). (See An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim [New York: Doubleday, 1961], p. 59.) Wesen as a noun derives from the verb wesen, which is seldom used as such in modern German. The verb survives primarily in inflected forms of the verb sein (to be) and in such words as the adjective anwesend (present). The old verbal forms from which wesen stems meant to tarry or dwell. Heidegger repeatedly identifies wesen as “the same as währen [to last or endure].” (See p. 30 below and SR 161.) As a verb, wesen will usually be translated here with “to come to presence,” a rendering wherein the meaning “endure” should be strongly heard. Occasionally it will be translated “to essence,” and its gerund will be rendered with “essencing.” The noun Wesen will regularly be translated “essence” until Heidegger’s explanatory discussion it reached. Thereafter, in this and the succeeding essays, it will often be translated with “coming to presence.” In relation to all these renderings, the reader should bear in mind a point that is of fundamental importance to Heidegger, namely, that the root of wesen, with its meaning “to dwell,” provides one integral component in the meaning of the verb sein (to be). (Cf. An Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 59.)
[2]:
"Conception" here translates the noun Vorstellung. Elsewhere in this volume, Vorstellung will usually be translated by "representation," and its related verb vorstellen by "to represent." Both "conception" and "representation" should suggest a placing or setting-up-before. Cf. the discussion of Vorstellung in AWP131-132.
[3]:
Instrumentum signifies that which functions to heap or build up or to arrange. Heidegger here equates it with the noun Einrichtung, translated “contrivance,” which can also mean arrangement, adjustment, furnishing, or equipment. In accordance with his dictum that the true must be sought by way of the correct, Heidegger here anticipates with his identification of technology as an instrumentum and an Einrichtung his later “true” characterization of technology in terms of setting-in-place, ordering, Enframing, and standing-reserve.
[4]:
“Come to pass” translates sich ereignet. For a discussion of the fuller meaning of the verb ereignen, see T 38 n. 4, 45.
[5]:
Das, was ein anderes verschuldet is a quite idomatic expression that here would mean to many German readers “that which is the cause of something else.” The verb verschulden actually has a wide range of meanings – to be indebted, to owe, to be guilty, to be responsible for or to, to cause. Heidegger intends to awaken all these meanings and to have connotations of mutual interdependence sound throughout this passage.
[6]:
Literally, “confines into” – the German preposition in with the accusative. Heidegger often uses this construction in ways that are unusual in German, as they would be in English. It will ordinarily be translated here by “within” so as to distinguish it from “in” used to translate in with the dative.
[7]:
By writing An-wesen, Heidegger stresses the composition of the verb anwesen, translated as “to presence.” The verb consists of wesen (literally, to continue or endure) with the prepositional prefix an- (at, to, toward). It is man who must receive presencing, man to whom it comes as enduring. Cf. On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 12.
[8]:
Ver-an-lassen is Heidegger’s writing of the verb veranlassen in noun form, now hyphenated to bring out its meaning. Veranlassen ordinarily means to occasion, to cause, to bring about, to call forth. Its use here relates back to the use of anlassen (to leave [something] on, to let loose, to set going), here translated “to start something on its way.” Anlassen has just been similarly written as an-lassen so as to emphasize its composition from lassen (to let or leave) and an (to or toward). One of the functions of the German prefix ver- is to intensify the force of a verb. André Préau quotes Heidegger as saying: “Ver-an-lassen is more active than an-lassen. The ver-, as it were, pushes the latter toward a doing [vers un faire].” Cf. Martin Heidegger, Essais et Conferences (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), p. 16 n.
[9]:
The full gamut of meaning for the verb hervorbringen, here functioning as a noun, includes to bring forth or produce, to generate or beget, to utter, to elicit. Heidegger intends that all of these nuances be heard. He hyphenates the word in order to emphasize its adverbial prefixes, her (here or hither) and vor- (forward or forth). Heidegger elsewhere makes specific the meaning resident in Her-vor-bringen for him by utilizing those prefixes independently. Thus he says (translating literally), “Bringing-forth-hither brings hither out of concealment, forth into unconcealment” (cf. below, p. 11); and – after identifying working (wirken) and her-vor-bringen – he says that working must be understood as “bringing hither – into unconcealment, forth – into presencing” (SR 161). Because of the awkwardness of the English phrase “to bring forth hither,” it has not been possible to include in the translation of her-vor-bringen the nuance of meaning that her- provides.
[10]:
The verb entbergen (to reveal) and the allied noun Entbergung (revealing) are unique to Heidegger. Because of the exigencies of translation, entbergen must usually be translated with “revealing,” and the presence of Entbergung, which is rather infrequently used, has therefore regrettably been obscured for want of an appropriate English noun as alternative that would be sufficiently active in meaning. Entbergen and Entbergung are formed from the verb bergen and the verbal prefix ent-. Bergen means to rescue, to recover, to secure, to harbor, to conceal, Ent- is used in German verbs to connote in one way or another a change from an existing situation. It can mean “forth” or “out” or can connote a change that is the negating of a former condition. Entbergen connotes an opening out from protective concealing, a harboring forth. For a presentation of Heidegger’s central tenet that it is only as protected and preserved – and that means as enclosed and secure – that anything is set free to endure, to continue as that which it is, i.e., to be, see “Building Dwelling Thinking” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 149, and cf. p. 25 below.
Entbergen and Entbergung join a family of words all formed from bergen – verbergen (to conceal), Verborgenheit (concealment), das Verborgene (the concealed), Unverborgenheit (unconcealment), das Unverborgene (the unconcealed) – of which Heidegger makes frequent use. The lack of viable English words sufficiently numerous to permit a similar use of but one fundamental stem has made it necessary to obscure, through the use of “reveal,” the close relationship among all the words just mentioned. None of the English words used – “reveal,” “conceal,” “unconceal” – evinces with any adequacy the meaning resident in bergen itself; yet the reader should be constantly aware that the full range of connotation present in bergen sounds for Heidegger within all these, its derivatives.
[11]:
Here and elsewhere “belongs within” translates the German gehört in with the accusative (literally, belongs into), an unusual usage that Heidegger often employs. The regular German construction is gehört zu (belongs to). With the use of “belongs into,” Heidegger intends to suggest a relationship involving origin.
[12]:
Heidegger here hyphenates the word Wahrheit (truth) so as to expose its stem, wahr. He points out elsewhere that words with this stem have a common derivation and underlying meaning (SR 165). Such words often show the connotations of attentive watchfulness and guarding that he there finds in their Greek cognates, horaо̄, о̄ra, e.g., wahren (to watch over and keep safe) and bewahren (to preserve). Hyphenating Wahrheit draws it overtly into this circle of meaning. It points to the fact that in truth, which is unconcealment (Unverborgenheit), a safekeeping carries itself out. Wahrheit thus offers here a very close parallel to its companion noun Entbergung (revealing; literally, harboring forth), built on bergen (to rescue, to harbor, to conceal). See n. 10, above. For a further discussion of words built around wahr, see T 42, n 9.
[13]:
Herausfordern means to challenge, to call forth or summon to action, to demand positively, to provoke. It is composed of the verb fordern (to demand, to summon, to challenge) and the adverbial prefixes her- (hither) and aus- (out). The verb might be rendered very literally as “to demand out hither.” The structural similarity between herausfordern and her-vor-bringen (to bring forth hither) is readily apparent. It serves of itself to point up the relation subsisting between the two modes of revealing of which the verbs speak – modes that, in the very distinctive ways peculiar to them, occasion a coming forth into unconcealment and presencing. See below, 29–30.
[14]:
The verb stellen (to place or set) has a wide variety of uses. It can mean to put in place, to order, to arrange, to furnish or supply, and, in a military context, to challenge or engage. Here Heidegger sees the connotations of herausfordern (to challenge, to call forth, to demand out hither) as fundamentally determinative of the meaning of stellen, and this remains true throughout his ensuing discussion. The translation of stetten with “to set upon” is intended to carry this meaning. The connotations of setting in place and of supplying that lie within the word stellen remain strongly present in Heidegger’s repeated use of the verb hereafter, however, since the “setting-upon” of which it speaks is inherently a setting in place so as to supply. Where these latter meanings come decisively to the fore, stellen has been translated with “to set” or “to set up,” or, rarely, with “to supply.”
Stellen embraces the meanings of a whole family of verbs: bestellen (to order, command; to set in order), vorstellen (to represent), sicherstellen (to secure), nachstellen (to entrap), verstellen (to block or disguise), herstellen (to produce, to set here), darstellen (to present or exhibit), and so on. In these verbs the various nuances within stellen are reinforced and made specific. All these meanings are gathered together in Heidegger’s unique use of the word that is pivotal for him, Gestell (Enframing). Cf. pp. 19 ff. See also the opening paragraph of “The Turning,” pp. 36–37.
[15]:
In these two sentences, in order to show something of the manner in which Heidegger gathers together a family of meanings, a series of stellen verbs – stellen (three times), herstellen, bestellen – have been translated with verbal expressions formed around “set.” For the usual meanings of these verbs, see n. 14.
[16]:
Bestand ordinarily denotes a store or supply as “standing by.” It carries the connotation of the verb bestehen with its dual meaning of to last and to undergo. Heidegger uses the word to characterize the manner in which everything commanded into place and ordered according to the challenging demand ruling in modern technology presences as revealed. He wishes to stress here not the permanency, but the orderability and substitutability of objects. Bestand contrasts with Gegenstand (object; that which stands over against). Objects indeed lose their character as objects when they are caught up in the “standing-reserve.” Cf. Introduction, p. xxix.
[17]:
The translation “Enframing” for Ge-stell is intended to suggest, through the use of the prefix “en-,” something of the active meaning that Heidegger here gives to the German word. While following the discussion that now ensues, in which Enframing assumes a central role, the reader should be careful not to interpret the word as though it simply meant a framework of some sort. Instead he should constantly remember that Enframing is fundamentally a calling-forth. It is a “challenging claim,” a demanding summons, that “gathers” so as to reveal. This claim enframes in that it assembles and orders. It puts into a framework or configuration everything that it summons forth, through an ordering for use that it is forever restructuring anew. Cf. Introduction, pp. xxix ff.
[18]:
Where idea is italicized it is not the English word but a transliteration of the Greek.
[19]:
“Coming to presence” here translates the gerund Wesende, a verbal form that appears, in this volume, only in this essay. With the introduction into the discussion of “coming to presence” as an alternate translation of the noun Wesen (essence), subsequent to Heidegger’s consideration of the meaning of essence below (pp. 30 ff.), occasionally the presence of das Wesende is regrettably but unavoidably obscured.
[20]:
“That which is primally early” translates die anfängliche Frühe. For a discussion of that which “is to all present and absent beings . . . the earliest and most ancient at once” – i.e., Ereignen, das Ereignis – see “The Way to Language” in On the Way to Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 127.
[21]:
For a further presentation of the meaning resident in Geschick and the related verb schicken, cf. T 38 ff., and Introduction, pp. xxviii ff.
[22]:
dessen was ist. On the peculiar significance of das was ist (that which is), see T 44 n. 12.
[23]:
“The open” here translates das Freie, cognate with Freiheit, freedom. Unfortunately the repetitive stress of the German phrasing cannot be reproduced in English, since the basic meaning of Freie – open air, open space – is scarcely heard in the English “free.”
[24]:
The verb gewähren is closely allied to the verbs währen (to endure) and wahren (to watch over, to keep safe, to preserve). Gewähren ordinarily means to be surety for, to warrant, to vouchsafe, to grant. In the discussion that follows, the verb will be translated simply with “to grant.” But the reader should keep in mind also the connotations of safeguarding and guaranteeing that are present in it as well.
[25]:
Nur a Gewährte währt. Das anfänglich aus der Frühe Währende ist das Gewährende. A literal translation of the second sentence would be, “That which endures primally from out of the early. . . .” On the meaning of “the early,” see n. 20 above.
[26]:
Here and subsequently in this essay, “coming-to-pass” translates the noun Ereignis. Elsewhere, in “The Turning,” this word, in accordance with the deeper meaning that Heidegger there finds for it, will be translated with “disclosing that brings into its own.” See T 45; see also Introduction, on xxxvi-xxxvii.
[27]:
“Safekeeping” translates the noun Wahrnis, which is unique to Heidegger. Wahrnis is closely related to the verb wahren (to watch over, to keep safe, to preserve), integrally related to Wahrheit (truth), and closely akin to währen (to endure) and gewähren (to be surety for, to grant). On the meaning of Wahrnis, see T 42, n. 9 and n. 12 above.
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