Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event): Of the Event

I. Prospect

I. ProsPect1 1. Cf. Überlegungen II, IV and V, VI. The official title: Contributions to Philosophy and the essential rubric: Of the Event The official title must by necessity now sound dull, ordinary, and empty and will make it seem that at issue here are “scholarly” “contributions ” to the “advancement” of philosophy. Philosophy can be officially announced no other way, since all essential titles have become impossible on account of the exhaustion of every basic word and the destruction of the genuine relation to words. The official title, however, is also in accord with the “matter at issue” to the extent that, in the age of transition from metaphysics to the thinking of beyng2 in its historicality, no more can be ventured than an attempt at a thinking which would arise out of a more originary basic position within the question of the truth of beyng. Yet even the successful attempt must—in conformity with the basic event of that which is to be thought inventively—keep its distance from every false claim to be a “work” in the previous style. Future thinking is a course of thought, on which the hitherto altogether concealed realm of the essential occurrence of beyng is traversed and so is first cleared and attained in its most proper character as an event. The issue is no longer to be “about” something, to present something objective, but to be appropriated over to the appropriating event. That is equivalent to an essential transformation of the human being: from “rational animal” (animal rationale) to Da-sein. The fitting rubric is therefore Of [von] the Event. That is not to be understood in the sense of a report on it [davon], about it. Instead, it means that a belonging to beyng and to the word “of” beyng, a belonging in thinking and saying, is something appropriated by [von] the event. 2. Archaic form of “being” to render das Seyn, archaic form of das Sein—Trans. 1. These “contributions” question along a way . . . These “contributions” question along a way which is first paved by the transition to the other beginning, the one Western thought is now entering . This way brings the transition into the open realm of history and founds the transition as a possibly very long sojourn. In carrying out the transition, the other beginning of thought always remains something only surmised, though indeed something already decided. Accordingly, these “contributions,” although already and exclusively a speaking of the essence of beyng, i.e., of the “appropriating event,” are not yet able to join the free conjuncture of the truth of beyng out of beyng itself. If this articulation once succeeds, then that essence of beyng, in its trembling, will determine the structure of the work of thought. This trembling will then strengthen into the power of the released mildness of an intimacy proper to that divinization of the god of gods from which occurs the assignment of Da-sein to beyng as the grounding of the truth of beyng. Nevertheless, here already the thoughtful speaking of a philosophy within the other beginning must be attempted, in the manner of a preliminary exercise. The issue is then neither to describe nor to explain, neither to promulgate nor to teach. Here the speaking is not something over and against what is to be said but is this latter itself as the essential occurrence of beyng. This speaking gathers beyng to a first resonating of its essence and yet sounds forth itself only from this essence. Spoken in the preliminary exercise is a questioning that is not the purposive act of an individual nor something delimited and calculated by a community. Prior to all that, it is the passing on of an intimation that comes from, and remains assigned to, what is most question-worthy. Detachment from every “personal” domain will succeed only out of the intimacy of the earliest belonging. No grounding is granted unless such a detachment would vouch for it. The age of the “systems” has past. The age that would elaborate the essential form of beings from out of the truth of beyng has not yet come. In the interim, in the transition to the other beginning, philosophy needs to have accomplished something essential: the projection, i.e., the grounding and opening up, of the temporal-spatial playing field of the truth of beyng. How is this unique accomplishment to be brought about? There is...