The Heidegger Change: On the Fantastic in Philosophy

9. “The Thin Partition That Separates Dasein from Itself . . .”

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It is a question of a wall, or partition, of very little thickness. Of a quasi-imperceptible separation. Of an articulation even more intimate than the one forming the joint between the existentials. Of a limit without any analytic, ontological, or existential status €  @    €$` *   partition appears only once in Being and Time, as   *    `> * tion depends on it. Take note, once more, of the hybrid, conceptually depatriated character of the places in Heidegger attesting to our metabolic reality. The witness-form tightens, trembling, upon each cut taken from its transitions. It does not, curiously, 233 234 The Heidegger Change close the exits but instead renders a crossing possible and therein promises Dasein a different fate than that of being an insect stuck crawling the walls.  * |  & $  _}    ~  $  @@ ` Š  @@ ` @ - `Š    €     Œ€ q %       ŒŠ  `> * **q analyzed in §57.2  ~   ` Š      — € Š — ~  *    >  `      since the call of moral conscience proceeds from nowhere, it being neither the work of a person nor something occurring, again, where there is an inside   — ~  *   € €   >@ ŒDasein in its uncanniness.”3 The call comes neither from “the heart” nor from “elsewhere” since “Dasein is at the same time the caller and the one summoned.”56 €   Š —  readily: Dasein Š         $ Š  in place in letting itself slip or fall toward its “power ` ˆ>@@q    >       ` -   *  ` @@  †   ‡ be the answer to the question of what evasion could be in a space devoid of all interiority and exterior-  * ** €‘ > *  more. It would only serve to verify the hypothesis   @** @X    ` > *    €  >      > >phosis and migration become impossible in Being and Time¡ € @@€ > *  Dasein, paradoxically, could not change. Z       Œ€ q   * *  *`  sudden appearing of this separation. Insisting on the simple, “metaphoric” status of this wall would not   >@ *~ €> *   call it, we can be certain that this mysterious frontier   @     and thus wrests it from the humdrum procedure and incessant repetition that sometimes seems to send Being and Time off in a direction Heidegger obviously neither chose nor envisaged, even if it constitutes the fabulous shadow of his book: a metamorphosis deprived of possibles, of ethical possibles in particular, and where error€*  Š  ` > `      €  *   Š if its unbearable, binary character is to be evaded. The meanings of both    and resolution depend, then, on the wall. This wall is not a       €    €  rize transitions from one mode of being to another€    ` >   @@  > than do equivalents to WandŒ€ qŒ q‡ and will accordingly be used from here out. Jean- &*¡ *’ *    @   once marks the “incommensurability” and possible “osmosis” of the instances it separates. Dasein, he writes, “remain[s] right at a wall, a wall whose pres- * *     *>>   `   › | with its uncanniness of being, but whose thinness *   †’ ˆ >*‡*>>* `  one with the other. By not pulling away from the wall†`>``*‡>  *   thinness, Dasein occupies its space—the space of its nil and impenetrable thickness.”6 As much watertight as porous,     ` > > ¡ less , everything does not come back to the same. The improper is not “of value for” the proper. The wall already introduces the favor  >   exchange. The adjective dünn   Œ qŒ qŒ qŒ  q$  >  Œ> q†gering‡ *   *   * >      >  `      @   their hinge or jointure, the structure, that is, of their structure—€*   Dasein would be able to resolve itself or make a choice, cross the boundaries between the existentials without some kind of exchange with itself occurring, without, that is, the weft of its history, the plastic destiny of its individual adventure, finite transformation, and * *   } *— € *      Dasein is neither formed nor displaced (by itself) in its exchanging (with) itself? I am not sketching here the broad strokes of some inner depth or psychological space where Dasein would negotiate, debate, and speculate on itself; rather, I am simply attempting to show that crossing from one mode to another is not a depthless operation but one that creates furrows and reliefs for the quite simple reason that it takes time, that it pulls taut. Dasein may not burst open, but it does tighten when it passes, its articulations bending, something...